Cheerleader Camp

Oh, how we can barely contain our excitement

The "end of summer horror" series seems to have gave way to "end of summer slasher" series, as the next movie on the agenda was Cheerleader Camp (I also enjoyed its alternate title, Bloody Pom Poms, as well). I was expecting a slight step downward from the previous nights, but this flick, as downright daffy as it was, still found a way to keep me entertained.

I will start off by saying that to me nothing's more horrifying than seeing Leif Garrett rap. Just saying. A bit of the plot: a cheerleading camp is held for various groups to attend and compete. A psychopath, with ties to Betsy Russell, crashes the camp and hacks up members of her team.

To say that Betsy Russell's performance is broad and her character is more than a bit unstable would be the understatement of the week. Saying that, I have to be honest...I couldn't take my eyes off of her. That and I couldn't stop salivating while eyeballing her up and down like a starving mutt, chained to a wall, craving a pound of chopped meat.

Peep into binoculars long enough, you're liable to go crosseyed.

While this was one of George Buck Flower's career-defining parts (it is sizable, instead of just a few seconds costumed as a bum), Leif Garrett had to be saying to himself, "So this is where my career has come to..." He plays a prick pretty well; the filmmakers stroke his ego by having Russell and Teri Weigel both with the hots for him. Seeing Garrett in tidy whities will forever haunt my nightmares. I imagine he would love to have that scene deleted from his career altogether..right along with his mug shot.

That's right, girls, you know you want it.

Cheerleader Camp is the kind of loopy slasher that has the questionably sane Russell, holding on the her wits by a thread from the very first time we see her on screen, always stumbling into dead bodies, obviously not by her own hands. I can't imagine anyone with half a brain believes she's the one responsible for the massacre that ensues at Camp Harrah. To call Camp Harrah a real, legitimate cheerleading camp is preposterous since the main night's showcase of the schools in attendance (to believe Garrett, receding hairline and looking far older than he even was at that time, could pass as twenty is hilarious) results in beer swilling, punk music, and party-hearty kids dancing the night away. I think the whole purpose of this kind of comic slasher is to poke fun at cheerleading in general, although there are a lot of people who take this seriously, even considering it a sport (competitions, how this can make you a better person, give you confidence and high self-esteem, etc), understanding damn well that guys (and girls, for that matter) love ogling chicks in uniform. Russell (thank you, filmmakers) almost remains in her cheerleading garb the entire running time. Lucinda Dickey plays Corey, the alligator mascot for the cheerleading team whose leader is Russell's Alison. Alison has been having nightmares where she violently attacks her cheerleading adversary, Pam (Teri Weigel, who would later in the early 90s embark on a porn career). Other members of the spirit squad include bubbly ditz, Bonnie (Lori Griffin, who played the hot blond bitch Michael J Fox lusted over in Teen Wolf, much more easy to adore here) and Pam's buddy, Theresa (Rebecca Ferratti). Travis McKenna is the rotund, vulgar clown, Timmy, a male member of the cheerleading team, always gulping booze and peeping on the babes with a lascivious energy...many might recognize him as one of Swayze's security crew in the most awesome movie on the planet, Road House. Travis' most memorable scene in this movie could be when he sticks his large naked ass out the window mocking the competition! Vickie Benson plays her role to the hilt as Ms. Tipton, camp organizer with way too much make-up and a superiority complex that is laughable considering everyone in attendance openly finds her contemptible and obnoxious. Benson, to me, has a character who is a fading beauty, probably once a lead cheerleader holding on to the past as it steadily leaves her behind, in the dust.

Look into these eyes, these are the eyes of a...

There was some tits early on to titillate and violence sprinkled throughout to keep the gorehounds from taking a hike. Weigel was cast specifically because she pops the top frequently, only attractive to Leif as an object of lust, to dispose of once she give in to his sexual advances. Most of the kills are a greatest hits collection from every slasher movie during the decade that came before Cheerleader Camp: hatchet to the back, guts spewing out thanks to a scythe, bear trap to the face (this on the poor deputy sheriff who had a side-splitting shag with Tipton), hedge clippers through the mouth, severed wrists, and a body in cold storage.

The end result might be more than a bit silly with a particular character, in the not-so-surprising twist, showing her true colors, finally getting to cheer, but seeing her in cheerleading costume was well worth whatever eyerolling it caused.

This just isn't my day.

Buck Flower, who has his share of a cult fandom, gets to really shine here, bringing his particular brand of hick shtick,  so welcome in something corny as this movie, to the role of the jack-of-all-trades camp caretaker/handiman/manservant, obeying (albeit, not so happy about it) Tipton's every command. He has a cloud of doubt hung over him as well, but it's just too obvious a red herring. I smiled anytime he appeared to the screen, especially when he ribs the deputy sheriff for using binoculars to peep on the cheerleaders taking in the sun while in bikinis. I need to mention that throughout the movie, Lucinda Dickey is always supportive of Russell, but her character is a bit too comforting and consoling...


A great deal of the film focuses on the fragile mental state of Russell, often directly on her face as  it contemplates a possible acceptance that she is the one behind the murders due to her "disturbing" dreams (like Leif banging Weigel, as people of the camp surrounding them say "Harder, harder..."). That and her intense jealousy of beau Leif who seems disinterested (maybe this is real, not performance as he sleepwalks through the whole movie anyways). Taking this movie seriously in regards to Leif as some knight in shining armour, protecting the ladies from the mad psycho in the woods was one of its charms...Leif's presence in the movie overall was just a riot to me; I imagine he was perhaps not very fond with being stuck in a hokey slasher movie at the tail end of the genre's craze. I think you can see in this movie that the genre was starting to die, definitely on life-support. One more year and the genre would take a sabbatical for a while (although, a few movies tried to surface to breathe life into the genre, but it wouldn't return to prominence until Wes Craven hit the theaters with his Scream, resusitating the slasher film, giving it a Frankensteinian life).