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No, this is not the most unique film about bullying, alienation and violence in high schools today. But this film is acceptable when you note the hypocrisy of an American community when confronted with its demons. The prosecution admittedly pursued the death penalty in a case where it was not even applicable, to feed the PR flames and incite headlines across America.

If the underlying theme had been more developed, there was a much more important story to be conveyed here. Other than the obvious, Angela Delvecchio (Kellie Martin) as the odd girl out, desperately attempting to be popular (Unfortunately, her parents and teachers never told her this would cease to matter in 2 years anyway), with Tori Spelling as the "popular girl" for that year. They may have picked a more sympathetic victim other than Spelling.

There is a brief role for Terry O'Quinn, as the pretentious principal; babbling about Santa Maria excellence and perfection. We see his dismissal of Delvecchio (Martin) and how important his approval and praise was for her.

Andy Romano and Valerie Harper portray Angela Delvecchio's parents, and paint a realistic picture of the community's hypocrisy- everyone in America wants to succeed, have a bigger house, drive a foreign car, and this all ties in with being a popular cheerleader in Delvecchio's mind, at least.

Kellie Martin is a sympathetic character, and does quite well projecting Delvecchio's despair. Maybe they should produce a follow-up movie, to see if things have changed in that particular school. Other films have more accurately dissected teen violence: "Bully", "Elephant" and "Bang, bang, you're dead", for example. But this film still deserves credit for addressing some of the less popular notions in America today: that something is amiss, values are distorted, and kids are being affected by this.

This movie shows the extremes people will go through just to fit in! A good movie for young people to see! Movies like this hopefully will teach that bullying is wrong and unacceptable! And if you are being bullied talk to someone! Make them listen. Bullying needs to stop it's so much worse now days with cyberbullying.

"Death of a Cheerleader" is a nice mixture of some universal themes: the desire to fit in, things not always being as they seem, the way societal pressures can cause people to act irrationally, putting people down can cause you to get put down yourself, etc. Several of these themes are present in every movie about teenagers and are portrayed in the same fashion here, but the interesting idea was how the themes of societal pressures and the conscience (the two most prevalent themes) were portrayed: through how one high school girl is driven to murder another and how the community reacts first to the murder and then, six months later, to the arrest of the murderer. However, I think the problem is that these two themes were too big for the movie to cover in the depth they deserved for its length.

Obviously, the film had its good points: Kellie Martin is excellent as always, managing to handle the extreme confusion and emotion of Angela Delvecchio as she struggles with her conscience; the robotic lack of emotion of Angela trying not to get caught by the police questioning her; and the confused, irrational, pent-up rage of Angela at Stacy's threat to "tell everyone in the school that [Angela was] really weird." The other characters are generally stock, especially Stacy Lockwood, the popular girl who is a complete jerk, and Monica, the angry outcast. In fact, the only other character who really has any depth is Jamie, the friend of Angela and cronie of Stacy who has to deal with the loss of one friend, the knowledge that the girl being targeted for her death is not responsible, and the changes in the personality of one other friend and eventually has to become the voice of reason in an over-materialistic, unrealistically demanding, overly pious, angry, close-knit town. Thus, the only other performance really needing judging is that of Marley Shelton. Her performance was not up to the bar that Martin set, but it was very good and who in the world would expect two 20-year-olds of Martin's talent? (There are really only about a half dozen actors in the world of her talent, so that is totally unrealistic.)

Still, Martin, like in her film "All You Need" (a better film, including Martin herself giving one of the finest performances I have ever seen by anyone), seems to be getting cut off from what one would expect to make her character and performance deeper and more complete. Dan Bronson doesn't let the character's development flow subtly, but that's probably because he had to leave room for the post-murder societal mockery. That mockery suffers from the same lack of flow, again probably caused just by time restrictions. Had this been a feature film, not needing to take into account commercials and live by a hard rule of two hours, I think it could have been a great film (and it wouldn't need to be more than about a half hour longer than this, I should think). However, as it is, the film isn't given the space in time that it needs to breathe completely.

My only comment on the direction is that it is unnoticeable. It did not strike me as extraordinarily good or bad, though I think more close-ups of Kellie Martin are always in order . . .

And, I have to question some of the casting decisions. From looking at them, how in the world would Tori Spelling become more popular than the unbelievably beautiful Kellie Martin? Actually, how in the world would she become more popular than Kathryn Morris (who, despite the generic outsider/ugly duckling dress is quite attractive)? She has no talents that we see, she's not a nice person, she's not particularly intelligent, in fact, there is no reason why she is popular, and that distresses me. Why couldn't they at least have cast someone who wasn't about equally as attractive as Danny DeVito? I don't expect them to find someone better looking that Kellie Martin (no such creature exists), but since they're not giving the character anything else, her beauty should be the reason for her popularity, and yet they don't even give her that.

Overall, "Death of a Cheerleader" is an all-too-common "near miss." It nearly hit on as a great movie, but instead just nicks the corner of the target and ends up a slightly-better-than-average movie. It really came close, but couldn't quite make it.

Every time watch this film, I collapse in laughter at the way Hollywood works. Tori Spelling as the "popular girl"??? She only got this part because of who her dad was back then. The part of the snobby, rich "popular girl" who everybody wants to kill would later be immortalized by Rachel Adams as "Regina" in "Mean Girls". But Tori is not Rachel Adams, she's not even Lacy Chabert (who played "Gretchen" in "Mean Girls"). If Tori had been more interested in exercising her acting chops, she would have played the Kellie Martin part to great effect: the homely girl who ends up a murderer because high school is filled with "mean girls". Yes the film is about bullying, yes it's a true story - but casting Tori Spelling as the person everyone envies turns this sincere endeavor into a piece of camp.

"A Friend to Die For" was a very good TV movie. Based on a true story, it tells the story of a young girl who murders a more popular classmate.

Both the young leads did a great job in their roles. The story opens with the actual murder and then launches into the story surrounding it. So effective in her role as the bitchy Stacy is the always attractive Tori Spelling that you almost start to lose sympathy for her as a victim as the movie progresses. It's a big change for her from her role as the sweet, perky Doanna Martin on 90210. Kellie Martin, who is both beautiful and talented, does an equally awesome job as Angela; she is a little too shy, a little too poor and WAY too eager to fit in with the "right" crowd. As wrong as her actions were, you find yourself sympathizing with her. Although she handled her anger and hurt in a very wrong way, the emotions brought on by her treatment at the hands of Stacy (which was also wrong) were real and understandable. By the end of the movie I found myself feeling sad for everyone involved and thinking how different things could have and should have been. IT makes you wonder what went wrong with these two girls that Stacy had no respect for those different or less popular than herself and that Angela felt so badly about herself that she needed Stacy's friendship and approval to feel worthwhile.

A little research will provide you with some interesting information on the actual case. I found it very telling that a friend of the "real" Stacy (Kirsten Costas) dismissed any suggestions that Kristen and her crowd were mean-spirited bullies with the comment "She was only mean to people she didn't care about." How sad that young people today have the attitude that it is OK to mistreat people you don't like. While Kirsten didn't deserve to die and the hands of Bernadette Protti (the "real" Angela), her superior "I am better than you and therefore I shall make you an object of my amusement" attitude is far too prevalent today.

I will not compare the film with the actual events, there is little information on the life of these young girls, I only manage to find information about the case not about how Kirsten Costas and Bernadette Proti lived their lives so I will focus on what the movie is trying to say as a standalone project.

Tori Spelling stars as Stacey Lockwood, the "It" girl of Santa Mira high school. Stacey has everything: looks, personality, wealthy parents, and a pack of snooty, sycophantic friends at school. Kellie Martin is Angela, who just transferred To Santa Mira from a nearby Catholic school and longs to be part of Stacey's clique. However, although she is certainly intelligent and studious, Angela is awkward in all her attempts to befriend Stacey, who enjoys making scathing remarks about Angela's thrift shop wardrobe and rusted-out Pinto. One night while hanging out with Stacey, Angie makes an embarrassing plea for friendship. Stacey cuts her down viciously with the ultimate high school threat: "I'm going to tell everyone at school that you're weird!"Angie whips out a knife in a panic and stabs Stacey to death.

The focus of the film is Angela sweet, gentle, caring but awkward like 98% of most teens , just looking to fit in, she wants to makes changes in her life , be the best she can be, raised in a strict catholic family Angela is grounded, her family is not wealthy but they manage to provide enough for the family, her issue is that she tries very hard to get accepted by the girls she wants so desperately to be a part of, one can see the obsession in her eyes as she dose everything she can to get what she wants and failed (cheerleader squad and writers club) hitting her self-esteem and making her try harder to get Stacey's respect and friendship.

Stacy is not a nice person by all means she is basically Angela's opposite, she could not see anything but her own shallowness, she was killed by the wrath of Angela she in turn was the spark that started it, if she had it coming that's anyone's own interpretation, if she did not deserve it is more like it, after her death the story focuses in Angela's guilt and how she lived her days knowing what she did until she turned herself in she turned herself in, Angela is not a bad person yes she did commit a crime but she wasn't satisfied with her actions you could tell she would to anything to turn back time, her remorse is too big to hide it anymore and she dose what she feels it right. The acting in the movie is superb Kellie Martin commits to herself in this character making it one of her best performances, Tori Spelling surprisingly dose a great performance in this movie( most of her acting in any movie is just awful) as the shallow socialite Stacy, Margaret Langrick, Marley Shelton, Kathryn Morris do a great job as supporting characters there also Terry O'Quinn who had an interesting character as the school principal but was a bit pointless the story, you can say this movie is made a a consequence of bulling or peer pressure, i see it as a warning to what a person will become with the wrong circumstances. This was made in 1994 but its massage is fresh in now a days, it's a good movie to show your teenage kid its better than most that are made today

The movie A Friend to Die For, is an excellent movie for teens. I have used it in youth groups in our church (I am a minister) as well as to my Senior English students who really enjoyed the movie. Excellent discussions on popylarity and the price of it, meanness among peers, peer pressure, beauty is only skin deep, high schools for the elite and many more assignments that were first rate in responses.

Kellie Martin did a masterful job playing the role of an awkward teenage girl desperately yearning for acceptance from the "In" crowd in high school. Two scenes that totally sold me on how convincing the role of Angela was played was when Angela was being dropped off for the ski trip and, in front of the other kids, Angela's mother goes to clean Angela's face with a handkerchief. Embarrassed, Angela moves her mother's arm and storms off to collect her bag. As Angela lifts her bag, she looks back to her mother and gives her a classic "Why did you do that, mom?" look that I think only Kellie Martin can make convincing. Finally, after being initiated by the Larks, Angela and the other girls go off driving looking for guys to kiss. Angela gets snubbed as she attempts to kiss an elder gentlemen sitting in his car. Reflecting on her public humiliation, Angela has a heart to heart talk with her sister about her wanting to be someone else. Kellie Martin played the role masterfully!

I had to cheer when this arrogant smart ass took a shiv to the guts. Too bad the girl didn't go on and whack the little bitch's butt licking pals while she was at it. This film seemed to be a slice of real high school life as popular kids skated around in their cliques looking down on the poor unfortunates. How typical of the average unthinking, gotta fit in at any cost people to blame a person for a crime just because they are different, a unforgivable sin to the average braindead teen. Good picture with well played out parts by all, especially Kellie Martin as the tormented nobody with aspirations of being popular. Little did she know that her life was better the way it was. Thumbs up.

It's worth watching but would benefit from better character development and explanation of what the killer was thinking.

Anything Kellie Martin is in is simply gold, and this tv movie is no exception in her nice collection. She is such a fabulous young 1990's actress who seems to remind me of Jodie Foster -- great acting talent and screen presence, but she just doesn't act enough anymore! And believe it or not, Tori Spelling is also a great little actress, and not just famous daddy's girl and/or another tv movie queen. Anyway, this is a quality movie and a perfect example of great acting by the best young actresses the 90's have generated. (oh yeh, it can also be classified as "Lifetime Channel Friendly" hehe)

Not a very good TV movie.

You can see the twist miles away, the movie makes it clear in the very beginning, after that you can tell it´s mostly a flashback scenes type of film.

It has decent acting overall, stellar Tori Spelling, but the lead lacks the conviction to portray the actions of her character.

LIke I said before: not a very good movie. Keeps you watching but in the end you'll forgot about this in less than an hour. Worth watching if you have nothing to do.

"A Friend to Die For" is without a doubt one of the best TV movies I have EVER seen. Everything about it is good with the exception of Tori Spelling's performance. The best thing about this film is that it shows how far someone can go just to be accepted.

Not exactly the most unique idea ever thought of but it is played out beautifully. Dating back six years +, which wasn't a significant amount of time or anything, it still shows just how cruel and vicious school girls can be to one another. I don't think that I have seen a movie that tells it like it is ever since I saw "A Friend to Die For." After all, look at the high rate and percentage of teenage killings. It has died down a little but still very high none the less. This movie is proof that you can take a topic so simple and turn it into a riveting film that DOES teach a lesson.

The characters sketched out are wonderful. Here you have a typical teenage girl with a typical teenage problem. She's quiet and for the most part everything seems to be normal about her. Looks can be deceiving. Although she doesn't seem like the rowdy kind of person, she is literally dying to be accepted by the girls she watches and admires everyday at her own high school. A glimpse at her family and lifestyle shows us that she is just as ordinary as you and me. Jamie, her distant friend is simple. We understand that there is somebody just like Angela. As well as Jill. The stereotypical picture of the in-crowd is drawn very well. We know them. There's one of them in every school and in one way or another most people would like to be part of that crowd. Kellie Martin is extraordinary. (When isn't she?) Her portrayal of an evolving disturbed teen is shown as good as if it were from an actual young 'challenged' teen. Her performance lets the audience, or at least me, feel sorry for her. The second main character is none other than the awful actress herself, Tori Spelling. Stacy Lockwood, played by Spelling, is the super popular, stuck-up rich girl who has everything. (Except for the continuance of her life.) Lockwood's rude and crude personality drives her classmate to the limit. The different remarks made towards Stacy's somewhat of a rival, are terrible. Good, because it made me just want to haul off and smack that b**** across the face. Sorry for the vulgar language. Anyway, Martin, Marley Shelton, Valerie Harper, and everyone else does a terrific job. However, Spelling continues to disappoint me with her lack of talent and ability to capture the picture of a real actress. Bravo everyone!

The movie plays on and the viewers realize that Delvecchio will be put in her place for her actions. The ending vanishes kind of quick but quick enough to where it doesn't add unnecessary information about the characters and situation. By far, one of the best concepts and plots that could be brought to television. This film is a must see for anyone who may be suffering like Angela. Or maybe is the kind of person who acts and thinks like Stacy. Which ever character you may relate with, remember this: don't ever think that you're better than anyone else because you never know what your taste of medicine will be like.

Okay, so this is a television movie. It's never going to reach the heights of greatness, purely for that reason. But still, DEATH OF A CHEERLEADER turns out to be an engaging, true-life story about how classroom bullying and peer group pressure led to tragedy for one high school girl back in the 1980s.

For the most part, DEATH OF A CHEERLEADER takes a focused and realistic approach to the material, presenting an unbiased account of a murder, the circumstances leading up to it, and the eventual unravelling of the crime. The story is subdued and non-exploitative throughout, with a mature script giving insight into the minds of the characters.

Kellie Martin, who plays the conflicted Angela Delvecchio, gives a remarkably complex performance in the leading role, a sweet girl who gets out of her depth when everything gets a bit much for her. Martin gives a sympathetic performance that really grounds the rest of the movie. I'm no fan of Tori Spelling, who plays against her as the bitchy cheerleader of the title, but thankfully she doesn't have too much screen time. Watch out for THE STEPFATHER's Terry O'Quinn in a small role as the oily headteacher!

I've been there, where Angela was. But I never wanted to kill any of my school antagonists. Sure, I resented their antagonism. I never understood the need for it; or what they hoped to accomplish. I meet the same kind of people now. I conclude they aren't worth knowing, nor caring about. As a film, it was effective enough. I liked how outside the courtroom, there was an Angela clone, arguing with a Stacy clone. It's almost like a race thing; even though they're the same race. They're different types of people. They'll always hate each other, I guess. I suppose at the end of the day, if we've succeeded in not killing each other, then we've succeeded.