Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story

This was a tv movie for ABC and while it is far inferior to the rival adaptation HBO made with Holly Hunter and Swoozie Kurtz, it is a 'guilty pleasure' film with excellent lead performances.

Lesley Ann Warren and Tess Harper play suburban Texas mothers whose over- involvement in their daughters' cheerleading auditions leads to havoc. Lesley Ann Warren is fascinatingly eerie as a struggling mother living vicariously through her not-as-talented daughter. Watching her go from manic and nervous to seductive and enraged is a lot of fun and she's good. Tess Harper plays the Perfect Texan Cheerleading Mom to a 't' . Her naive perfectionism and indignant shock at what develops over cheerleading -tryouts- gone -wrong is also a lot of fun. The actresses miscast as the daughters are one-note and uninteresting but one suspects that this was done to highlight the lead actresses work.