Satan's Cheerleaders

Well, what are you really expecting with a title like this one any way? Art? Basically, the producers deliver what is expected: adolescent humour, lots of young girls scantily clad, atrocious 70's music and outfits that would make Cher look like a groovy dresser, wooden performances, John Carradine in yet another laughable part, tissue-thin plot, and so on. Four teenaged cheerleaders and their teacher, all beautiful and partially clothed, get lost on route to a football game. They eventually are given a ride by the janitor at the school who has been ogling them through holes in the wall, and just happens to belong to a coven of Satanists led by sheriff Bub, played by John Ireland. The janitor takes them on a ride only to get knocked out after attempting to rape the blonde that seems to have powers. The girls manage to get away and go to the sheriff for help, only to discover that he is their worst nightmare(not really as nothing in this film is even close to being suspenseful). The rest...really is very trite and uninteresting, except for its comic appeal to afficionados of bad cinema. The film boasts quite an impressive line-up of famous character actors(all of them wasted) with Ireland, Carradine, Yvonne De Carlo, and Sydney Chaplin(the funniest of the cast). The girls are dirty-minded and everything they say has some double meaning. At least they are not shy, a small point in the film's favor. Watch at your own risk, but certainly good for an evening of laughs..the unintended kind.

It's been a long time since I laughed so hard while watching a movie. The first thirty minutes are unbearable (boring teenagers fooling around on the beach) but then it gets interesting. The janitor of the high school is so frustrated with the unruly kids that he joins some Satanists. What's more, he lusts after a girl who could well be his granddaughter, and he expects that his new affiliation opens new perspectives in that field.

The janitor has to drive the cheerleaders and their coach to a road game. Of course, he takes the wrong road leading to a kind of an open air altar in the undergrowth. His attempt to „freeze" his passengers and then get at the cheerleader who is the object of his lust fails miserably. The cheerleaders escape, leaving the janitor for dead. They ask a bum for directions and end up in the house of the nearest country sheriff and his wife. Little do they know ...

I always suspect that this kind of American movie has the purpose to assuage a natural hunger for myths and fairy tales of which the USA has not its own „national treasure" like more ancient nations. As a matter of fact, Satan's Cheerleaders is structured like a traditional fairy story. The cheerleaders are Red Riding Hood, the Satanists are the Big Bad Wolf. It's clearly a conflict between old and young. The old actually get a pretty rough deal here whereas the young come through as pretty – and above all: clean – yet bland, uninspired and with an utter lack of any imagination. Interesting is the cheerleader's coach, an infantile, good hearted, innocent and disarmingly helpless woman who in a weird way represents eternal youth. It is actually quite a well played and interesting part.

The old actors rule supreme. This is probably not surprising as they are experienced pros with distinguished careers. The longer I watch movies the more I admire those actors like John Carradine (who plays the bum) who are not choosy about the parts they accept and deliver a good performance whatever the circumstances. Yvonne de Carlo gets the most laughs. The teenagers make her desperate and she starts praying to Satan for their annihilation. The prayer she repeats all over starts with „howdy" – so at least I know now how to address the devil, should the occasion arise.

The sheriff's two dogs are a major asset (there is also the cameo of a goat without consequence). They are called Diablo and Lucifer and should be fierce, but they are not. The biggest convulsions I had to suffer from came as Yvonne de Carlo runs up to them, unexpectedly leans forward and gasps „kill". The nearest dog instinctively draws his head back, disapprovingly raising an eyebrow. A cartoonist couldn't have done it better!

I suppose Satan's cheerleaders will never make it into the Library of Congress. But maybe it should.

With all the movies that came out in the 70's about satanic cults and sexy cheerleaders it was almost inevitable that someone would make a satanic cheerleader movie. It's only surprising that it took so long. This movie starts out as typical cheerleader sexploitation. It's tamer than most (I think it was originally rated "PG"!) with only brief snatches of nudity in an unusually circumspect shower scene and a lot of up-the-skirt camera shots. It certainly doesn't hold a candle to some of the earlier cheerleader films (which border on softcore porn), but it does have the usual atrocious acting, groan-inducing jokes and sexual double-entendres, and godawful 70's music.

It would be a waste-of-time T and A film (with precious little T or A)if not for an interesting turn halfway through where the cheerleaders'bus breaks down on the way to a game and they have a run-in with a small-town satanic cult(lead by b-movie luminaries like John Ireland,Yvonne DeCarlo, and John Carradine). Hilariously, the cult is looking for an "unsullied maiden" to sacrifice to Satan (if they'd seen one of these cheerleader movies they'd definitely look somewhere else). This satanic subplot is not the least bit scary, but it is enjoyably cheesy and the jokes start to hit more than miss. "They're all of them witches!" one especially dumb cheerleader says, making an unintentional allusion to the granddaddy of all devil movies, "Rosemary's Baby". Another girl is quite indignant that the cult wants to use her as a virgin sacrifice: "I'm no maiden--I've been a cheerleader for three years!".

If you're a pervert with a cheerleader fetish you're probably better off sticking to stronger stuff like the original "The Cheerleaders" (or a hardcore porn movie like "Debbie Does Dallas"), but if you enjoy ridiculous devil movies and/or cheesy 70's flicks like I do, you'll no doubt find this to be a pleasant little diversion.

As many others before me have likely pointed out, "Satan's Cheerleaders" is really too tame to work that well as an exploitation film. However, provided one refuses to take it seriously, they *can* have some fun with it. There is a sense of humour present, and a tongue in cheek tone. Co-written and directed by B movie veteran Greydon Clark ("Without Warning"), it's an amiable enough bag of garbage.

Still, one has to sit through way too much tomfoolery (for at least the first third of the movie) as nothing that entertaining happens. Kerry Sherman (as Patti), Hillary Horan (as Chris), Alisa Powell (as Debbie), and the well endowed Sherry Marks (as Sharon) play our title characters. On their way to a football game, they're waylaid by Billy (Jack Kruschen), the bumbling, stuttering janitor at their school. They've been selected as sacrifices for local Satan worshippers led by a genial sheriff (John Ireland) and his nutty wife (Yvonne De Carlo).

Devotees of cinematic trash may take exception to a low body count, an absence of gore, and the limited amount of bare female flesh. This is closer to the kind of thing one might expect to see in TV movie treatment of such material. The slumming big name cast provides some curiosity value; De Carlo appears to be serious, but Ireland is clearly kidding around, John Carradine knowingly hams it up as a bum, Kruschen is appropriately off putting, and Sydney Chaplin has some fun as one of the Devils' disciples. He plays a monk, and actually gets addressed as "Monk"; also, the girls have their names stenciled on their tops just so we're never in doubt as to who is who. Director Clarks' wife Jacqueline Cole plays Phys. Ed. teacher Ms. Johnson.

When the sheriffs' actual name is "B.L. Bubb", you know you're not watching high art, or anything remotely subtle.

Recognizable names among the crew are cinematographer Dean Cundey, camera operator Ray Stella, and script supervisor Debra Hill.

Five out of 10.

This one is a scream. It's in my schlock hall of fame collection. LOL

If you haven't seen Yvonne DeCarlo in full post-Lily-Munster devil-priestess regalia, about to be torn to shreds by Dobermans named Lucifer and Diablo (the writers weren't trusting us to be capable of interpreting subtleties here) and crying out "Satan, why hast thou forsaken me?" you just haven't lived.

But wait. There's more. How much would you pay for a defrocked Catholic priest-turned-Satan-worshiper who can't seem to shake the habit of crossing himself and who frets prissily over the prospect of the intended Cheap Ho cheer leaders -- who are currently escaping from the clutches of the coven -- being attacked by the killer Dobies ("Oh, we mustn't soil the maidens," he flutters)?

Or a cheer leading sponsor who seems to have stepped out of some bizarre Oral Roberts University parallel universe where she just can't IMAGINE the idea that wearing short skirts and tight sweaters and jumping high enough to show your underpants might be construed as provocative to the males of the species?

Or a speech-impaired school janitor (who spends his off hours slathered in the worst seventies polyester leisure outfits ever manufactured) who makes a stammering vow to avenge the students who make fun of him by turning them over to the high priest of the devil coven for justice?

How about a sheriff named "B.L. Bubb" (again with the aversion to subtlety) who has to be the most wooden performer since Adam West in "Batman" or Charlton Heston in "The Ten Commandments" -- maybe since he and Charlton shared the divine Miss DeCarlo as a wife, something in her aura caused them to be stricken with Over The Top Acting Syndrome?

Now how much would you pay? But then, I can't fault anyone, since I did shell out five bucks for this one on a remaindered supermarket video rack. And I probably would have gone as high as fifteen to claim this gem of Drive In Infamy for my personal collection. LOL