Death Clique (Review)

Death Clique

Death Clique Lifetime
2014
Written by Barbara Kymlicka
Directed by Doug Campbell

Death Clique Lifetime
Friends can be murder when you join the Death Clique! A strong Lifetime exploitation flick is torpedoed by the ridiculous conclusion that panders a bit too much to the power of moms. But before we harp on that, Death Clique goes through the steps of the dissolving of a friendship due to the characters branching in different directions in life. Sara is the typical upper middle class girl whose dad is too wrapped up in work to pay much attention and whose mom Lana seems to be a typical stay at home mom who can’t imagine her daughter doing anything bad. By contrast, Jade has no mom, and her dad spends time away for weeks at a time, handing her not enough cash to get food and leaning on Sara’s family for support.

The two main girls, Sara and Jade, would never make it as friends after Sara leaves for college and Jade leaves to flunk out of community college and get knocked up by a fry cook. It’s not destiny that Jade would have a hard life, but the odds are not in her favor. So when Ashley arrives as the new girl at school, mature and as without parental supervision as Jade, it seems like a perfect match. Except Ashley has a very creepy dark side, and stupid Sara just keeps getting in the way as she tries to hold on to her friendship with Jade. Someone needs to take care of Sara, so she’ll stop ruining everything.
Death Clique Lifetime
Said taken care of does happen, thus we deal with the consequences. I wasn’t sure if they’d go through with it, because things go on for a long time before it gets bloody. But it does, and is well done, you can see why Jade would be stricken with PTSD after watching it go down. Now Lana has to figure out what happened to her daughter, and before the end of the film.
Death Clique Lifetime

Ashley Tralman (Tina Ivlev) – The first we see of Ashley is her treating her drunk mom Tina with total disrespect, and she goes downhill from there. Moves to a new school where she becomes obsessed with Jade, and also obsessed with driving off Jade’s best friend Sara. Is she an evil lesbian or just a creep who wants a sister/pet to love to replace the affection she doesn’t get from mom?
Sara Cowan (Lexi Ainsworth) – High school good girl and best friends with Jade, but becomes threatened with bad girl Ashley becomes competition for Jade’s affections. At one point Sara had run away, so her initial disappearance is believed to have been another runaway attempt and not murder.
Jade Thompson (Brittany Underwood) – Girl from a broken home with little adult supervision doing her best, but failing. Best friends with Sara, who has the perfect home life. Finds a kindred spirit (or so she thinks) with Ashley, but Ashley is far more bad girl than she can handle.
Lana Cowan (Barbara Alyn Woods) – Sara’s mom, a typical mom who loves her daughter and is unaware of all the drama going on. But when Sara disappears, she knows something is wrong and is desperate and driven to unravel all the threads.

Death Clique Lifetime
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Be popular or die with Death Clique on Lifetime! #DeathClique

Death Clique Lifetime

You just got Cliqued!


[adrotate banner=”1″]High school can be murder… I mean, I totally didn’t kill people in high school. But these girls sure do! Yes, a trio of girls in Death Clique get a bit too competitive and soon one of them is dead and the body hidden, leading a mom to search for vengeance. Also there was extra homework in Trig class. Mr. Ailesworth must be tripping if he thinks I can get all this done and have time to dig a shallow grave in the woods!

I mean, I totally wouldn’t dig a shallow grave, especially after killing someone…

Director Doug Campbell previous helmed Lifetime’s similarly-plotted The Cheating Pact, and also has directed four different movies with “at 17” in the title – Accused at 17, Betrayed at 17, Stalked at 17, and Missing at 17. That’s just weird. I sure hope it wasn’t the same 17 year old.

Shocks be to shocks that Death Clique is written by a woman, so maybe it will actually be believable! Barbara Kymlicka wrote The Cheating Pact and a bunch of other Lifetime stuff, and even a few of those 1313 films that don’t seem to have a script besides boys showering and wandering around with no shirts.

Death Clique stars Lexi Ainsworth, Barbara Alyn Woods, Brittany Underwood, Michelle Clunie, Tina Ivlev, and Bruce Thomas

Inspired by true events, a friendship rivalry between three high school girls escalates into a shocking act of violence, and soon one of them is dead. Now the dead girl’s mom is determined to find her missing child… and get justice for her daughter.

Death Clique premieres Saturday, April 12th on Lifetime! If you want to snark on Twitter with the Lifetime crew, the tags are #SaturdayNightSocial and #DeathClique

via Lifetime
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