Feisty waitress attracts a handsome businessman, who is swept away by her good nature and marries her; however, soon after the ceremony, the young woman begins exhibiting hyper-emotional, schizophrenic behavior that seems to be rooted in her childhood. Valerie Bertinelli stars in this TV-made fictionalization of events in the life of Laurie Dann (called Laurie Wade here), who eventually bought a gun and went into a grade school in 1988, with tragic consequences. It's too bad Hollywood producers see horrific headlines and immediately think big ratings, or that popular television actresses such as Bertinelli see in a disturbing project like this an opportunity to show off their range--much more responsibility should be shown to the actual persons depicted and to the audience. The crummy feeling one gets from this movie comes directly from the handling (with its opening shots of officers surrounding a home and loading their guns framing the narrative in that age-old TV device The Flashback). Strictly a fill-in-the-blanks job, offering nothing but a build-up to the moment Laurie finally snapped.

Its typical of Society today-that all these "experts" know everything and yet no nothing. Here was something acted out in front of them and yet no one had a clue. As the woman Laurie killed herself in the end as the SWAT team moved in it was too late to do anything only eventually make a movie. And the movie is where those involved know exactly what made her go nuts because she fit the MO. Whatever occurred in her past before meeting the guy at the restaurant where she worked had it seems been hushed up. Which at least shows you need to know about your future partner before commitment! The husband was out of it long ago when he realised just how crazy she was-in fact he told the police he was scared of her even before she attacked him with an ice pick! Probably the reason for divorce was "irretrievable breakdown of marriage"-he tried to make it work but she screwed it up with increasingly odd behaviour like filling the fridge up with shoes! For some reason she told the police he'd raped her but this was probably a fabrication. There were no children and that was probably a small mercy. Amazingly only one child died after her rampage at the school-which seems to be a frequent occurrence in America

Valerie Bertinelli does a fantastic acting job in this movie. She is extremely convincing and scary as Laurie Wade !! The movie is very sad of course, because of it being based on the true story of Laurie Wade and her journey to mental illness. I saw this film quite awhile ago on television and although sad, enjoyed Valerie's acting and the movie itself. I've been looking for this film for awhile now and so far, have only seen it available on Ebay, to Great Britain. Hoping to find it on Region one DVD. I would highly recommend it for not only Valerie Bertinelli fans but anyone who is into true crime or can handle the topics that this film deals with. This film is definitely NOT for children so parents please be warned.

I was about eight or nine years old when the real Laurie Dann went on her shooting rampage, about the same age as the children she murdered. The scary thing is, even after seeing this eerie film, I still don't know what it was that caused her to do the horrible things she did. Still the film is an excellent study of what happens when mental illness goes untreated.