Cheerleader Camp (1988)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Cheerleader Camp (1988) ** 1/2 (out of 4)All of the best and brightest cheerleaders in the country attend a special camp where they can extend their talents. The only problem is that some sort of madman has also shown up and soon the cheerleaders are dropping dead.CHEERLEADER CAMP obviously wasn't meant to be taken too serious and it's clear that it was making fun of the slasher genre. This here is basically PORKY'S with an added slice of murder and for the most part the film is entertaining enough to make it worth watching. What makes the film so entertaining is the cast who manage to be fun and keep you interested in everything that's going on. Of course, all of them are way too old for their parts but this is just something most viewers will be accustom to. The cast really manages to be fun and that's the most important thing. The filmmakers clearly knew who their target audience was because this works as both a horror film as well as a "teen" comedy. The teen comedy aspect basically has a bunch of beautiful women getting naked and a bunch of horny guys wanting them. The summer camp setting works just fine. As far as the horror elements go, there are actually some rather gory and violent death scenes so gore hounds will be happy as well.CHEERLEADER CAMP certainly isn't a masterpiece or even a good picture but at the same time it's entertaining enough for what it is.

After having watched "Cheerleader Camp", I must confess that I am absolutely stumped as to why this movie has built a sizable cult in the more than 20 years since it was first released. It's packaged as a kind of spoof of the slasher genre, but it is anything but funny. The attempts at humor are very feeble and half-hearted. In fact, the whole movie is lacking energy, and it's acted out in a way that makes you feel that the whole movie was improvised on the spot rather than following a set script. What about the movie's nudity and sex? Well, there isn't much of that here. Blood and gore? Well, the second half of the movie has some okay splatter, but it's nothing that will really grab gorehounds' attention. The movie's only interest is for those interested in seeing how the career of Leif Garrett (who looks too old for his role, by the way) had severely declined around the time the movie was made.

God Bless "USA Up All Night". I was cleaning my room when suddenly a box filled with VHS appeared. I decided to dust if off and I found some movies I taped over the years. One of them was "Cheerleader Camp" when it was presented on "Up All Night".This little slasher flick offers some black humor jokes and some decent gory death scenes.You shouldn't care for the plot as you might have guessed. You only need to know that an "unseen" maniac is on the cheerleader camp prowling, and killing cheerleaders. Well that's until you find out -easily- the killer's identity.Expect some cheesy dialogues, good humor, and thank God, nudity. This slasher has all the winning ingredients and that's why it's among the most see slashers from the 80's.Highly recommended if you are into low production values, bad acting -putrid acting-, horrible music, weak direction, etc. Overall, trash cinema. Still, it's the 80's so it's great.

Stop me if you've heard this one - a group of oversexed, undersupervised teenagers head out into the woods, where they end up being picked off one after another by a mysterious killer. No, it's not Friday the 13th. No, not Sleepaway Camp. No, not any of those other six films you're thinking of. This time, we're going to Cheerleader Camp.OK, so, we know right off the bat that this film isn't gaining any points for originality. We can forgive that; after all, who watches slasher films for originality? But this film has bigger problems than that (and I'm not referring to Travis McKenna's impressive girth).No, the main problem here is a film that is trying way too hard. The plot has way too much going on - our main character, Allison, is plagued by bad dreams and hallucinations, and appears to be in the middle of some sort of nervous breakdown throughout much of the film. Her boyfriend, Leif Garrett (!), has no patience with Allison's mental problems, and chooses to deal with it by hitting on all the other cheerleaders. The other guy on the squad (McKenna) spends way too much time trying to catch half-naked schoolgirls on tape. Cory, the alligator-suited team mascot, has to deal with the heartbreak of anti-mascot prejudice from the other girls. The camp counselor, Miss Dee Dee Tipton, is a vicious control-freak who seems to spend all of her time making people's lives miserable when she's not hiding bodies in the walk-in refrigerator in a misguided attempt to stave off the likely public relations nightmare - not that she should worry, since she's sleeping with the local sheriff. The camp handyman is the stereotypical drunken, grumbling creep. And everyone is way too concerned about who's gonna be elected Camp Queen at the big competition (which really doesn't seem all that big, when it finally arrives).In the midst of all that scenery-chewing, cheerleaders start dying or disappearing. This leads to nearly everyone in the cast being set up as a red-herring killer at one point or another - the writer' efforts to make sure all the suspects are off by themselves when the various killings take place create some very complicated choreography amongst the cast.On top of all that, we have not one, but three centerfolds cast as various cheerleaders, multiple iterations of peeping scenes, trips to the swimmin' hole, and pointless cheer-routine practice, and probably the lamest excuse for a rap I've ever heard.Still, if you're a fan of the slasher genre, it's worth a look. It's certainly not the worst I've ever seen.