Customer Reviews

Cheerleader Massacre

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sales for "Cheerleader Massacre" would probably do a lot better if this 2000 direct of video release was listed under some sort of soft porn category into of being labeled a slasher flick. This is supposed to be the four film in the series "The Slumber Party Massacre," which produced films in 1982, 1987, and 1990. In fact, Brinke Stevens is once again playing Linda, her original role in first film. But for some reason the producers decided to trade in the cache, so to speak, of the series title and come up with something different. Is it because they think "Cherrleader" conjurs up more notions of sex than "Slumber Party"? Or is it because they noticed the story here is not about a slumber party? The plot--no, strike that: the setup for the massacre is that five high school cheerleaders to to a cabin the woods for a weekend getaway with their coach (Tamie Sheffield, whom you might recognize from "Fear Factor" in 2001) and a couple of jocks who show up to see what is happening. A crazy guy comes along and starts killing them, but not before we are treated to several scenes involving showers, bubble baths, and chocolate sauce.

The only real question here is whether in the final analysis "Cheerleader Massacre" is a worse example of slasher flick or a soft-core film. There has always been a connection between sex and death in splatter flicks, something we have understood ever since good girl Laurie Strode was the only one of her peer group to get out alive in "Halloween." Even when "Scream" made a point of the heroine not being a virgin, it only reinforced the idea that the subtext for such movies was that bad things happen to young people who have sex. If you think sexually transmitted diseases are bad, then you just wait until some guy with a knife, machette, chainsaw, or whatever comes after you.

But here the sex is way out in front. The only bit of gratuitous cheerleading comes at the start of the film, and even then there are no outfits. From then on there is little wearing of much clothing by these cheerleaders. In the end I have to write this film off more as porn that slasher because the acting is closer to the nadir represented by skin flicks than the wooden and unprofessional performances you often find in splatter flicks, especailly of the direct to video variety. In fact, one of the actresses has made dozens of hard core films. You should be able to pick her out, at which point you will realize that her acting really puts the rest of this cast to shame (which is not a good thing).

If you check this out for blood, guts, and gory, then you are definitely in the wrong aisle. If you are looking for a film with multiple shower scenes, then you may well end up being content with this tacky little film. I guess they could not work "Shower" and "Massacre" into the title, although you would think you would not need a lot of imagination to do that. Finally, if you are really looking for a slasher film with cheerleaders, then you are forced to go check out "Cheerleader Camp."

Cheerleader Massacre is a wonderful homage to slasher flicks of the 80's, most notably Slumber Party Massacre. There are many scenes reminiscent of that film in this one, and it's neat to realize what the director was trying to do. The actresses are typical of any slasher flick: beautiful, young, and willing to get nude at the drop of a hat (which will please many a viewer). The death scenes aren't very graphic (which may disappoint some), but there are so many of them, you may not notice. The ending is very Scream-like, but it works. Bring on Cheerleader Massacre 2: Electric Bugaloo!

The DVD features Director Audio Commentary, a deleted scene, cast bios, the original trailer, and other preview attractions. The picture is full screen, but the sound is Dolby Digital 5.1. This isn't a very surround-heavy mix, but it's always nice when they throw in those little surprise directional effects to throw you off guard.

Overall, a good movie and one that any horror buff should add to his or her collection immediately.

i have to admit i'm a big fan of the low budget massacre movies, slumber party massacre, sorority house masscare, and now cheerleader massacre. talk about hot babes, wish our cheerleader squad looked like that in school, little to good to be true. anyways plenty of nudity and plenty of victims. great low budget movie to watch with friends, had some pretty funny scenes as well. all in all a great low budget movie.

...for dumb, because that's exactly what this film was, and in spades...touted as coming from the people who brought us the Slumber Party and Sorority House Massacre films (most of which I've seen) released during the 80's, Cheerleader Massacre (2003) hardly follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, which seems kinda strange because it's not like they set the bar really high or anything, and to make a film that's actually worse than those would be pretty hard to do...but it was done...I guess the main difference is while those earlier films may have been bad, at least they were entertaining, and this one really wasn't...directed by Jim Wynorski (The Return of Swamp Thing, Sorority House Massacre II), the film stars Tamie Sheffield (Intolerable Cruelty), Charity Rahmer (The Frightening), and Erin Byron (One of Them). Also appearing is Leonard Johnson (Manhunter), Bill Langlois Monroe (Freedom Strike), GiGi Erneta (El Chupacabra), Melissa Brasselle (Raptor), and legendary scream queen Brinke Stevens (Teenage Exorcist, Hybrid), who's in the film for all of about three minutes, looking a bit long in the tooth.

The film opens on a couple camping in the woods, and since we don't know these people, it's a good bet they're going to be our first victims...and sure enough, they are...but hey, where's the blood? Sadly, these scenes are pretty much indicative of the kill scenes throughout the film, as very is little shown, and features very little blood. Anyway, cut to some cheerleaders practicing (since `cheerleading' is in the title, I figure they gotta show some girls getting their cheer on, and this is it for the entire film), and afterwards we get some nekkidness as the inevitable shower scene occurs (very few of the Wynorski films I've seen don't have one of these scenes). Seems the girls, along with their coach, the very stacked Ms. Hendricks (Sheffield), are preparing to go on some kind of camping trip, and the short bus is leaving very soon. Around this time we cut to some scenes involving various members of the police department talking about a recently escaped serial killer and how the bodies are beginning to pile up. So the girls leave, end up running out of gas, and hoof it to the relative safety of a spacious, deserted cabin, but find themselves up to their eyeballs in trouble as their number begin to dwindle due to an aggressive depopulation campaign propagated by a unknown assailant.

The first thing I noticed about this film was it was shot not on film, but on video, giving it an overall cheapness quality right off the bat. At least the previous massacre movies were shot on film...oh well, anything to save a buck. The only real reason to watch this movie is for the softcore stuff, of which there is a decent amount. The rest hardly matters much as the story is lame, even for this kind of movie, the kill scenes really pathetic and nearly absent of any blood or violence, the dialog insipid, continuity errors galore (watch as the killer cuts the power to the cabin, but oddly enough the lights still work in the bathroom where Sheffield's character is showering), virtually no tension, and the acting all around rancid. I will say the actors playing the high school students looked close to the age of their characters, which is pretty uncommon for films like this...one thing this film does have in abundance is pointless characters. I lost count of how many different characters kept popping up, and it's not like they were there to provide for a plentiful stock of victims, but just more so to fill out the 85 minute run time. They could have cut the number of characters in half, focused on those that were left, and had a slightly less crummy end result, but that is just my opinion. Wynorski seemed to have phoned it in, expending most of his talents filming, in loving detail, the female characters in varying degrees on nekkidness, master of the slow pan. The best among these scenes would have Tamie Sheffield, who played the coach, and her extended shower scene...oh yeah, use that soap, baby...as far as the massacre bits go, there really wasn't much there, except for one scene where a character lost his head, literally. The characters basically run around, doing stupid things, more so than normal for a movie like this, and get killed off screen. As far as the mystery killer goes, throughout most of the film, we only see the hands, and the choice of weapons and methods used to off the victims were very bland and conventional, as if there was no effort to even try and make it interesting, which was completely disappointing. If there's the appearance of effort put forth, I can overlook a lot of things, but here there doesn't seem like much was given, and the result is just an edgeless, boring, predictable film with some decent boobage. Oh, man, I almost forgot...the big revel of the identity of the killer and motive...that's a key element to a movie like this. The rest of the film can be crud, but you can't do a movie like this and shortchange your audience in this area, which is what happened here. It was just so pathetically lame when it was finally reveal...no bang, just a slight pop...the music was okay, but its repetitiveness wore on me.

The fullscreen picture does look decent (for video). The audio does come through clearly, and is available in Dolby 2.0 stereo and 5.1 digital surround. There are some extras including a commentary track with director Wynorski and actress Erneta, along with a choice deleted scene (3 girls in a tub), cast & crew bios, a trailer, and previews for the films Quicksand (2001), Disappearance (2002), and Sting of the Black Scorpion (2002). I give this film two stars, one because Amazon does not allow for zero stars, and a 2nd for the nekkidness featuring the hot babes.

Cookieman108

By the way, in case you're interested, I got a body count of about 9, but it could have been more as I lost interest about halfway through...

Okay.

What we have here is a bad, shot on video follow up to the "Slumber Party Massacre" series. There's a few kills and Brinke Stevens has a cameo. Apparently; it was supposed to be a sequel - but the name was changed when Corman had an issue with his own rights(?).

Unfortunately, bad acting and photography took over here with ultra-cheap production values.

However, it is still fun - and worth a purchase under $10.

Where did the budget suddenly go?

Here's my rankings of the "Slumber Party"/"Sorority House" Massacre series - best to worst - knock-off's and spin-offs included (out of 5):

"Slumber Party Massacre" (1982) - ***** The Original and Best - Brinke is HOT here in her cameo. A classic 80's slasher to go down in history.
"Sorority House Massacre" (1986) - ****1/2 Starts off slow - and then has an amazing finale. A great spin-off.
"Spring Break Massacre" (2008) - ****1/2 - Cheap for sure. But a welcome movie that was a BIG step-up from "Cheerleader Massacre". Linnea Quigley and Reggie Bannister are WELCOME anytime.
"Hard to Die" (1990) - **** - The unofficial "Sorority House Massacre 3" - but it contains stock footage from "Slumber Party Massacre"? This one is so-bad-it's-good - and knew it. I LOVE this lousy clone of "Die Hard". Great fun. Forrest J. Ackerman has an amazing cameo.
"Slumber Party Massacre 3" (1990) - **** - Great fun. LOVED the next-door-neighbor with the telescope. Hope the re-release DVD is Unrated - because the New Concorde DVD I own is EDITED!!!! Still holding on to my VHS.
"Sorority House Massacre 2" (1990) - ***1/2 - CHEAP - but great fun. So-Bad-It's-Good in many ways. Boom mics and blood bottles throughout. Worth a purchase at a reasonable price for sure.
"Slumber Party Massacre 2" (1987) - *** - Kinda a rip off of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" that doesn't make sense. Though Points for the killer with the drill in his guitar.
"The Last Slumber Party" (1988) - A knock-off that's so-bad-it's-good. Terrible film stock. Atrocious gore effects - but laugh out loud funny :-)
"Cheerleader Massacre" (2003) - **1/2 - LAME movie. Bad Video. Worth a rent or purchase (if cheap). Glad it wasn't an official sequel.

Haven't seen: "Cheerleader Massacre 2"

Oddly enough, when I bought a movie named Cheerleader Massacre, I was expecting to see cheerleaders. But the folks who made this were too cheap to shell out a few bucks for cheerleader uniforms. I can only guess, but apparently this was so Wynorski could give a paycheck to just about everybody who's been in any film he's ever made, and they're all in here for no reason whatsoever. We start out with some good stuff, a nice murder in the woods, then some cheerleaders (wearing regular clothes) doing a cheer. There's the usual shower scene (except one of the girls has tattoos - yuck. Ever hear of an airbrush?), Then there's a spooky locker room scene which was basically lifted from Slumber Party Massacre. After that, the movie shifts into neutral. The girls get in a van and head into the mountains, the van runs out of gas, they swear like truck drivers (maybe this was Biker Babe Massacre?) and complain and whine, then they happen to find a cabin. The atmosphere here is nice, they do a good job of letting the audience feel the coldness of the mountains. But, then the movie shifts into park. We see a whole bunch of cops and other assorted old guys running around, talking on phones, driving around, talking in offices, directing traffic, talking to a guy at a cabin, etc. etc. etc. Brinke Stevens reads a few horribly written lines, and we get a flashback from Slumber Party Massacre (The same scene they just did a remake of 10 minutes earlier). I have to admit, it is the rare movie that can do a flashback to 20 years earlier and have the same actress who is actually 20 years younger. Then there's more cop drama, driving through the woods, talking on radios, talking on phones, endless "ominous" warnings about the killer, etc.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHEERLEADERS?!?!? Do they think we buy movies called Cheerleader Massacre to see a stinkin' cop drama? I bet 50% of this movie is wasted on the cops. The word "Massacre" is in the title - we know there's a killer on the loose - we get it already!!! It would have been SOOOOOOOOO much better to get rid of all the stuff with the cops and instead had the cheerleaders doing cheerleader stuff. Whatever that might be; I imagine it might be pretty interesting. I guess now I'll never know. We never get to spend much time with these girls, we don't know them at all, we don't care about them at all.

I will give the movie a couple of stars for the nudity - Diana Espen aka April Flowers is awesome! - but that's about it.

The plot is ok, there are nudity but not many though. The way the victims died wasnt horrifying at all. I guess my expectation was a little higher.The lovemaking scenes was not erotic though. If u r thinking of buying this movie is best that u might want to skip this one.

This is well worth buying for the nudity alone! Who cares how cheaply made this movie was! If you want naked babes this should be on the top of your "buy" list. Just don't forget about the deleted scene in the special features.

It looks like what I might see skipping past the high school av channel except all the cheerleaders are in their 30's, the movie was clearly slapped together to cash in on the slumber party massacre movies or whatever, but these guys didn't even bother with film or actors a script, it looks like someone had $500 bucks in their pocket and some milfs willing to work cheap and grabbed a crappy camcorder and said act or something, I'm 30mins in and can go no further, good name nice box, not good, and not not good in a good way. <2stars instead of 1 because I can't bring myself to watch the rest, maybe something redeemable happens latter, but I doubt it>

This film is really not bad. There is an actual plot and some mystery (not just endless killings for no good reason like most slasher movies a la Friday the 13th), plenty of gratuitous nudity by mostly women with natural breasts! The acting is pretty good. The Commentary with Jim Wynorski and Gigi Erneta is pretty funny when you find out how many of the people associated with the film are using fake names and insist upon not being named, and how they made the film with no money. A film being made cheaply is not a crime. The film looks pretty good with what money they had to make the film. If you listen to the Commentary, you will have a better appreciation of the film.