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Powersaw killed the radio star

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THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2

2.5 Stars  1986/18/97m

“After a decade of silence… the buzzz is back.”

Director: Tobe Hooper / Writer: L.M. Kit Carson / Cast: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow, Bill Johnson, Bill Moseley, Lou Perry.

Body Count: 3

Dire-logue: “You got one choice, boy: Sex or the saw.”

I’m not a fan of the old Texas Chainsaw movies by any measure. The original manages to be both over and under rated simultaneously but I don’t particularly care if I ever see it again.

Keep your pitchforks and torches at bay until I get around to reviewing it. For now, let us focus on the sequel…

The first half of this VERY 80s movie is great stuff. Charismatic Texan DJ Stretch (Williams) overhears the chainsaw-slaying of two snotty frat boys during her radio show and volunteers to assist vengeful ranger ‘Lefty’ Enright (Hopper), uncle of Sally – sole survivor of the original massacre. In Texas. Involving a chainsaw.

Thirteen years on, Lefty is hell bent on tracking down those responsible. Meanwhile, those responsible – Leatherface and kin are hiding out beneath an abandoned amusement park, where they make ‘the best meat in the state’ under the cute name of the Sawyers.

Leatherface and hyper-sibling Chop-Top are dispatched to kill Stretch after she broadcasts the recording of the frat murder over the airwaves. Instead of being sawn to ribbons and served up in a burger shack, Stretch manages to win Leatherface’s affections and he lets her live. She follows them back to their lair, where she is captured and tortured while Lefty begins destroying the place.

Differences between this and the original are sharp: Where the old film traded on its almost documentary-style feel, TCM2 hinges itself on dark humour and visual surrealism, recreating the infamous dinner scene before the climax. Not to mention the Breakfast Club-esque poster artwork.

It’s less of a slasher film – possibly as a reaction to the over-saturation of the genre it helped create – than a bizarre nightmare set to celluloid.

Johnson stands in for Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface and the Tom Savini grue effects work is great, especially the scalping opener. When original submitted to the BBFC for a rating, they came back requesting as much as 25 minutes of cuts! It was eventually released unscissored in 2001.

Hopper and Williams are good, although all characterisation goes out of the window at the halfway point, which swivels from the great first half to an annoyingly indulgent latter section.

About as entertaining as the first one but in a vastly different way and nicely made by its helmsman so worth a look at least once.

Blurbs-of-interest: Caroline Williams was later in Stepfather II and Hatchet III. Bill Moseley can also be found in Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet, Home Sick, Silent Night Deadly Night III and Natty Knocks; Tobe Hooper also directed The Funhouse, and the 2003 remake of The Toolbox Murders.

Ridiculous scene o’ the month: How to do the Prom Night dance moves

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I love Prom Night. The original, that is, not that shoddy, fit-for-ten-year-olds excuse for a remake a few years back.

Jamie Lee Curtis, a straight-walking Leslie Nielsen, big hair, bad hair, the revenge motifs aside, perhaps the single most memorable thing about the movie is the hilarious pretender to the Saturday Night Fever throne scene.

Bitchy love rival Wendy enters the dance and prom royalty-to-be Kim (Curtis) and Nick (Casey Stevens) decide to “show them what they can do,” which translates as some seriously unsettling ‘dance moves’, the kind of thing they did in the street in Fame, but even more out of place being in a slasher film…

rsotm-promnight-2Bouncing butts, lots of head thrusting and that spinning thing you did at discos with your best friend when you were about seven: Safe to say if I’d gone to this prom I’d never have wanted it to end. Even after the decapitated head on the cat walk thingy, I’d still be dancin’!

All of it can be found in this delectable five minute sequence. If you have never seen it, hot-foot it to YouTube NOW!

Home is where the horror is

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HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS

4 Stars  1988/18/85m

“Ten years ago HE changed the face of Halloween. Tonight, HE’S BACK.”

Director: Dwight H. Little / Writer: Alan B. McElroy / Cast: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris, Beau Starr, Kathleen Kinmont, Sasha Jenson, Michael Pataki, George P. Wilbur.

Body Count: at least 16

Dire-logue: “Jesus ain’t got nothin’ to do with this place!”

If you deduct Halloween III from the equation, Michael Myers’ franchise plays quite beautifully through parts one to six before Dimension pretended half of it had never happened and then the remakes took over. Despite all this meddling, Halloween 4 remains the best film of the series after the original.

Nicely occurring on the tenth anniversary of Michael’s kill-a-thon through Haddonfield, both he and Dr Loomis (again played by Pleasence as a part of his presumed pension plan) survived the explosion at the end of Halloween II and there’s some garb about Myers being a federal patient so his comatose body is carted off somewhere else.

Of course, Michael’s sense of Halloweeny-ness kicks into play and he wakes up, offing the paramedic crew and going on the run. This begs the question – does Michael just ‘deactivate’ on November 1st each year for 364 days? Dr Loomis, ever with the Evil on Two Legs similes, totters off in the direction of Haddonfield to stop the inevitable, whilst everyone else says he’s deranged.

In Haddonfield, Laurie’s orphaned daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris), lives with the Carruthers, her adopted family, and suffers the nasty torment of cruel classmates who like nothing more than to remind her she’s A). an orphan and B). niece of The Boogeyman, despite none of them being old enough to remember “ten years ago.”

Jamie is also tormented by The Nightmare Man. In Halloween 5 it’s established that she has a psychic connection to Michael. Her half-sister Rachel (Cornell) is having boy trouble and reluctantly has to babysit Jamie on Halloween Night, thwarting her plans with all-American jock Brady, who instead calls on the Sheriff’s slutty daughter Kelly for his happies.

Meanwhile, Loomis crashes into the cop shop shrieking that Michael is coming back after encountering him at a rundown gas station on route. The police don’t take any chances and begin to search for Jamie, hoping to get to her before her uncle does.

In spite of appearing as a reaction to the success of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, Halloween 4 is a remarkably restrained, almost mature affair. Bloodletting is minimal in favour of creating a similar tension to the ’78 original, with many of the 16 plus kills occurring off screen.

While that can never be recreated, Halloween 4 succeeds in coughing up some excellent scenarios, most notably the rooftop chase, where Rachel and Jamie escape from Michael for the 43rd time by climbing on to the roof of a two storey townhouse. It’s a simple yet effective scene, keying on the dangers of scrambling away from a psychotic maniac and not falling to their deaths simultaneously.

Tossing in a group of gun-toting rednecks anxious to avoid a repeat of “ten years ago” (the number of times they say this evades me, but it’s fair to say the residents go on about it a fair bit, as you would), Michael has apparently achieved the ability of teleportation in his decade off, appearing right where he needs to be at the right time, from the power station to cause a town-wide blackout to the underside of the very truck Jamie and Rachel escape in.

So it’s stupid at times, but what slasher franchise isn’t? Halloween 4 is still better than most just in terms of its production and reluctance to resort to cheap thrills to resurrect the series. Its shock ending grinds uncomfortably with how the next film begins, concerning the link between uncle and niece and they never really state why Michael is so hellbent on killing his entire family… What’s that about?

A solid production, arguably the thinking man’s alternative to the really cheap end of the market, recapturing as best possible the spirit of the flawless original. It’s just a shame that they got greedy as the series went on, because a few more sequels like this would’ve been awesome.

Blurbs-of-interest: Pleasence, Cornell, Harris and Starr all returned for Halloween 5; George P. Wilbur returned to play Michael again in Halloween 6; Danielle Harris was also Annie in the 2007 remake and it’s 2009 sequel and featured in Urban Legend, Blood Night, ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2, Hatchet‘s II and III; and Natty Knocks; Kathleen Kinmont was in Rush Week; Michael Pataki was in Graduation Day and Sweet Sixteen; Pleasence was also in Alone in the Dark and Phenomena; the wacky priest who gives Loomis a ride (Carmen Filpi) was also in 10 to Midnight; the female nurse at the start was one of the doomed toy store employees in Silent Night Deadly Night. Dwight H. Little directed Robert Englund and Jill Schoelen in the slashy version of The Phantom of the Opera in 1989; writer McElroy also wrote Wrong Turn and its 2021 reboot.

Fahrenheit 1988

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COLD PREY III

3.5 Stars  2010/98m

“The legend begins.”

Director: Mikkel Brænne Sandemose / Writers: Lars Gudmestad & Peder Fuglerud / Cast: Ida Marie Bakkerud, Kim S. Falck Jorgensen, Pal Stokka, Julie Rusti, Arthur Berning, Sturla Rui, Endre Hellestveit, Terje Ranes, Nils Johnson.

Body Count: 9

The law of diminishing returns applies quite stoically to the slasher realm. Sequels are more often than not retreads of their predocessors, lacking in imagination and largely barren in the imagination department. They’re cash-ins.

This is the point of view of most.

Me, however, I’ll watch just about any old crap. Although this year I “decided” to give up on camcorder-quality films altogether. There’s never been a good one, so I’m going cold turkey. Oh, how will I cope?

Anyway, in the realm of the NORWEGIAN slasher movie, things are a little different. This is aided by the fact that there are only about half a dozen in existence anyway. Manhunt sucked and probably won’t generate a follow up, but Cold Prey surfed in on a freezing wave of freshness, filling the lungs of a haggard genre with life and resetting certain cliches so they weren’t embarrassing in the context of the film and its kick-ass sequel, which is the hands-down best dayum hospital slasher flick going.

cp3-8-copy1The declaration of a third film was better than the announcement that so-and-so is pregnant with your child. Screw that, there’s gonna be another Cold Prey! Light up a cigar for something more fulfilling.

Neatly, Cold Prey III comes full circle on the 80s homage of the first two films by setting itself in the 80s. The Norwegian 80s. Where everyone loved Kim Wilde.

Yes, it’s prequel time. I’m neither for nor against prequels. I rather enjoyed the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one, to which this bears some similarities. ‘Origin tales’ have become a bit popular in horror lately, or ‘reboots’ that permit a re-telling of Jason, Michael or Freddy’s murderous arc.

Cold Prey III provides a minimal sequence that fills us in on the Fjellmannen’s early years as that kid with the eye-birthmark thing living in the eerie ski lodge. He offs his unloving folks and disappears.

Twelve years later, in what I assumed was a warm spell for Norway as there’s no snow in sight, usher in six bouncy teenagers (four boys, two girls) who want to check out the hotel but end up camping by a beautiful lake. They do the usual teenage things of drinking beer round the fire and being giggly n’ such and two of them wander off for midnight nudie time, which is thwarted when they tumble into an animal trap, which unfatally skewers Knut, leaving final girl-candidate Siri to go and get help.

Fjellmanenn: The Wonder Years finally turns up on scene to start killing and I’ll not give away some factors which make the story different to the other films. Suffice to say, this one owes a fair wad of inspiration to Wrong Turn and is notably bloodier than its kin.

The other teens soon find themselves on the run when they go looking for Knut and Siri and instead find the killer. There’s an energetic race through the woods to an abandoned house, which shows that the ‘USP’ of the Cold Prey brand is still creating tension out of tried and tested sequences: here, Walkman-toting Magne finds himself creeping away from the killer around the ground floor of the tiny cottage. Don’t. Even. Breathe.

Interesting, while Siri is being held captive elsewhere, the final girl reigns are passed over to the ever-frowny Hedda, who, being the only one without injury, is forced to try and save herself, her boyfriend Anders and arrow-through-the-foot-victim Magne.

Hedda does a good job, but she’s no Jannicke. In fact, most of Cold Prey III‘s problems lie in the rather lax characters, some of which barely have any lines before they’re dispatched. There’s a friendly ranger-cum-cop trying to find them after he gave them a ride to the forest in the first place, his estranged backwoods brother and a revelation some two thirds of the way through that links back to a throwaway line from Cold Prey II.

If you divorce the other films from the equation, this is a decent, above average forest-centric slasher flick. Its ties to the lore set out previously are strictly superficial and by cutting a few lines and the hotel scene, you might not even make the connection that the film is even related.

cp3-7aCold Prey III is good enough on its own but don’t wade in expecting the same dizzy heights; this is a cash-in, a contrived way of making a third film without having to somehow resurrect the maniac from his (very final) termination at the end of the previous movie. Production attributes are very good, scenery gorgeous and performances adequate. The good scenes outweigh the bad but, as with all prequels, you can see how it’s going to end, although some effort goes in to subverting an entirely predictable fate for the last one standing, which shows some imagination still at work.

Valley of the Cheapjack Franchises: SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE

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I defy anyone not to find some enjoyment in The Slumber Party Massacre. It’s about the most fun you can have with the overcooked conventions of the slasher film: nubile girls gathered away from adult supervision and a psycho killer boring holes into them with a big phallic powerdrill.

But as a franchise, how does it pan out? One word: Cheap.

THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE

3.5 Stars  1982/18/77m

A.k.a. Sleepless Nights; Slumber Party Murders (original UK video)

“Close your eyes for a second…and sleep forever.”

Director: Amy Holden Jones / Writer: Rita Mae Brown / Cast: Michele Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villella, Debra DeLiso, Andree Honore, Gina Mari, Jennifer Meyers, Joseph Alan Johnson, David Millbern, Jim Boyce, Pamela Roylance, Brinke Stevens, Ryan Kennedy.

Body Count: 12

Dire-logue: “What do you have against Valerie anyway?” / “Nothing…she drinks too much milk.”

Once upon a time, feminists thought slasher movies were a bit offensive to women. There was a lot of woman-as-victim artwork and a fair wad of female naked flesh on show (although it’s worth noting that only 21% of the 553 slasher flicks I’ve seen have more female then male victims).

It wouldn’t be long, therefore, before somebody attempted to reverse the trend and, not so much make a slasher flick for girls, but one that bends the unwritten rules concerning femininity and lunatic killers. The Slumber Party Massacre was originally scripted under the name Sleepless Nights by bisexual feminist author Rita Mae Brown as a parody that was altered by Roger Corman’s production company, who attempted to film it straight, which resulted in an oddly endearing little film with a lot of intentional (and unintentional) humour.

Eighteen-year-old Trish is left alone for the weekend by her folks and decides to invite the girls from her basketball team over. Unknown to her – or she did know and just didn’t give a shit – a homicidal loon has escaped from the local institute blah-de-blah-blah and turns up at her school where he offs a couple of poor maidens who’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, one of whom is Brinke Stevens in her first ‘major’ role.

Kim, Jackie and Diane come over, as do some horny boys, but new-girl Valerie (who conveniently lives across the street) turned Trish down when she overheard Diane dissing her in the locker room. Girl shoulda hit that beyatch up high. Or something.

The driller killer, a fellow of all of five-seven in a denim ensemble, soon appears with his portable power drill and begins doing in the nosy neighbour, and members of the group who venture outside for the usual contrived reasons. Eventually, the killer makes his presence known and attempts to raise help are foiled until Valerie and her precocious little sister Courtney come over to check things out and the remaining girls pool their resources and counter attack the psycho.

The Slumber Party Massacre is nothing special in terms of its look or pastiche-style approach to the genre: it’s a very downmarket production, albeit one that’s pieced together competently enough and acted no worse than anything else from the same era.

The light-hearted playfulness and shallow subtext of the film is what sells it: the pizza delivery scene is gold and when Valerie finally takes on the gnome-like killer, she does so by first hacking off the end of his big, hard…drill. I mean, look at the poster art, a man straddling four cute girls with the drill bit pointed erect in their direction!? It doesn’t get much more phallocentric.

SPM was about the only film before Scream to allow more than one teenage girl to make it out intact. Previously – and in most films that came afterwards – several guys could be left standing but only ever one girl, possibly part of the issue to which feminists took umbrage, as it was common for such a girl to be one who embodied ‘traditional female’ attributes – despite the fact she always kicked ass at the end!

It’s lucky Valerie comes to the rescue, she can operate all manner of powertools of her own (see this Ridiculous scene o’ the month) and swing her machete with vigour. But the other surviving girls lend a hand too.

There’s some decent camera work, interesting kills and plenty of dark humour (the fridge bit is the epitome of awesome) and it never outstays its welcome at a lean 77 minutes. The killer is almost entirely unfrightening but therein lies the appeal of The Slumber Party Massacre, it’s idiotic amusement with more heart than most of its contemporaries.

*

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II

1987/76m  1.5 Stars

A.k.a. Don’t Let Go

Director/Writer: Deborah Brock / Cast: Crystal Bernard, Kimberly McArthur, Juliette Cummins, Heidi Kozak, Atanas Ilitch, Patrick Lowe, Joel Hoffman, Scott Westmoreland, Cynthia Eilbacher, Jennifer Rhodes.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: “Maybe, just maybe… there is a psycho running around here.”

The Bangles. Remember the Bangles? Pop-rock quartet of the mid-80s who sang about shit Mondays, fire that won’t die and walking around like you’re from the middle east? They were cool – imagine if they did a slasher movie where they were terrorised by Elvis. A shit slasher film where they were terrorised by Elvis.

Slumber Party Massacre II allegedly picks up five years after the first film. Valerie’s bratty little sis Courtney is now 17 and a member of an all-girl pop-rock quartet of the mid-80s not called the Bangles. In fact, I don’t think they ever let on what the band is called. Let’s refer to them as the Snap-Ons after those cool braceletty things of said era.

Courtney still has nightmares about that night, but in her dreams the driller killer is no longer pint-sized loon Russ Thorn but the ghost of a 50s rocker whose drillbit extends from the neck of his guitar who is about as scary as Jimmy Ray with a Black and Decker. You remember Jimmy Ray, don’t you?

Despite omens to the contrary, Courtney thinks it’s a good idea to go off with the Snap-Ons for a weekend at Sheila’s parents’ new condo. Her love interest Matt will be there and a couple of other dickhead guys who’re more interested in getting in the girls’ panties than their elevator-brand of melodic rock-pop. Actually, the second song they do isn’t so bad, though it comes after a long montage of girly dancing and topless pillowfights.

SPM II becomes just another Elm Street rip-off before long. Courtney’s dreams seem to spill over into reality – even one where’s she’s in a bubble bath and spooky shit begins to happen; her friend Sally’s zit also morphs into a super-gross pimple-from-hell and bursts all over her. Yuck.

The driller killer manages to cross over from her dreams and start turning holes in her friends, who, up until now, have pretty much laughed off her rantings as “taking too many diet pills, dude!” Sucks to them, then, as they each feel the sharp end of the guitar-o-drill.

Now shit gets really weird: it becomes a musical. A fucking musical. Possibly the first of its kind (and I’ve sat through Sssshhh… and Kucch to Hai). So, the teens begin to flee, the killer able to appear wherever the nearest smoke-machine has been wheeled in, laugh, drill ’em, say something unfunny and blow kisses at Courtney, then stops to sing a rock n’ roll song or two. How long would the 76 minute film be without this crap and a never ending chase through a half-built condo? Things aren’t helped by a twist that makes no sense whatsoever.

Ultimately, it’s always nice to see a couple of familiar slasher movie faces; Juliette Cummins was Robin in Friday the 13th Part V and Heidi Kozak was Sandra in Part VII, but the cheapness of the project, annoying stabs at being funny and the randomness of it all (common in late-80s slashers) shoot drill it in the foot.

If you were to televise a talent contest of slasher movie killers, I think all the driller killers would fare badly. We’ve had the garden gnome un-forebodingness of Russ Thorn and his B*Witched-esque denim wardrobe, and now Teen Angel gone bad with a shitty guitar and shittier songs. Surely the next film will feature a truly unnerving bad guy…?

*

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III

3 Stars  1990/87m

“It’s driller time…and this bit’s for you!”

Director: Sally Mattison / Writer: Catherine Cyran / Cast: Keely Christian, Brittain Frye, Maria Claire, Brandi Burkett, Maria Ford, David Lawrence, Hope Marie Carlton, David Krieger, David Greenlee, Lulu Wilson, Garon Grigsby, M.K. Harris, Devon Jenkin, Marta Kober, Yan Birch.

Body Count: 12

Dire-logue: “You don’t just kill someone who’s lying there!”

It doesn’t.

In terms of production quality, this is probably the best of the original ‘trilogy’. If these films were being shot now, SPM III would likely be classed as a ‘reboot’. With nowt to do with the first two films, things kick off again with a new group of gal-pals in California.

Main chick Jackie is the host of the party this time as she’s going to be moving away with her parents, much to the disappointment of her friends. With the folks away scouting out new homes, Jackie invites Diane, Maria, Janine, Susie, Juliette and Sarah over for a girlie night in. Sarah never shows up because a drill-toting ‘mystery’ killer was waiting for her in the backseat of her car.

The biggest disappointment in the film is the killer’s identity, not because of who it is but the fact that both the back of the box and the trailer make no attempt to disguise it, yet the film goes almost an hour before revealing who it is. In the meantime, there are suspects in Jackie’s uber-strange neighbour, who she finds in her house when she comes home from the beach. Then there’s the weird guy who was spying on them at said beach. He’s lurking too.

Several boyfriends crash the party and the killing soon begins. Isn’t it strange how all three of the films (and to a lesser extent the ‘fourth’ one too) trade on the USP of scantily clad girls being drilled, yet in all of them there are almost as many boys around, none of whom ever survive the carnage. Why aren’t they on the DVD covers in their skivvies, eh? No, really…why?

SPM III unfolds in generic style but does so interestingly enough without compromising itself. It’s a pure slasher flick, with every box ticked:

  • There’s plenty of victims
  • There’s plenty of suspects
  • There’s a trademark weapon
  • There’s a lot of tits

What else could you want, other than a modicum of intelligence. The fact that this is the only film to take itself completely seriously undermines a lot of what happens. The girls are shockingly reluctant to fight back (it’s 1990 girls, not 1920), allowing more of them than is necessary to get drilled to death. Fortunately, it takes more cues from the original when they finally band together with admirable ferocity and gang up on the actually rather weedy looking loon, who has some shitty contrived motive about being impotent and/or molested – quite possibly by the rockabilly dream driller from SPM II.

Despite being ‘of the 90s’ – when the genre truly collapsed until Scream – things look very dated and 80s. The girls dance around their living room in a variety of memorable fashion ensembles. The cast – the best of all the films in terms of ‘known’ faces – features a couple of Playboy girls while several of the others look too similar with their bobbed hair. In fact, the professional glamour models look a million miles away from the rather ordinary girls who do most of the acting. Susie has an appealing Winona Ryder quality about her. Maria attempts to use pop-psychology and sex to calm the killer down…

OK so it’s a rubbish film on most levels but hardcore slasher nuts will doubtlessly derive some joy from its predictable elements, not to mention death by vibrator and another by for sale sign. Good piece o’ banter: “Gimme that poker.” / “Jackie, you’re not going down there.” / “Besides, they’re tongs.”

Look out for Marta Kober – Sandra from Friday the 13th Part 2 – as the pizza delivery girl.

*

THE CHEERLEADER MASSACRE

2003/18/92m  2.5 Stars

A.k.a. Slumber Party Massacre IV

Director: Jim Wynorski / Writer: Lenny Juliano / Cast: Tamie Sheffield, Charity Rahmer, Erin Byron, Lunk Johnson, E. Eddie Edwards, GiGi Enreta, Elizabeth Short, Tylo Tyler, Brad Beck, Summer Williams, Brinke Stevens.

Body Count: 13

Dire-logue: “I knew today was gonna suck when we got those stale donuts.”

Gotta love the opening cliche: no less than 29 seconds in, a girl in a tent hears a strange noise and sends her boyfriend outside to investigate.

So, is this the fourth film in the series or not? Hmm, who knows. It’s the only one not directed by a woman so maybe not. Wynorski directed Sorority House Massacre 2, which notoriously included flashbacks to the original SPM and had fuck all to do with the first SHM.

Here, not only does he use flashbacks from that film again but also goads in genre queen Brinke Stevens as Linda, who supposedly died near the start of the very first film but apparently, y’know, didn’t.Again, he weirdly alters the names of the original characters. She was called Diane, not Ginger! The killer is no longer called Russ Thorn but now Jeremiah McPherson (WHAT?) and the victims were all in their forties. Huh, you say? Yeah – huh?

Ignoring this shit, the film pulls focus on a busload of cheerleaders, their coach, drivers, and two random guys who are there for no clear reason. Stranded in a ‘snowstorm’ (which we never see), they take shelter at a mountain cabin while the local cops look for McPherson and a shady killer off the pom-pom girls and their entourage one by one…

Like his other films, Wynorski crams Cheerleader Massacre full of unnecessary and downright aggravating nudity and graphic sex. At one point the bus driver begins telling a ghost story, which is dramatised for us, that ends up with three chicks naked in a hot tub and licking chocolate sauce off each other!

Much sex, shower scenes and off-screen kills later, the murderer reveals who they are and the final girlies fight back as per the other SPM‘s. Strangely, the screenwriter wisely chooses his heroines, avoiding the usual nice-girl-with-dead-mom route and opting instead for the bitchy girl and the short-fused coach.

So, not as bad as the write-ups but not up to the standards of the films it alludes to following. Well, it’s better than SPM II I guess.

Some strange things: a snowstorm is due, so why is one hiker wearing nothing but a crop-top and short-shorts? Why is the sky so blue and the trees so green? And if the power was cut, why are the lights so obviously on for Ms Hendricks’ shower scene? Oh right, stupid question!

Blurbs-of-interest: SPM: Debra DeLiso was later in Initiation, and Iced, which also featured Joseph Alan Johnson (who wrote it) and he was also in Berserker; SPM II: Juliette Cummins was also in Psycho III and Deadly Dreams; Joel Hoffman was in Aerobicide; SPM III Brittain Frye was in Hide and Go Shriek; Maria Ford was the lead in Stripped to Kill II; Devon Jenkin was in Twisted Nightmare. A 2008 no-budget garbage flick called Spring Break Massacre claims to be an homage. Scream Factory commissioned a remake of the original in 2021.




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