My favorite decade produced this crappy tarnished gem, otherwise titled Beauty’s Revenge, that rolls downhill like the rustbucket it was destined to become. The plot is loosely based on the 1989 real-life murder of Lisa Cihaski in Wausau, Wisconsin, committed by 20-year-old Lori Esker. Very loosely.

Courtney Thorne Smith is Cheryl Anne, the sexiest Midwest hustler and psychopath you've ever met. Tracey Gold is at her absolute cutest as Beth the unsuspecting girlfriend, but Smith steals the spotlight as the Dairy Princess, a beauty pageant winner who swoops into Small Town America and falls head-over-hooves with a dairy farmer, and to Hell with his girlfriend or his wishes. The fact that Kevin (played by Kyle Secor) handles cows every day seems to be the main attraction.

I have to say, the speed at which this woman decks herself out as a Bovine Betty Crocker and moves into his trailer is truly frightening. Oh, Kevin’s trying (not very hard) to break up with the Dairy Princess after their fling. Good luck. There is nothing more Midwest than getting broken up with at the hair salon with your rollers in. Didn’t he know the danger he was in when he saw her cow car?
She even has cow-themed earrings, one of which she leaves at the scene of the crime, because…

WAIT, SHE KILLED LARRY?!? Kevin’s best buddy? For asking her out?!?

Why is Larry’s wake more like a barn dance? Is that really what Larry’s last wishes would’ve been?

Mad Cow Princess—I’m not the first one to make that pun and I shall not be the last. The onus is on Cheryl Anne for ordering a wedding dress (astonishingly not cow-themed) before the third date.

Now Cheryl Anne is on the cow-printed war path.

Thorne-Smith’s peekaboo psychosis is perfect, and it’s hard to argue with Cheryl Anne that she only wants what she’s rightfully earned. Firm basis for a psychosis.

Why is she acting like a ninja—all in black and sneaky—when she commits crimes in her bright pink, cow-themed Dairy Princess-mobile? No one is mistaking her in this tiny town.

Yowtch! Kevin punched Cheryl Anne. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a slap, it was a punch. That’s why they list her terrible crimes directly afterwards—to make the audience think she deserved that punch.

Now I hate them all, except unsuspecting Beth who was unfortunately dispatched by the Princess with a seat-belt, double-yowtch. (This seat-belt detail holds true to the original court case, and helped the jury decide that the murder was premeditated; Princess was also granted parole.)

I don’t think the punch comes off well, even in the face of Cheryl Anne’s crimes. You cannot punch an All-American Midwestern Dairy Princess in the puss and get away with it. Unless you're Kevin, apparently, as he certainly gets away with it at the end of this tawdry spectacle. Even for a 1990s Made-for-TV movie, this is so cheesy you need a Lactaid to stomach it, but I suppose that’s because of all the cows.

Catch this thriller for Tracey Gold as the sideswiped Beth or to see how many props they can cover with cow print, but not for much else. Unless you’re like me and are in it for the peak 90s fashion.

-MH