{"id":4344,"date":"2024-10-05T20:16:04","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T20:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4344"},"modified":"2024-10-12T21:27:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:27:28","slug":"cheerleader-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/05\/cheerleader-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheerleader Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Prism Entertainment\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, nudity, sexual content, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Quinn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Lee Fein and R.L. O\u2019Keefe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joel Hamilton and Murielle Hodler-Hamilton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bryan England\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 1, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Betsy Russell, Leif Garrett, Lucinda Dickey, Lorie Griffin, Buck Flower, Travis McKenna, Teri Weigel, Rebecca Ferratti, Vickie Benson, Jeff Prettyman, Krista Pflanzer, Craig Piligian, William Johnson, Kathryn Litton, Tom Habeeb.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Body Count: 9<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> is a mixture of two great exploitation genres, slasher movie and T&A cheerleader comedy. What genius thought of that? I can\u2019t say for sure, but John Quinn directed it and David Lee Fein and R.L. O\u2019Keefe wrote it so I guess they share the credit or blame (depending on how you look at it). Me, I think it\u2019s flawed but fun.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I would have watched Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> years ago if I had known what an awesome cast it has. It stars an avenging Angel, a Soc and a ninja breakdancer. To the uninitiated, that\u2019s Betsy Russell (Avenging Angel), Leif Garrett (The Outsiders) and Lucinda Dickey (Ninja III: The Domination, Breakin\u2019 1 & 2). It also has Lorie Griffin (Teen Wolf), Travis McKenna (Road House), and George \u201cBuck\u201d Flower (They Live) In addition, it has two Playboy centerfolds (Teri Weigel and Rebecca Ferratti) and a Penthouse Pet (Krista Pflanzer). Damn, what a roster of talent! How can Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> possibly miss?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Star cheerleader Alison (Russell) may seem perfect on the outside, but she\u2019s just as messed up as any other young person, maybe a little more. She has fears of the usual things- e.g. rejection, messing up at an upcoming cheerleading competition. These fears manifest themselves in the form of horrific, violent nightmares. She takes medication to maintain her sanity which will be put to the test by a deranged killer stalking the grounds of Camp Hurrah where Alison and her teammates- Brent (Garrett), Bonnie (Griffin), Timmy (McKenna), Pam (Weigel), Theresa (Ferratti) and mascot Cory (Dickey)- have come to compete against other squads for a spot in the state finals.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Alison begins to spiral when a girl from a rival squad, Suzy (Pflanzer), slashes her wrists or so it seems. Camp director Miss Tipton (Benson, The Wraith), ice queen that she is, decides not to report it to the authorities for fear of bad publicity. It\u2019s the same girl her boyfriend Brent flirted with mere moments after arriving at the camp. Let me tell you, this guy is a class act all the way. He not only hits on random girls, he also tries to get with one of their teammates. He does all of this in front of Alison. It\u2019s no wonder her nightmares worsen and as they do, the bodies start piling up.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> (aka Bloody Pom Poms) is a hit-or-miss affair that hits a tad more than it misses. As a thriller, it\u2019s not very effective. It\u2019s apparent early on whodunit. If you know how movies like this work, you\u2019ll have no problem identifying the killer. Quinn tries to throw a few curve balls (to little effect) with the introduction of oddball characters who seem capable of murder. Take the camp handyman Pop (Flower), a leering old pervert who says charming things like, \u201c[she\u2019ll] make yer [sic] pee-pee harder than a ten pound bag of nickel jawbreakers\u201d. He shows his darker side when he screams \u201cI hope you die!\u201d at one of the guys for a minor offense. He\u2019s a creep, but is he a killer? It doesn\u2019t matter because he can immediately be eliminated for reasons well known to horror movie aficionados. HOWEVER, I do suspect the movie\u2019s predictability is entirely intentional.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> primarily works because nobody working on it takes it seriously. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d call it an outright spoof, but it does poke a lot of fun at the slasher genre and its various tropes like gratuitous sex and nudity. Quinn puts a teen T&A slant on it with voyeurism and pranks like showing a videotape of Tipton having weird sex with the local sheriff (Prettyman, The Boys Next Door) to the entire camp. Resident fat guy Timmy has a thing for taping half-naked girls while they sunbathe (among other activities). He\u2019s a character you\u2019d expect to find in a Porky\u2019s-type comedy not a slasher movie. That reminds me, Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> has a few decent gory scenes with kills by shears, meat cleaver, van, axe and bear trap (to the head). Admit it, this is really why you\u2019re watching this movie, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

\u00a0While I can\u2019t exactly praise any of the performances in Cheerleader Camp<\/strong>, I can\u2019t say they\u2019re bad either. I think the descriptive word I\u2019m looking for is batty. They\u2019re not just caricatures, they\u2019re self-aware caricatures. They all seem to know they\u2019re walking clich\u00e9s- e.g. troubled heroine dating handsome jerk, bitchy authority figure, creepy menial worker, gross fat guy, ditzy blonde, etc.- and have fun with it. Where else are you going to see Leif Garrett rap? Yes, Leif raps in this movie. It\u2019s great seeing one of my teenage crushes, Lucinda Dickey, in a movie I never saw before even if she doesn\u2019t break out any breakdance or ninja moves. She wears that alligator costume quite well however.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At the end of the day, Cheerleader Camp<\/strong> is a reasonably entertaining comedy-horror from an era when grabbing a girl\u2019s ass didn\u2019t land you jail time and teens were routinely slaughtered for engaging in illicit behavior. Quinn\u2019s tongue-in-cheek approach makes it go down a bit easier. It\u2019s a decent Friday night fright flick.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cheerleader Camp (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Prism Entertainment\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, nudity, sexual content, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Quinn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Lee Fein and R.L. O\u2019Keefe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joel Hamilton and Murielle Hodler-Hamilton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bryan England\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 1, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Betsy Russell, Leif Garrett, Lucinda Dickey, Lorie Griffin, Buck Flower, Travis McKenna, Teri […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Cheerleader-Camp-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4683,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344\/revisions\/4683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}