Let’s Be: Death of a Cheerleader, A Cult Classic

I'm Tori's death face.

I'm printed on the guest towels in Candy's guest bathroom #3.

One of best TV movies ever made. It also starred Marley Shelton and Cold Case's Kathryn Morris.

[quote] I’m Tori Spelling’s acting range- A to B

You're being generous.

I remember discussing it with a friend a while back and he was still pretty disgusted about how sympathetic it seemed to Martin's character. I have to admit I felt sorry for her. It was like she was pregnant, still in high school and came from a religious family and the reality of her situation was slowly closing in on her, except she wasn't pregnant, she had murdered a girl and it was only a matter of time before the police knew. Valerie Harper was great as the mother, it was the first thing I ever saw her in.

If there were a course called Movies: So Bad They're Good - this movie would be a required part of the curriculum. Love it.

I’m Monica’s Emmy-worthy dialogue:

I hate you Stacy Lockwood You’re a bitch, Stacy Lockwood I’ll kill you, Stacy Lockwood I bet she’s still a virgin (talking about......Stacy Lockwood)

I'm Candy Spelling, changing the channel when this dreck shows up on Lifetime.

R4 Back when the IMDB's message boards were still up, the "based on a true story" movies always had comments from people claiming some connection with the case. Several said things like your friend did.

Have any of you read the Rolling Stone article the movie is based on? It's more about the town and used the murder to discuss class dynamics.

Fun fact: DL faves Tina Cole and Nicolle Wallace attended the high school where the actual events took place. (As did I, but many years before.)

I love this one. My favorite Lifetime movie ever. Tori played a good bitchy girl..

I'm Kathryn Morris. I play the goth girl in this. I would later star in another DL favorite: Cold Case.

I do too, R10. Tori is underrated. She really can deliver in certain roles.

I'm the knife the killer's older sister leaves in her car to "cut vegetables" with.

I am the color coordination going on with the Monica character. The parents drive a black BMW that matches Monica’s wardrobe, that matches her hair color, that matches hers lipstick, that matches her tampon........

-I'm the original title, A Friend to Die For. I was used when the movie originally aired on NBC. Even I think that Death of a Cheerleader is better than me.

I'm the cucumber the whackadoodle sister sliced apparently while driving!

I'm Kellie Martin telling Tori how pretty she is and how much she just wants to be like her with a straight face.

R17 The Rolling Stone article I mention above, doesn't outright say, but definitely hints that Bernadette Protti was scared that Kirsten Costas would tell people that she was a lesbo! There's a mention that she was afraid that Costas would tell people she was "that way" or something similar.

I would call her range D- to F.

Agreed, R18. I always thought that Bernadette / Angela was using "weird" as a euphemism for "lesbian". This was the early 80s after all.

R17 I watched it when it originally aired, and I thought that was funny because IRL Spelling was a joke and Martin, while not the most famous person has some mainstream success and pretty well-liked.

Did anyone else watch this when it aired? It's one of the only things I remember kids talking about the next day at school.

When you look at the real life girls, you know Tori and Kellie should've swapped roles.

Why the fuck was the sister slicing vegetables in the car? There was such a strange dynamic in that household that went beyond simply being poor, but the movie doesn't really touch on it.

There's another good movie where Tiffani Amber Theissen plays the nicer popular girl who gets murdered by her jealous best friend. Patty Duke plays Tiffani's mother and the ending has one of the best bitch slaps ever captured on film.

R23 that aside, who needs a steak knife to slice veggies? Allegedly, she would eat her lunch in the car on break. That's fair, but using a steak knife is weird

I don't know. There were a few people in the "very popular" crowd in high school, whose popularity was simply inexplicable. I imagine that's true in a lot of schools.

R23 I once fell into a rabbit hole reading about this case and so many things were odd about the family. I never understood how they afforded to live in that wealthy town or why Protti changed schools.

The movie you're thinking of is A Killer Among Friends, based on the murder of Michele Avila.

R25 I grew up in an economically depressed area. The popular kids were the kids whose parents had money.

There's almost always a "poor area" of a rich town R26

Im R25, R27, and I grew up in an area where everyone was upper middle class. Obviously there was still economic differences, but nothing dramatic. So it really wasn't a wealth thing, which makes it all the more puzzling.

Why did Protti kill her? Jealousy?

She was a dark lesbian.

R30 Protti lured Costa saying that there was a dinner for the group the belonged to (called the "Bobbies" IRL and the "larks" in the movie) but actually wanted to take her to a party with some older kids. She claims that Costa agreed to go, but wanted to smoke pot first. Then they "argued" and Costa insulted her.

Protti later said she was angry because Costa got things she wanted like cheerleader, and that Costa was frequently mean, like making fun of her old skis on a ski trip.

People in their high school always maintained that Protti, was pretty popular. I believe them because I don't think she would've been in the Bobbies otherwise.

The real case was discussed on here in the past and there was a lot of stuff mentioned that I forgot.

""One thing that was just so much like her" went back to the winter of their sophomore year when Stacey invited Kirsten to spend Ski Week with her family at Lake Tahoe. "We had four girls in our cabin", Stacey recalled. "And there was this one that we all didn't like. My Mom had invited her because she invited me to this thing of her before." The lonely girl brought a diary. "She would look at us and write something and it was totally bugging us", Stacey remembered. "So finally she goes to take a shower and puts the book down on the table. Kirsten looks at me and starts laughing, and I started laughing and we opened it and started reading. Every time she'd take a shower we'd read it, then put it back in the same place, and she never knew. We would like, repeat what she had written about us and it was SO funny."

"She was only mean to people she didn't care about," said Kirsten's friend Liesl Palmer."

In real life, Protti only served 7 years in prison. She was out at 23 and became a nurse. She is married and has a child.

Her sister became the CEO of a bank!

Apparently being part of the in-crowd was more important to Protti than anything. "I lost for cheerleader and I didn't get the club I wanted and I didn't get (on the) yearbook (staff)," Protti told officers in a taped confession played at the trial. "The things that got me mad was it hurt and I couldn't change... like looks or money or popularity or things."

The Rolling Stone article emphasized how the teenage culture of the time (the murder was committed in 1984; oh, those marvelous eighties!) placed vast importance on having money, the best clothes, the best trips, being popular, being with the "right" people, being WORTHY.

R34 Not only that she has a MSN degree and has been punished in medical journals.

I wonder what happened to the sister who sliced vegetables in the car? I'm guessing she's not the CEO.

Being awkward and self-conscious in high school can feel like a nightmare. Just a shame for everyone that Bernadette was so consumed by it. Once you're out of it, high school NEVER matters again

I'm House of Yes, a film where Tori was pretty damn good, but noooo, it's all about Death of A Cheerleader!

[quote] Once you're out of it, high school NEVER matters again

Not unless you're one of those Frau mothers who takes care of those pesky little bitches trying to steal your daughter's Homecoming Queen title.

I'm the old lady who recognizes Angela at the nursing home (?)

If we're talking about other Lifetime/ made-for-TV movies from the 90s, my personal favorite is "No One Would Tell" starring Candace Cameron-Bure and Fred Savage.

I'm the 2019 version made for Lifetime. Despite being heavily advertised, I failed to get the attention that the first film got.