Death of a Cheerleader: TV Movie (True Stories Collection)
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DVD details
Actor: Kellie Martin, Tori Spelling, Valerie HarperDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-01-24
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Direct Source Label
DVD Reviews of Death of a Cheerleader: TV Movie (True Stories Collection)
DVD Review: Blaming the victim
Summary: 2 Stars
Stacy Lockwood, a cheerleader and the most popular girl at Santa Mira High School, is dead. She dies in hospital after a knife attack by another girl who fled in a car.
That's how "Death of a Cheerleader" (also known as "A Friend to die for") begins. Then there is a flashback, and we see Stacy and her friends 10 months earlier at the beginning of a new academic year at Santa Mira High School. "It is excellence", the high school principal tells the new students, "second-best is simply not good enough."
Stacy, the spoilt daughter of rich parents, is one of those who manage "to be the best". She is queen bee and openly nasty to anyone she does not like, especially to Monica, a highly unpopular girl who wears black and has her hair dyed.
Another girl who doesn't fit is Angela Delvecchio. Angela is pretty, nice and smart, but she comes from a rather poor family, cannot afford expensive stuff. Angela is nice, shy and insecure and desperately wants to belong. Her idol is "Queen Bee" Stacy Lockwood, the daughter of rich parents, a good athlete, cheerleader and the most popular girl at school. Angela is desperate to fit in and determined to be the best - she wants to become a cheerleader, to be on yearbook staff and so on. When she fails, "her whole world falls apart" (that is how a friend of the real Angela describes the girl's feelings in one of the articles about the "cheerleader murder"). Angela adores Stacy and wants to be her friend. When Stacy rejects her and Angela is afraid to be humiliated in front of the whole school by the nasty girl, the good girl turns bad... When Angela is rebuffed by Stacy, she explodes in a rage and stabs Stacy to death.
It is not a bad film - Kellie Martin is marvellous as "Angela Delvecchio".
The acting is great and the message is important - it is a film against bullying and peer group pressure.
And yet I cannot like this film. I think it is far too one-sided - Angela is portrayed very well as a nice girl whose desperation drives her over the edge, but what about Stacy? Her role is flat and one-dimensional, she is portrayed as a bully without any redeeming qualities. This film would be great if the crew only had bothered to portray BOTH SIDES. But they didn't, and that's my problem - the film is one-sided, biased, unfair and manipulative.
Don't forget that we only know the killer's side of story, the victim is not alive to defend herself. Her portrayal in this film is very unfair indeed. Whatever she did, she did not deserve to die. Whatever provocation the killer had does not excuse what she did. A 15-year-old who has been murdered deserves sympathy.
The film was based on an article about the cheerleader murder, written by Randall Sullivan. Sullivan frankly admits that he identified with the killer and does not express any sympathy at all for the victim.
It is obvious that the author believed every word the killer said, but the victim's parents didn't. Neither do I. The killer lured the victim out of the house with a cover story, did not say her name and had a knife with her - this sounds very much like planned murder. The victim's parents said that no one would use a foot-and-a-half-long knife to cut tomatoes (the killer claimed that she found the knife only by chance; her older sister testified in court that she used it for slicing vegetables at lunch-time and might have left it in the car)and that Bernadette (the real Angela's name), casually dressed, never intended to take Kirsten (the real Stacy's name) to a party.
If you are interested in the real Angela and the real Stacy, you can find plenty of information via google. In fact, I was rather shocked to see how much you can find out about people who probably want to be left alone. I found the addresses of the killer's parents, the victim's parents, the victim's neighbour's, I found the victim's mother in a pedigree and now I know her maiden name and that she is the daughter of an immigrant from Norway...
Kirsten's and Bernadette's classmates finished high school in 1986 and celebrated their reunion in 2006 (there is a reunion homepage, the school's name is Miramonte). I am sure that many of their former classmates missed Kirsten. She is not forgotten as you can see on the page "Find a grave" where many people left flowers for her...
People leave notes like "I miss you" and "To this day, I can't get into a pool without thinking of you". It seems like Kirsten's friend still miss her, she cannot have been such an evil witch.
Kirsten Costas was only 15. Maybe she was a stupid bitch, but even if she had been the worst brat on earth - she didn't deserve to die. And she was entitled to dislike Bernadette and did not have any obligation to be her friend! Whatever she was like, she paid with her life and that price was far too high.
I was a "Bernadette" myself at school, I was green with jealousy, too, and detested all the "Kirstens" I knew! But I NEVER harmed anyone. I didn't because I'm sane and normal. The film and Randall Sullivan's article ignore the fact that Bernadette Protti was sick. Normal girls do not kill classmates and it was not an act of self-defense. I think the high school principal was perfectly right when he said the killer was "a sick kid with serious problems".
I found many comments that made me see red - I am horrified to see how readily people justify murder. Bloggers who do not even bother to spell the victim's name correctly - it was K-I-R-S-T-E-N, not Kristen or Krista - write things like "The victim is as guilty as the killer" and similar rubbish, and one even blames the victim's (!) parents and says they should have taught their daughter to treat others with kindness and respect! How do we know what Kirsten's parents taught their daughter? Maybe Bernadette's parents should have taught their daughter more self-esteem...
Bernadette had no right to kill Kirsten. And competitive world or not - society did not force Bernadette to kill her classmate. It was Bernadette's decision. She could have left Kirsten alone in the first place. She could have accepted the rejection. She could have left the knife at home. She could have slapped Kirsten instead of stabbing her. She could have called an ambulance after she stabbed her. She could have confessed MUCH earlier.
In the film, the killer is described as a "confused and desperate child". But the victim was a child as well - and I guess she was "confused and desperate", too, when she felt the knife penetrating her lungs and liver and when she was bleeding to death! I totally agree with the FBI man who (in the film) says "Feel sorry for the girl she killed!"
Bernadette turned herself in - but she only did so after the FBI had figured out that she was the killer. Before her confession, she deceived everyone for six months - and allowed the blame to rest on others.
The worst scene in the film is the one showing the Delvecchio family having a celebration shortly before Christmas. They thoroughly enjoy themselves - with the exception of Angela, of course, who knows that the FBI figured out that she did it. Why doesn't the film show the Lockwoods' first Christmas without their daughter? I'm sure it was horrible - they must have missed her terribly... The film does not quote Berit Costas' words she said in court, so I will quote them: "My heart is empty. I ache. I'm half a person." Kirsten's parents were shattered with grief and they probably still are...
But the most moving comment I found was made by the Costas' neighbour's son who saw Kirsten die: "I was there that night. I saw Kirsten's blood squirting all over my father as she struggled to breathe. She knew she was dying and the horror on her face as she bled out before us was something none of us will ever forget."
Rest in peace, Kirsten. I'm on your side.
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