Rivales

This true story is a modern, moving masterpiece. We see the life of Laurie Show (the delightful Jennifer Finnigan) get turned into a one way street to hell when she mixes with the 'popular crowd' only to find them to be deluded and physcotic.

The acting and writing is superb and the film maintains a believable, camp appeal,0 although sometimes it borders a non-realistic horror film.

This is a kind of movie I've seen several times before. The movie starts with one of the final scenes, and you are about 95% sure what will eventually happen to Laurie. But I really enjoyed it. Mostly because of Marne Patterson as Michelle. She was *awful*. She was so bad. One of the worst female characters I have ever seen on TV. And she did it extremely well. At least *I* was convinced she was the psycho she turned out to be.

Read that someone said that *too much* was changed from the original story. Too bad. Still worth watching though, indeed...

this is a really good movie if you think of it as a fictional story and enjoy made for television movies. although only fragments of the story actually relate to the true case which i found kind of ridiculous. but it's good if your just looking for a interesting story line.

Now, there are thousands of murders a year. And very violent ones. And this was a brutal murder, but my question is. Why would the mother of Laurie Show let them do a movie about her daughter's death? And of course I'm sure that they embellished a bit with the story. But it seemed pointless to me.

The movie is good. The actors did a good job. It's just the concept of the story that bugs me.

7/10

Based on a true story, popular and volatile Michelle Lambert (Marnette Patterson) befriends shy Laurie Show (Jennifer Finnigan). One night, Michelle's boyfriend Butch Yunkin (Rel Hunt) rapes Laurie. Michelle is pregnant by Butch and starts harassing Laurie.

Marnette is good as a jealous psychopath. Jennifer Finnigan is good at playing fragile girls, but she's too mature for the part. She needs to be younger and weaker. She really needs to play up the victim role.

The other problem is the quality of the production. This is strictly movie of the week quality. The directions and the style have nothing behind it. The best thing in the movie are the two harrowing performances, but it just couldn't elevate the movie from its melodramatic roots.