Lies of the Heart: The Story of Laurie Kellogg (1994)

From my favorite movies..

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Blistering performances.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Jennie Garth's Lifetime movie was scandalizing me more and more with every campy, trailer-trashy minute (she's only 16, the age for statutory rape in Pennsylvania in 1981 was 14, and the Ted Bundy-looking love interest paid her step-father $500 for her!), but, as is usually the case, the naïve, teen, falling in love stuff was my favorite part (her rebellious makeover consisted solely of taking off her headband), and then it became increasingly un-fun as Jennie's 44-year-old boyfriend becomes less humorously abusive (shoving her nose in her messes, and telling her to diet so he doesn't have to trade her in for a younger model, which would make the new girl about 8), and more and more of an intolerable monster. It was only hurt by the fact that Jennie can act. It delved into an even darker place as Alexis Arquette (not in drag) confessed to a teen friend that while he was in jail he was passed around and raped every day! Then, my 8-year-old theory comes true when Ted Bundy starts molesting the young girls that Jennie baby-sits! Then, Jennie gets pregnant and doesn't want an abortion, so Ted Bundy threatens "to take a coat hanger to it"! Once Ted is murdered, Alexis takes the stand to tell about the game they played called 101 Ways to Kill Bruce Kellogg, and Jennie gets 25 years in prison. Woman-hating-judge.The only positive thing I can say for this movie is that I have never seen people go to the skating rink so much, and since skating rinks represent complete and total bliss to me, skate Jennie, skate! This was not the laughing at other people's misery and stupidity fest that I hoped it would be, and I think Cinnamon Toast Crunch is thinking the same thing, because listening to a detailed description of a husband threatening to beat his children (one of whom happened to be Haley Joel Osment) to death then fading to a commercial that declares, "This program is brought to you by Cinnamon Toast Crunch," doesn't make me crave cinnamon and sugar. My theory is CTC's company General Mills thought this was the story of a member of the Kellogg's Cereal family, and they were trying to be subversive by advertising during it. Boy, did that backfire.Musical montages: none, a sure sign that a "film" means to be taken seriously. Boooooo

I grew up in Linglestown, and knew Denver McDowell. The producers of this movie took great liberties with the filming. The houses Denver and the Kelloggs lived in look NOTHING like the ones in the movie. Also, the town is LinglesTOWN, not LinglesTON. I do not know enough about the situation to know who was telling the truth, but I do know it would've been nice if someone would have actually COME to Pennsylvania and researched the area. Add to that the fact that the actors look absolutely NOTHING like the real people, and it makes it just more over the top.The writing of the movie is simply just another Lifetime movie of the week.

Like the reviewer from Sweden, I couldn't watch more than half of this. It was just so ludicrous and bad and over the top. SPOILERSIn just the first half, we watch this Dr. Jekyll madman doing everything possible to be the worst human being in history - toward everyone:From molesting young children to pounding on his pregnant wife, from yelling about how fat his college age girlfriend is becoming to screaming she get an abortion, from yelling about dinner being ready to not talking to her as punishment when called a molester, from being unfaithful to zestfully skinning animals, from calling the police to go after others he dislikes to yelling at his wife simply because she doesn't go to bed at the same time as he - he's in a rage all the time. The character is just unbelievable. Yet despite all, we are somehow expected to believe that the protagonist (Jennie Garth), just doesn't worry about any of this - madly loves him, is thrilled to be carrying his baby and over the moon about marrying him? It's nuts. Of course we know how this will end - but the first half alone was just laughable.

Does anyone know if this is a true story then what has happened to this woman now. Where are her kids and mother and step father. What about the other kids involved? What has happened to them. My daughters watched this movie with me, I thought it would help inform them about abuse and how not to handle it.