Thomas Calabro | Through the Shattered Lens

1995’s Stolen Innocence opens with 18 year-old Stacy Sapp (Tracey Gold) trying to sneak back into her house after a long night of drinking and partying. Unfortunately for her, Stacey isn’t very good at sneaking around and she’s caught by her mother (Bess Armstrong) and her father (Nick Searcy).

“I’m 18!” Stacy argues.

“You’re going to end up pregnant!” her mother yells.

Stacy says that that her mother is just scared that she’s going to end up a loser “like you!” Well …. yeah, Stacy, that’s kind of the point. If your mother has experience with the life decisions necessary to become a loser, maybe you should listen to her warnings.

Anyway, Stacy runs away with a friend of her’s. After her friend decides to go back home, Stacy hitches a ride with a trucker. When the trucker stops off at a truck stop so he can get his brakes looked at, Stacy meets Richard Brown (Thomas Calabro, wearing a really bad wig). Richard is long-haired and has got a tough guy beard and a cheesy tattoo of a heart on his scrawny forearm. Stacy, of course, is totally smitten and she goes off with Richard and his “friend,” Eddie (Matt Letscher).

It doesn’t take long for us to figure out what Richard is bad news. He carries a gun. He’s financing his trip through stolen checks. He might not even own the truck that he’s driving. He and Eddie have a bizarre relationship in which Richard continually abuses Eddie but Eddie refuses to leave. Richard is obviously a bad guy and we can all see it. When Stacy finally calls her parents from the road, they immediately figure out that Stacy is in trouble. However, it takes Stacy forever to figure it out because Stacy’s kind of an idiot.

I cringed a lot while watching Stolen Innocence, not so much because of the film’s depiction of Richard’s criminal lifestyle but because I used to have a definite weakness for bad boys and I could kind of understand what was going through Stacy’s mind when she first met Richard. That said, I’m pretty sure that I would have figured things out a lot quicker than Stacy did. Stacy quickly goes from being a somewhat sympathetic rebellious teenager to being someone who you really start to get annoyed with. Oh, he’s threatening you with a gun? Okay, that’s when you leave! That’s when you start plotting your escape. You don’t make excuses for him. He’s financing his trip with stolen checks? I’m sorry, is that not a red flag? Add to that, as played by a miscast Thomas Calabro, it’s not like Richard is some boiling cauldron of charisma. From the first minute we see him, with his long hair and his cowboy hat and his tattoo, the guy seems like a joke.

Eventually, Stacy does figure out the truth but, by that point, Richard and her are holed up in a motel room and Richard is exchanging gunfire with the FBI. The film ends with a title card, reminding us that this was a true story. “He’s not a bad person!” Stacy wails to the police. I guess some people really are that stupid.

It’s not easy being a stepmother.

That’s one of the many things that I’ve learned from watching Lifetime movie. If you’re a stepmother, all of the neighbors are going to assume that you only got married for the money. If you have a stepson, he’s going to end up triggering bad memories that are going to lead to you trying to seduce and then kill him. If you have a stepdaughter, she’s going to resent you and you’re going to have to decide whether to win her trust by saving her from a stalker or to try to kill her off so that you alone stand to inherit all of your husband’s money after you poison him. Decisions, decisions!

The stepmom in Killer Cheer Mom is Amanda (Denise Richards). Amanda has just married James (Thomas Calabro) and she really wants to bond with her new stepdaughter, Riley (Courtney Fulk). Unfortunately, Riley doesn’t want to bond with her new stepmother. In fact, Riley kind of wishes that Amanda would just go away. Riley is far more concerned with making the cheerleading squad.

Whereas Riley sees a problem, Amanda sees an opportunity! Amanda can bond with Riley by helping her out with her cheerleading. And what better way to help than to injure and plot against Riley’s competition!? Soon, the local high school is the most dangerous place on Earth and it’s all because Riley refused to appreciate her stepmom.

It’s a bit unfortunate that Killer Cheer Mom was not produced as a part of Lifetime’s Wrong franchise, just because I would have liked to have heard Vivica A. Fox say something like, “Looks your father married the wrong cheer mom.” That said, even if Killer Cheer Mom doesn’t quite reach the wonderfully and intentionally absurd heights of the Wrong films, it’s still an enjoyably self-aware movie. After years of movies about cheerleaders being harassed by the crazed mothers of their friends, Killer Cheer Mom offers up a stepmother who is even more dangerous because she’s actually trying to be helpful. As the film plays out, Amanda’s schemes grow more and more extreme. More than just being a standard Lifetime villain, she’s instead a force of pure chaos. One gets the feeling that, if she didn’t have a stepdaughter, she would find another excuse to cause trouble. It’s what makes her happy.

A film like this is only as good as its villain and, fortunately, Amanda is played by Denise Richards. Richards gives a compelling performance, embracing the melodrama but, at the same time, never condescending to the material. Instead, she plays Amanda as being someone who never stops performing. When she’s in public, she pretends to be a loving wife. When she’s with her stepdaughter, she pretends to be a teenager again. When she’s alone and plotting against her daughter’s competition, she appears to be performing solely for her own amusement. What makes Amanda memorable is not just what she does but also the fact that she seems to get so much enjoyment out of doing it. It’s obvious that both Richards and Amanda are having a ball being bad.

Killer Cheer Mom is an enjoyable Lifetime cheerleader movie. Watch it and ask yourself how far you would go to make your stepdaughter happy. If you wouldn’t be willing to frame the competition by stashing drugs in their backpack, ask yourself why not. It’s all about family.