Holy heck, it's been a while! Welcome to the first weekly digest for MMMMM2016. It is also, possibly, the shortest MMMMM update in my horror-blogging history, as the month started on a Saturday. Thanks a lot, linear time!
In the interest of keeping this compact, let's get right to it. First, a gentle reminder of my grading system:
A =
Excellent, a must see
B = Very
good, I’d watch it again
C = Worth
Seeing
D = Maybe
don’t bother
F = Worthless
+ = Superior
for this grade
- = Just
barely makes it into this grade
And then just another reminder of my usual stance on spoilers: I WILL DROP THEM! This week I show a little restraint, but you won't get off so lucky next time...
It's hard
out there for sex-happy cheerleaders. First the rival school ruins your beach
day, then they toilet paper your football field, and then, on the way to the
big game, you run into engine trouble, and end up having to hitch a ride with
your school's creepy janitor, Billy. But things take an unexpected turn for our
girls (Patti, Chris, Debbie, Sharon and their over-optimistic coach, Ms.
Johnson), when Billy abducts them, leads them to a strange altar, and begins
chanting weird mumbo-jumbo that starts to make the screen turn red. Turns out
Billy is part of a surprisingly-relevant-to-the-story satanist cult, and Satan
has promised him whatever he wants (this means Patti). The girls overwhelm
Billy, accidentally killing him in the process, sending them running into the
arms of local sheriff B. L. Bubb. Bubb, of course, is the leader of the same cult,
and the girls' arrival seems to be the perfect opportunity to sacrifice 'the
purest one' to his Dark Lord. After some bumbling escape attempts (Surprise!
The entire town is the satanist cult!), the girls are brought before the altar.
Thankfully, Patti just so happens to be Satan's chosen one, mightier than the entire cult
combined, and turns the tables on those jerks.
Okay, so
there's maybe a little more to it than that (including a small, but clever
twist, concerning who the purest of the girls is), but not very much, really.
For a film advertised as a group of cheerleaders raising hell in the Dark
Lord's name, what you get is a pretty dim story of normal cheerleaders being chased
around by satanists. This film was slapped together cheaply to be thrown
together with similar shlock as a double feature at drive-ins. The film-making
is boring, the effects are cheap and sparse, and the script seems like it only
existed at times. The first half of Satan's Cheerleaders is an offbeat high
school comedy ('comedy' might be kind, as the jokes whiff a lot), but the
second half is a confusing mess of reverberated audio effects and red tints.
About 75% of the movie takes place in a forest, but that's probably due to
budget restrictions. There's a few boobs (along with heavy doses of unfunny,
badly delivered innuendo) - which were likely enough to please drive-in crowds
of the 70s - but they, like the film itself, are pretty weak.
The few positives
would include the rockin' disco theme song (1977, the year the film was
released, would have been disco's prime, before it 'died' in '79), and the
aforementioned twist at the end. But none of that can hope to redeem this kind
of nonsense. There's not even the hope of unintentional laughs, as Satan's
Cheerleaders lacks the charisma to have them. I guess what I'm trying to hammer
home is that this was not considered a gem of the 1970s, and it has aged
poorly. Next!
------------------
Well, that was short, but sweet, no? I still have 30-some options to choose from in the coming month, but tonight I'll be moving on to the much-hyped It Follows. Consider my expectations mitigated. Join me next week for a much healthier entry on this, and six other horror flicks.
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