n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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.

This ranks among the lamentably few truly great and strong television movies that I've seen. While most of them admittedly are as severely lacking as they say, the truly special and meaningful ones do stand out, and this is one of those. It's harrowing, disturbing and bleak indeed, but also to me such a heart-wrenchingly emotional and gripping story that I always greatly enjoyed it. It's a powerful drama of one severely mentally-damaged woman's terrifying spiral into a psychopathic madness, and it's littered with tense and edgy moments and scenes that very effectively put you in *her* shoes and take you out of your comfort zone, and it really is one of the most realistic portrayals of such horrific mental illness that's ever been put into any movie as far as I'm concerned. I'm not gonna go too much in depth about it, because it is what it is, a very engrossing drama thriller that follows the sad case of Laurie Wade, a deeply disturbed and mentally unstable woman who, after marrying the man of her dreams, tries to live the happy home life and make everything be so perfect...until the cracks begin to show and bit-by-bit her mind slowly falls apart as her deep-seated troubles are dismissed by doctors and brushed aside by her well-meaning but idiotic and wilfully-blind parents until eventually even her poor husband has no choice but to remove himself from her life, and it all narrows down and comes to a head in a horrendous scene of murder with her shooting at a classroom full of innocent children. It has such a forceful and very well realised psychological aspect to it, and there's some simple, but seriously creepy imagery and moments that make it feel more like a horror movie at points. And this movie did get under my skin the first time I saw it and stuck with me afterwards. I think it fantastically captures the horrific trauma of being a victim and virtual prisoner of your own mind, and you see a lot of the story from her warped perspective and what she's experiencing, seeing paranoid illusions and enemies everywhere, wearing her down and driving her insane. And the way that it's done, you really can understand how someone would lose their goddamn mind if they were under such draining mental assaults every single day, every time they tried to do something normal or talk to another person. Valerie Bertinelli gives a raw knockout performance that I personally couldn't ever see her matching again in her career.. Not based on what I've seen! While the acting is good all-round, it's doubtlessly her that carries and elevates the film to greatness with her emotional intensity. I find her especially impressive during a scene where she's making malicious phone calls to her husband's sister, and she's so amazing as she acts it with just her eyes, like she looks cold and malevolent but there's also such pain in her eyes at the same time, like there's a part of her mind that's well aware that what she's doing is awful, but she's powerless to stop herself. Even at her most inhuman and twisted, I never stopped feeling pity for the character. It is a mystery what actually caused her to snap, but reading between the lines a little, the film does seem to strongly suggest that Laurie may have been the victim of rape at the age of "7", possibly at a park, and her parents, as they were clearly shown to do, may have acted like nothing ever happened and the unconfronted buried trauma of it eventually resurfaced and that's what caused the mental breakdown, or at least that's what I put together.. Plus, how there's several times when she draws an image on mirrors of a crying little girl, and how she scrawls out again and again in one scene words like "Suffer", "Hurt", and "Please." The actual shooting is done in such a surreal and strange way, with her going into a sort of trance and appearing as a child version of herself in her mind with an evil expression on her face, appearing to avenge herself against the children who taunted her.. And although her act was indeed terrible and unforgivable, her story was nevertheless a tragic one, with the woman choosing to end her own life in the end which I think may have been for the best with her frayed mind being what it was. Only in death could she be free of the inner demons that robbed her of her sanity and reduced her to little more than a monster... It's clever, fast-paced, nerve-paralysing at times - an effectively chilling movie-in-the-mind. Good night folks, and remember to guard the better angels inside...

First, I love the performance given by the beautiful and talented Valerie Bertinelli as the mentally unstable Laurie Wade. I watched this movie twice and yet still cannot figure out what went wrong or why she acted the way she did. The things that puzzled me the most was the fact that she seemed obsessed with the number seven. Was she obsessed because she had a hard time in the seventh grade? Was the real Laurie (who's last name was Dann) obsessed with it as well? We don't know what went on in Laurie's head but it's obvious that she had a hard time, if only she had been cured. And of course, her poor husband who was ignored despite all his worries and concerns about his wife. I mean, I would be worried. Imagine walking into your wife's bedroom and finding the words "pain" and "suffer" written in red all over the walls. Also, the continuous pictures of little Laurie on the slide and "LLL 777" written on the walls. The scene with her apartment really scared me, especially with the rotting meat and watching her opening and slamming the door over and over again. Also, seeing her watch nothing but a fuzzy haze on the television with her eyes wide open like a zombie right next to her door was very eerie. I felt like I was in this different dimension, witnessing this poor girl's life. Whatever happened to the real Laurie while she lived, no one knows. All we know is that she lived a frightening and dark life and if we ever do find out what illness caused her to do what she had done, we can understand her story. Laurie left everyone out there wandering and know, as I'm writing this review I'm thinking about what kind of life she would have led if she was cured but whatever it was, it would have been easier on her and the people around her....

This movie is an amazing true account of the rampage that Laurie Dann (her last name is different in the movie) went on during the last hours of her life. Her madness was never explained, and the reason for her actions will never be known. Surprisingly, only one child died that day, while hundreds could have if her plans had all worked out. This is an incredibly well acted movie. One of Valerie Bertinelli's best movies.