FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Oct 8, 2015

Day 8: ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE (2013)

"Crazy wicca bullshit."


I knew nothing about All Cheerleaders Die before giving it the good ol' fashioned SHOCKtober go (which sounds a lot hotter than it is, trust me). Wait, that's not true: I knew it was co-written and co-directed by fan fave Lucky McKee, but that didn't get me all excited because I didn't dig May (2002) (holy shit, 2002? that came out in 2002?? how fucking old am I? *turns to dust*) as much as most people. I mean, yeah, I liked it. Of course I liked it! Anna Faris and Angela Bettis are in it, and so is the dude who played Elton in Clueless, and as we all know, Clueless rules. I just mean that everyone seems to hump May's leg, and I'm like, well I could hump it, but I've seen better legs. You know how it is. The point is, I thought this was going to be some postmodern slasher movie or something because nobody seems to be humping All Cheerleaders Die's leg, so I hadn't bothered to read up on it. Turns out, this is not a slasher flick, postmodern or otherwise. It also turns out that I loved this movie so much, why isn't everybody humping its leg??

Look, this imdb.com summary does a really good job of, you know, summarizing the plot:

A rebel girl signs up a group of cheerleaders to help her take down the captain of their high school football team, but a supernatural turn of events thrusts the girls into a different battle.

But there is so much waiting for you to discover, as All Cheerleaders Die goes to unexpected and delightful places. It reminded me of two other films that I heart oh so very hard: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II and The Convent. All three movies have humor, sure, but more than that there's a kind of glee running through them. They are goofy and dorky and take their non-seriousness very seriously. The FX are generally fakey-looking, but it doesn't matter. All Cheerleaders Die is the tamest, least sort-of-gonzo of the trio, but it's a good time just the same. They're fun. And sometimes fun is fun! Yes, even when it's mixed with horror.

All Cheerleaders Die has a lot of the charms that make up the charm bracelet of my life and the things I love: supernatural horror, witches, lesbian witches, clearly defined "bad guys", the simple guilt-free catharsis you sometimes get from revenge movies, and more. The end of the film left room for a sequel–quite literally, in fact, as a title screen called this "Part One." While yesterday I didn't know All Cheerleaders Die from a hole in my head, now everything has changed and I hope that "Part One" business wasn't just a joke because let me tell you, I'm humping Part Two's leg already!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I reviewed this a while back and even mentioned you in my review!

Glad you liked it. It was definitely unexpected that it wasn't just a slasher flick.

Stacie Ponder said...

What! Oh, awesome, gonna go give it a read!

Bloody Mary said...

Well, I took one look at the poster and the 2-star rating and assumed this was a poor copycat knock-off of Diablo Cody's Jennifer's Body. But Lucky McKee made The Woods? and this reminds you of Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II? We are watching this tonight.

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