A Killer Among Friends

Another made-for-TV movie inspired by true events, this movie is rerun on lifetime quite often. It's scary to contemplate a person treating another human being like the girls in this film. This movie is better than most "women in jeopardy, inspired by the story of" television flicks of the late 80s/early 90s. Patty Duke is excellent as bereaved mother and Loretta Swit (Hot Lips from M*A*S*H) lends solid support as the investigating detective who tries to keep Duke's character from jeopardizing the case. A very sad disturbing film.

This is one of the few times a true story is nearly made unbelievable by the idiotic cast of characters. Fortunately, the presence of Patty Duke holds it together somewhat, although for most of the movie, she's as bad as everyone else. It seems that everyone in the world is completely blind to the fact that the real killer is the loon that they've decided is their friend... they miss things like "Jenny told her in a dream," and "You need to go kill him, he did it. And bring me a finger to prove he's dead." Of course, she's not going to just join the lynch mob/family... she's apparently going to wait at home. If you want to know the story, which is tragic, but interesting, read the book... don't waste your time on this movie unless you've nothing else to do and you're snowed in.

Jenny Monroe gets murdered by her best friends Ellen Holloway and Carla Lewis. Kathy Pearl was the only one who knew it was them who killed Jenny. Ellen told her to keep her mouth shut. She grabbed a knife and left a cut on Kathy's face. The one day down in the woods Ellen and Carla faked a fight. Thats when it all went wrong. When Jenny tried to stop it, Ellen and Carla said "we don't hate each other, it's you we hate". They started pummeling on Jenny. They said "let's take a walk". The trail leaded to a creek. Thats where it all began. Carla pushed Jenny. Ellen cut Jenny's long brown hair. They both started Tring to kill Jenny. Then Carla tried to grab a log to drown Jenny but it was too heavy. Ellen Tried to help Carla lift the log. Once they got it they put it over Jenny and then she died.

you can get past Loretta Swit trying to act as an intelligent police detective, with a brunette wig.

Tiffani Amber-Thiessen is the victim and Patty Duke is her over-protective mother. This film is similar to "Bully" in that it shows the inhuman treatment some students project one each other, sometimes for no reason at all, other than jealousy. This film was loosely based on a true story.

The problem with some TV movies like this is they use someone with a too high TV Q/persona (Swit) and it takes away from the substance of the story. 5/10

This is certainly one of the best made for TV crime films I've watched recently.

The storytelling is great and the acting is fantastic especially, from the main leads Patty Duke and Margaret Welsh.

Both ladies did an excellent job portraying their characters. Patty made you feel the hurt, pain and anger that Irene Avila must have gone through when she lost her daughter as her character Joan in the movie. Equally, Margaret did a brilliant job at portraying the envious, manipulative and ultimately murderous Karen Severson as the character Ellen.

I'd definitely recommend watching this film especially, if you like crime films based of true cases.