Oh Hell Yeah! Now, seriously, this is the perfect Lifetime movie!
Welcome to Lifetime High School! It’s a school where students plot to win awards, the mean girls are at war with the one nice girl, the cheereleaders determine who is popular and who is a pariah, and where social media is both a great equalizer and a deadly weapon. It’s just like any other high school, except it’s a Lifetime high school. That means that everything is juts a little bit more extreme than usual. Whereas regular high school cheerleaders might inspire someone to develop an eating disorder, Lifetime cheerleaders plant drugs on their rivals and arrange for season-ending injuries. And, if that doesn’t work, there’s always murder….
Poor Casey (Madison McLaughlin)! She used to be popular. She used to be a cheerleader. She used to be the one making other people insecure and giving them eating disorders. But, things happens. Things change. Her father was killed in a housefire and now, Casey wears a wig to cover up her own scars. Casey’s mother (Heather McComb) now works as a waitress and is dating a loser named Harlen (Brendan McCarthy). Casey’s former best friend, Hailey (Ava Allan), is now her greatest enemy, which means that Hailey not only delights in stealing Casey’s wig but she also plots to make each and every one of Casey’s humiliations go viral.
(You can tell this is a Lifetime High School film because, whenever anyone looks at their phone, they immediately exclaim, “You’re going viral!”)
However, Reagan (Bayley Corman) wants to help Casey out. Reagan’s a cheerleader but, because she went through a lengthy “ugly duckling” phase, she still feels a lot of compassion for the downtrodden. Reagan befriends Casey. Regan encourages Casey to tell the entire school about the fire and to reveal that scars underneath her wig. Reagan defends Casey against the abuse of Hailey and she tells Casey that she shouldn’t be ashamed of her mother’s waitressing job. She even encourages Casey to believe that she might win the year-end award for “Most Inspiring” student!
Of course, Hailey and her friend, Clair (Ashlee Fuss), keep telling Reagan that Casey isn’t the perfect, shy person that she pretends to be. They say that Casey shouldn’t be trusted. Reagan refuses to believe them. After all, Clair’s just mad because she broken her ankle in a mysterious accident. And Hailey’s been upset ever since the cops discovered the stash of pills in her backpack. (Of course, Hailey swears that the pills don’t belong to her, which sounds like something a pill-popping cheerleader would say….) Reagan has no reason to believe Hailey and Clair but …. what if they’re right!?
Most Likely To Murder is a lot of fun, precisely because, for the majority of the movie, only the viewers are aware that Casey’s not as innocent as she pretends to be and there’s something undeniably enjoyable about watching her yank the wool down over everyone’s eyes. She may be a menace but she’s a clever menace and that makes her a lot of fun to watch. Madison McLaughlin does a great job in the role, making Casey not just dangerous but also sympathetic as well. I mean, as bad as Casey turns out to be, her tormentors aren’t much better. In the end, everyone’s kind of evil except for Reagan and her snarky friend, Taylor (Kara Royster). Needless to say, I’m a fan of any film where the snarky best friend is one of the heroes.
Most Likely To Murder provides exactly what you want from a Lifetime film — melodrama, murder, and high school backstabbing. It’s a lot of fun and one to keep an eye out for.
Through the Shattered Lens 