Cheerleader Camp (1988)

A group of cheerleaders (as played by Betsy Russell, Lucinda Dickey, Lorie Griffin, Teri Weigel and Rebecca Ferratti) and their two male companions (Leif Garrett and Travis McKenna) take part in a prestigious cheerleading camp – I leave it to everyone’s imagination if such a thing existed in the real world of the real 80s – to improve their act for some sort of upcoming competition and to take part in the camp’s very own competition as well. However, something’s very wrong at the camp, and it’s not just some of the girls’ horrifying competitive streak when it comes to, well, everything, from cheerleading to boys, nor their just as horrifying lack of empathy and solidarity.

Things start very early on with the supposed suicide (which is of course in truth murder) of one of the girls, the sort of thing that should stop the summer fun completely, if not for the fact that camp owner and eternal cheerleader Miss Tipton (Vickie Benson) fulfils the local Sheriff’s (Jeff Prettyman) cheerleader kink. More girls disappear, or rather, as the audience knows, are murdered in horrible ways. Curiously enough, all of the murdered have some reason to be in the bad books of Dickey’s character who increasingly starts to fray at the edges during the course of the film.

I didn’t expect the slasher comedy Cheerleader Camp to actually be anything but a dispenser for tits and gore, particularly since it was directed by future softcore director John Quinn. So I am particularly happy to note the film is indeed a bit more, actually much more, interesting than that. Sure, there’s the mandatory amount of female nudity – though fans of the male form will get something to look at too – and a series of increasingly cool, icky and physically absurd killings. But they are realized in a competent and effective manner,and even the nudity mostly fulfils a sensible function in the film’s actual plot; a plot that does indeed exist. And while I thought it rather obvious who is actually responsible for the killings, Cheerleader Camp is taking its murder mystery angle mostly seriously, timing red herrings and reveals well. Why, the film even bothers to provide its cheerleading protagonists with somewhat complex inner lives, caring for them rather more than most slashers do with their respective victims, which obviously makes watching it rather more involving than just gawking at the murders would be. The actresses – and Leif Garrett – seem to appreciate that effort too, and consequently do a bit more work than just shoving pretty faces and breasts and George ‘Buck’ Flower into the audience’s faces.

I also found myself laughing about at least half of the film’s jokes, which is as good as any camp based teen comedy – horror or not - can hope to get out of me.


Adding an additional frisson of pleasant surprise to the film’s other considerable charms is the amount of subversive elements in the script by David Lee Fine and R.L. O’Keefe. At times, Cheerleader Camp really digs into portraying the immense pressure to be pretty, and good, and perfect, and available, yet still virginal, these young women are put under, as well as the way they internalize these pressures to then put them on their peers in turn. Why, even the killer is really only doing a somewhat more extreme version of what a young woman’s supposed to. As long as she comes out on top and looks good doing it, it’s alright, right?

The Horror!? 98: Devil Times Five (1974)

The family unit around patriarch Papa Doc (Gene Evans), whose name does not remind of a dictator without reason, gathers for a few days in their gigantic holiday home in the snowy Californian mountains. Too bad they are all borderline crazy. My first thought was actually that they'd soon start killing each other, but in a surprising twist five darling little children (among them Leif Garrett) barely escape from a bus accident and manage to make their way to the house.

Another survivor of the accident follows them only to be brutally murdered. My, it looks like the five are escaped mental patients.

Soon the little ones draw the family's attention and even those hardened, perverted members of the upper class can't resist a child's plea for help.

Since the house doesn't have a phone, Papa Doc's people and the kids get to know each other a little.

The next morning, Ralph (John Durren), the mentally handicapped man the Docs use as their personal slave (officially: handyman) is found dead, the house's generator and the car sabotaged.

What else is there to do than wait for the snow plow? One after the other, the adults are getting killed off by their guests in increasingly silly ways, my personal favorite being the deadly combination of drowning and piranha-attack in the bathtub. Finally, much too late, the surviving family members understand who and what the children are. A more modern movie would surely have looked for a way to provide a friendlier ending than the one which follows, but fortunately we are in the golden Seventies, so you know what to expect. You won't get disappointed.

I am not sure what effect director Sean MacGregor and writer John Durren tried to achieve here. I'm afraid everything is meant to be taken very seriously, as part of some very profound things the film is trying to tell us. Whatever they may be.

For me the movie works much better interpreted as a dark and creepy comedy, a less weird Spider Baby perhaps, or a much weirder episode of Dallas. I am not trying to slam the movie in any way, I had lots of fun watching it. The Docs' family is one of the more exaggerated film families you'll see, featuring the Weak One, the Alcoholic, the Mean Bastard Patriarch, the Nymphomaniac and so on, all quickly and entertainingly set at each other's throats from the very beginning. Their dubious charm is amplified by some great moments of snarky hate-dialogue.

Our theoretical bastions of sanity are actually feeling less sane than the murderous children. The family members just don't kill each other. I suspect because they couldn't hate each other so effectively after a murder.

The technical aspects of Devil Times Five are of a good Seventies low budget standard, no reason for complaints, no reason for compliments.

Who wouldn't want to see Leif Garrett in drag?

 

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