Dead at 17 (2008)
About
A mother refuses to accept the official account of her teenage son's death, and uncovers what he had been caught up in.
When Alyssa Harris's 17-year-old son Jason takes his own life, the circumstances do not sit right with her. Together with her daughter Danni she begins to look more closely at the weeks before his death, and finds a version of Jason she did not recognise.
What the two of them uncover involves a party thrown by two wealthy teenage brothers, at which a young woman was accidentally killed, and the lengths that were taken afterwards to keep it quiet.
Dead at 17 (2008) is part of Christine Conradt's long-running "at 17" cycle of Lifetime television films, each a self-contained story about a teenage girl whose life is derailed by a single event.
Where to Watch
- Premiered on Lifetime (United States), May 31, 2008
- Search Amazon for Dead at 17
Details
Director: Douglas Jackson
Writer/Screenplay: Christine Conradt
Producer: Neil Bregman, Stefan Wodoslawsky
Running time: 90 minutes
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Released: May 31, 2008
Music Composer: Richard Bowers
Cast
- Barbara Niven as Alyssa Harris
- John Bregar as Cody
- Justin Bradley as Gabe
- Matthew Raudsepp as Jason
- Kyle Switzer as Ty
- Dani Kind as Danni
- Ashley Jones as Becca
- Odessa Rae as Shari
- Catherine Mary Stewart as Holly
- Linden Ashby as Curt Masterson
Franchise
One of nine Lifetime films written by Christine Conradt under the "... at 17" title pattern:
- Dead at 17 (2008)
- Accused at 17 (2009)
- Betrayed at 17 (2011)
- Stalked at 17 (2012)
- Missing at 17 (2013)
- Guilty at 17 (2014)
- Pregnant at 17 (2016)
- Murdered at 17 (2018)
- Zombie at 17 (2018)
Related
Trivia
- The film is the first of nine Lifetime titles written by Christine Conradt whose names follow the pattern "... at 17".
- Ashley Jones appears in the cast and is also credited as an executive producer.
- Linden Ashby returned to the series the following year in Accused at 17 (2009), playing a different character.
- Barbara Niven likewise appears in both this film and Accused at 17 (2009).
Critical Reception
Dead at 17 opened the "at 17" cycle and established its template, in which a parent rather than the teenager drives the investigation. On IMDb the film holds an average user rating of approximately 4.6 out of 10 from around 660 votes, the lowest of the nine films in the sequence.
Reviews
- IMDb users give the film an average rating of approximately 4.6 out of 10 from around 660 votes.
Links
Production
Dead at 17 was directed by Douglas Jackson from a screenplay by Christine Conradt. Neil Bregman and Stefan Wodoslawsky produced, with Pierre David, Tom Berry, Louis A. Massicotte and cast member Ashley Jones as executive producers. Cinematography was by Bert Tougas, editing by Robert E. Newton and music by Richard Bowers.
The "at 17" series
Christine Conradt wrote nine Lifetime television films sharing the "... at 17" title pattern, running from Dead at 17 (2008) through to Murdered at 17 (2018) and Zombie at 17 (2018). The films are not a continuing story and share no characters; what links them is a common formula, in which an otherwise ordinary teenage girl makes one decision, or suffers one piece of bad luck, that exposes her to adult danger.
Dead at 17 is the first in the sequence, and the only one to open with the death of a teenage boy rather than to place a girl in jeopardy.
