Directed by William A. Graham
Written by Randall Sullivan and Dan Bronson
Starring:
- Kellie Martin as Angela Delvecchio
- Tori Spelling as Stacy Lockwood
- James Avery as Agent Stone
- Marley Shelton as Jamie Hall
- Kathryn Morris as Monica Whitley
Rating: 
Like a flashy prime-time soap opera that wandered off the network schedule and ended up in the cheesy PG-rated wilderness of cable TV. William A. Graham brings his seasoned TV hand to the material, giving this otherwise standard-issue true-crime yarn an extra shot of sensationalism. Kellie Martin is the awkward girl trying to claw her way into the popular crowd, where Tori Spelling reigns supreme as the school’s blonde queen bitch. She’ll endure humiliation after humiliation for a shot at that social throne. With teenage misbehavior, backstabbing, bitchy little power games, and enough cringe to send you straight back to the halls of high-school hell, Death of a Cheerleader is a glossy hunk of TV trash that goes down dangerously easy. The movie starts with a familiar collection of high-school stereotypes and turns them into a mildly childish, often entertaining jab at good ol’ American values—narcissism dressed up as success, beauty worshipped as perfection, and popularity treated like a religion. Too bad the characters barely get any room to breathe before the story starts racing toward its sanctimonious finale. What begins as a juicy little murder story suddenly morphs into a family-friendly Christian morality play, complete with guilt, redemption, and enough sermonizing to make you wonder where the hell the murder movie went. Graham’s direction is left buried beneath all that pious baggage, and the whole thing ultimately feels like a bait-and-switch.
