Written by Dan Bronson,[1] the film is inspired by the real-life murder of Kirsten Costas, who was killed by her classmate, Bernadette Protti, in 1984.

[citation needed] In the fictional town of Santa Mira, California, a man witnesses Stacy Lockwood, whom he gave a ride home, being stabbed by an unseen girl who quickly flees.

She suffers further disappointment when Stacy and the other popular girls make the cheerleading squad instead of her, and she is rejected for a position on the yearbook staff, leaving her humiliated and feeling like a failure.

As her junior year begins, Angela becomes more involved with the community, taking up such activities as peer counselling and candy striping.

With the authorities slowly closing in on her without concrete evidence, she becomes increasingly consumed by her guilt until she finally confesses to her priest and then to her parents in a letter.

Devastated by the arrest, Jamie, who had gone to St. Joseph's Catholic School with Angela, confesses to their priest to having left her alone during the ski trip because she did not have the courage to stand up to Stacy.

Back at the church, the priest gives a homily on the community's responsibility for the death of Stacy, stating that the unrealistically high expectations of perfectionism contributed to Angela’s actions.

On June 23, 1984, Protti lured Costas with a phony invitation to a dinner for the Bob-o-Links, a sorority-like group at school.

According to Protti, the girls quarreled, and Costas fled to the home of Alex and Mary Jane Arnold, living nearby, telling them that her friend had gone "weird".

When Costas could not reach her parents by telephone, Alex Arnold drove her home, noticing that a Pinto–the Protti's family car–was following them.

The Costas' neighbors called an ambulance, but Kirsten was mortally wounded and pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

The Costas did not believe this story – they claimed that nobody would use an 18-inch-long (460 mm) butcher knife to slice tomatoes and that Protti, casually dressed on that evening, never intended to take Kirsten to a party, but had planned to murder her.

In 2019, Lifetime produced a remake television film titled Death of a Cheerleader, starring Aubrey Peeples and Sarah Dugdale, with Kellie Martin also appearing.