By Geno McGahee
The 1980s delivered a lot of slasher flicks. Some were good. Some were bad. Some fell somewhere in the middle and that is where Cheerleader Camp belongs. This is a memorable and funny horror film, with some familiar faces and ridiculous overacting and a really absurd story, but if you want to have a good time, this is a movie that will deliver.
We begin with Alison (Betsy Russell), who is having a lot of bad dreams where she is either being attacked, or killing somebody. In each one of these dreams, she is dressed as a cheerleader. So, we have our first suspect in this whodunit. Brent Hoover (Leif Garrett), the unfaithful boyfriend is another suspect in this movie, and should be. You can’t trust former child stars. And then you have his extremely and I do mean EXTREMELY obese friend, Travis (Timmy Moser), who video records everything. There is nothing worse than a fat person with a video camera in my opinion.
Now Alison, Brent, and Travis, are all part of a cheerleading team that is competing at the annual “Cheerleader Camp” against several other teams. When they get there, they are greeted by the star of this movie: Pop (George Flower of “They Live” fame). He is the creepy and perverted groundskeeper that loves nothing more than checking out the young honeys at the camp. He is also a suspect in this whodunit, mainly because of the scene where he is standing in the dark, holding a flashlight to his face and saying that he’ll “take care of them good.” There is also the scene, which is my favorite of the film, when the cheerleading team is performing, and Pop tells one of his buddies: “See that girl. She’ll make your pee pee harder than a ten pound bag of nickel jawbreakers.” Love that line! Anyway, during this performance, Travis falls off the stage and lands on poor Pop, prompting the poor old man to jump up and scream: “I hope you die!!!” They added that just in case you didn’t get the other hints that he was a suspect.
There is also Cory (Lucinda Dickey), the mascot for the team, who befriends Alison and convinces her that her dreams are only dreams. When bodies begin piling up, however, Alison begins to think that she may be sleepwalking and killing these people. Cory convinces her that she is innocent and it must be that child star guy…her boyfriend, Brent. There are also a couple other cheerleaders that aren’t really focused on, Theresa (Rebecca Ferratti of Porn fame) and Bonnie (Lorie Griffin of Teen Wolf fame). They are just there to be there…not really developed as far as character goes, although, I have to give mad props to Ferratti. You can’t find a picture of her on the Internet with clothing on.
Now, I won’t give away this whodunit, but if you watch 20 minutes of it, you’ll figure it out. They make it painfully obvious. But this is a decent flick and there are some very funny moments. This is more amusing than scary and when Travis and Brent do their rap, you will crack up. It’s so bad that it’s good. I won’t say that this movie is fantastic, but it is worth a watch.
Scared Stiff Rating 5.5/10 Entertaining
Great review!
We’re linking to your article for B Movie Tuesday at SeminalCinemaOutfit.com
Keep up the good work!