Customer Reviews

The Majorettes

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

 

 

Well, I came in watching this movie with very low expectations, and I got, for the most part, what I expected. There are some nice moments, like the first kill in the convertible, and the dialogue between the two kids before that, but mainly, the movie was a by the book slasher, and then the end was a by the book revenge flick. The only thing that wasn't by the book in this movie was a few nice twists towards the end, even though they weren't big enough to save the movie from being rather bland. The acting for the most part was bottom of the barrel, with the exception of a few people. And the movie just seemed like it wanted to be to main stream for its own good. Some parts just cried out for a Troma style over the top feel, but instead they were stuck in total seriousness. That killed the mood, considering that this is a movie about a man killing majorettes. Oh, and don't expect gore. There is blood, but that's it.
One thing that really bugged me was the disk it self. The sound is pretty crappy, but I'm guessing that's just from the print that Shriek Show was given, but the thing that bugged me was that at one point the movie actually skips a chapter on its own. I think it was around chapter 12. The disk just went right to chapter 14, skipping a scene that actually had some important details, and going on to one that was just pure fluff and filler. So that was a problem. Otherwise the disk is fine. I would have to say **1/2 out of *****

i seen this movie years ago and i still like it.
the story's pretty basic.
i nut goes around killing beautiful girls.
the fun point in the movie is when it goes from being a slasher flck to a cheap-o rambo movie.
treat yourself.

Slasher films are known for their who-dun-it plot, gory slash and death scenes, and most of the time a cat and mouse chase scene betwen the killer and the victim/ or between the killer and the final girl/guy. Many slasher films are atmospheric, creepy, suspenseful and/or gory. The Majorettes is one of those bad cheesy flicks that is nt worth a dime. I feel that there are some great scenes in this film but those can never save this from being unsophisticated,stupid, having horrid acting( like they picked random people off the street!). There are some very good looking females but they are supposed to be butone twirlers!!?! Which is really cheesy seeing as right in the beginning of this the are TRYING to dance to some awful 80s keyboard song and none of them can act or dance or twirl a butone for that matter. One great chase scene follows and then a death scene but the plot falls apart bc of the bad acting and the stupid script. This is not worth time and money especially when you can see better slasher flicks like Graduation Day and The Prowler. Actually this crappy flick made me realize how many earlier slasher flicks are well made, have above average acting, and a good plot twist and at their prime from 1978-1983, there was so many great slasher flicks made. This one from 1986 however fails to deliver as many do!!!

The Majorettes is an 80's horror film, so it was a must watch for me. The first fifteen minutes has alot of storylines going on so it can get confusing and seem like there is about three stories going on. The first kill was very well done, the killer favors slashing the throats of the majorettes and then baptizing them into water. It also has faint religious overtones but this film has so much going on that its hard to follow. One girl was set to inherit half a million dollars and that story gets lost in the shuffle. Overall, it can be an enjoyable film but has way too many stories going on and it can get confusing.

The Majorettes (Bill Hinzmann, 1986)

Of all John Russo's novels, my favorite--yes, even more so than Night of the Living Dead--was The Majorettes. I found out about it being made into a movie some twenty years ago thanks to some Pittsburgh talk show host my mother listened to (everything this guy hated was a guaranteed watch, listen, or read for me), but it's taken me a long, long time to hunt a copy down. Unfortunately, as is often the case with novels adapted into movies, everything about the book that I was so fond of has disappeared completely from the script (which, oddly, Russo adapted himself--and it still turned out this badly), leaving nothing but an unimaginative low-budget slasher flick.

Plot: there are these majorettes, see, and this killer, see. There are some subplots dealing with the relationship between the quarterback (Kevin Kindlin, who would return for Hinzmann's Flesheater) and the head majorette (Terrie Godfrey, who also... oh, you know), and a local drug dealer (Tom Desrocher) who wants to horn in on the action, but really, there's this killer, see and there are these majorettes...

It's certainly not always the case that if you've seen one slasher film you've seen them all; there are a number of witty, inventive takes on the genre that are well worth watching. The Majorettes, unfortunately, is not one of them. However, I do still recommend, highly, that you track down a copy of the book, which is a witty and inventive take on the genre. *

We start out with our cute little majorettes in their cute little leotards doing a dance number. It's pretty obvious they're not dancers - in the 'making of' featurette the director tells how he had to get them some beer to loosen them up a bit to do the scene. Still, they're really cute. Then it's time to hit the showers, or at least the locker room. You get a small dose of gratuitous T&A here. A bit more later on. Unfortunately, whenever the movie switches to a scene without the cute majorettes in their cute leotards, it gets pretty dull pretty fast.

One of the majorettes gets murdered along with some nerd she was out with, and suspicion is cast on the scummy drug dealer she was out with previously. The kill scene if fairly good, classic '80s stuff. Then we meet the sheriff, the detective (big introduction for the detective even though he's barely in the movie), and the grandmother of one of the majorettes along with the grandmother's nurse and the nurse's retarded kid. The nurse is planning on killing granny to get some sort of inheritance, and the retarded kid is a janitor at the high school and likes to take pictures of the majorettes through the vent in the girls' locker room. So, we've got suspects all over the place.

The movie continues in typical slasher fashion, but then the focus shifts to a revenge motive with the boyfriend of one of the victims going after the drug dealer and his gang. It's not bad, and there are some interesting twists. Kind of a nice dark ending.

Personally I would have liked the movie a lot better if it had featured more of the majorettes; the revenge stuff is interesting, but I bought this to see a slasher movie with hot babes, not the teenage version of Death Wish. Overall I'd recommend it though. If you're a fan of stuff like Slumber Party Massacre or Prom Night, you'll probably find this fairly agreeable.

The Majorette is lacking in only one area. There is not enough of that fantastic actor, Wilbur Roncone. Wilbur Roncone lights up the screen with his presence. I wonder where he came from? Where did he come from? When will he be back?

I personally love slasher films, so the late 1970s and early 1980s are years I spend a lot of time exploring. It was during this period that most of the best slasher films arrived in theaters. Films like "Halloween," "Slumber Party Massacre," "Twitch of the Death Nerve," and "Friday the 13th" set the tone for years to come. Also making an appearance during that time were lesser known films that still manage to entertain all these years later. "My Bloody Valentine," despite the appalling cuts made by the puritans over at the MPAA, is still an atmospheric film well worth watching. "Happy Birthday To Me" is another American slasher made all the more amazing by its close resemblance to an Italian giallo. Even the spoofish "April Fool's Day" evokes pleasant memories of a lost era. Thanks to the DVD revolution, I'm seeing slasher films I never knew existed. That's where "The Majorettes" comes in. I hadn't a clue about its existence until I stumbled over it on a rental excursion. When I saw it was a slasher film made in the 1980s, I picked it up without a second thought. I didn't care about quality since most of these movies possess a certain indefinable feel that transcends lousy scripts, mediocre effects, and wooden acting. Most of them do, anyway.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I really got a thrill out of "The Majorettes." Sure, it's about as cheesy a movie from the 1980s as you could find, but it's got the proper atmosphere wafting off it in waves. The film opens with one of those hypercheesy pop songs that screams the Reagan years. Moreover, we see a bunch of majorettes sporting their best dance moves, complete with '80's coifs and workout clothes, as the song soars in the background. Is this heaven? You bet it is, and it only gets better as the movie progresses. We soon meet head majorette Vicky McAllister (Terrie Godfrey) and her boyfriend. Vicky's home life isn't the greatest, as she resides with a mute grandmother and her live-in nurse Helga Schuler (Denise Huot). Helga isn't the nicest person in the world. She threatens and bullies the grandmother whenever Vicky is out of the house, and she also has a weird son named Harry (Harold Keller) who is in debt to a gang of local toughs. Since Schuler works as a janitor at the very same high school where most of the action takes place, his odd behavior extends into the hallways and classrooms. Also, he has a habit of spying on the majorettes as they take a shower after their practices. When a camouflaged figure begins felling the majorettes, Harry Schuler seems like a prime candidate.

Or is he? "The Majorettes" drops in many red herrings along the way. The film has so many false leads that it resembles an Italian giallo film except that there isn't a black gloved killer, there aren't beautiful Eurobabes hanging around, the camera work is dull, and we don't get a lot of point of view shots from the killer's perspective. What we do get is a film that suddenly, without any warning, reveals the identity of the killer about half way through. Following closely on the heels of this revelation, another surprise rears its head. Suddenly, "The Majorettes" turns into a revenge flick that would make Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood proud (well, maybe not), as Vicky's boyfriend goes on a rampage to avenge her untimely demise. Does he go after the real killer? I'm not telling, but I will say the sudden shift in focus, along with the sight of a teenager spraying bullets from an M-16 into a trailer full of scumbags, evoked an overwhelming urge to view all of the "Death Wish" films along with any other 1980s shoot 'em classics I could lay my hands on. I even forgave the film for the number of uninspired slasher killings in the beginning.

Not all of the kills were uninspired. The first scene, involving a guy and a girl in a car on a deserted road, looked great. We see the two talking in the car when all of a sudden the camouflaged killer leaps on top of the vehicle, plunges his weapon into the car, and dispatches his victims. Nice touch. Too bad the other majorettes don't shuffle off this mortal coil in similarly interesting ways. For example, one covered in a patina of the red stuff merely falls out of a locker when the other kids open the door. Hardly original, I know. But for some inexplicable reason I liked this film. Maybe it had something to do with the high cheese quotient, or the horrific acting chops of the principal players. Or maybe it's that last chilling scene where the killer watches the young girls practicing to become tomorrow's majorettes through the fence. I simply don't know why I liked this movie. I normally pan films with such dreadful flaws, but not this time. In a pinch, I'd say I liked it because of the cheap '80's atmosphere. It takes me back to my youth, I guess.

Thanks to Media Blasters for the abundant supplements. We get a separate soundtrack, a trailer under the film's alternate title "One by One," a thirty minute documentary about the film, stills, and trailers for "Flesh for the Beast," "Flesheater," "Slaughter Hotel," and "Faceless." Sadly, the two channel audio transfer sounds terrible, with lots of pops and crackles heard throughout the film. Condemnation for "The Majorettes" is loud, vicious, and comes from all corners, so I'm not going to suggest you run right out and pick it up. If you see it available for rental, perhaps you'll give it a shot. It can't be worse than a lot of the low budget dreck out there, right?

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I think they found people off the street to act in this movie. It's just bad. It's not bad in a cheesy, funny kind of way, it's just bad. Don't waste any minute of your life watching this movie.

Clearly the two best actors are the football coach, (I've seen him in Shakespeare in the Park, Summer of 1987-99) and the band director, ( I can't believe this guy didn't beat out Billy Bob Thornton for the lead in Sling Blade). You can't learn acting prowess like that, it must be inbred. This film made me reminisce about high school a lot (minus the killing of course)and I hope someday the prinicipals will think about making Majorettes 2, provided the football coach and the band director are still available. IN fact, I have a jar of pennies on my nightstand to get them started.