The Karen Read Story” comes to Lifetime

Doesn’t matter. The only thing we know for sure about the Read case is that people can’t get enough of it. There’s still cult-like interest in the circumstances surrounding the January 2022 death of John O’Keefe, the Boston police officer who was Read’s boyfriend. (Spoiler: A jury found Read not guilty of killing O’Keefe, whose body was discovered in a snowbank.)

Because Hollywood lacks imagination, there are several TV and movie projects in the works in addition to “Accused.” Read and her LA-based attorney, Alan Jackson, are developing one; actress (and Pittsfield native) Elizabeth Banks is attached to another, signing on to play Read in a Prime Video streaming series; Netflix is putting together a docuseries about the case; and Investigation Discovery has already released “A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read,” which dropped before Read’s acquittal.

In the Lifetime movie, actress Katie Cassidy plays Read, while Canadian actor Luke Humphrey is O’Keefe. Cassidy, who bears a slight resemblance to her character, may be familiar to horror fans from her roles in “When a Stranger Calls,” “Black Christmas,” and the 2010 “A Nightmare on Elm Street” remake. In “Accused,” her talents as a scream queen come in handy in a frantic scene where Read discovers O’Keefe’s frozen body outside the home of fellow Boston cop Brian Albert. (In case you’re interested, Cassidy’s father was “The Partridge Family” heartthrob David Cassidy, and the actress once recorded a cover of the Partridge Family hit, “I Think I Love You.”)

Humphrey’s film credits are fewer, but include a turn as John Wayne Bobbitt in Lifetime’s “I Was Lorena Bobbitt.” (John Wayne Bobbitt was famously, er, attacked by his wife, but survived. Look it up.)

“Accused” isn’t an entirely flattering portrait of Read — she comes across as excessively concerned about her appearance, even using a curling iron and applying makeup before being led out of her house in handcuffs — but she’s certainly a sympathetic figure. “There are so many women that identify with you because they know what it is like to be objectified, dehumanized, victimized,” her father tells her at one point. “With you, they see strength and the courage to fight back.”

Less likable by far is Michael Proctor, the former Massachusetts State Trooper who was fired for sending crude and misogynistic texts about Read while investigating O’Keefe’s death. When Proctor, played in the movie by South African actor Josh Blacker, reads his offensive texts on the witness stand, he seems like a cartoon villain and yet, unbelievably, those were his actual words. Aidan Kearney, the podcaster better known as Turtleboy, also shows up in “Accused,” though he’s portrayed as a benign cheerleader rather than the principle agitator who galvanized public support for Read.

“Accused” is the latest installment of Lifetime’s “Ripped from the Headlines” series, a slate of movies about infamous rogues, including the Menendez brothers, Jodi Arias, Amanda Knox, Vicky White, Oscar Pistorius, and so on. Does Karen Read belong in this company? Maybe. Will anyone watch this mediocre TV movie? Definitely.

Mark Shanahan can be reached at mark.shanahan@globe.com. Follow him @MarkAShanahan.