Poupées de chair

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.

Is it terrible? Errr, yeah. Do they really have such things as Cheerleader Camps? The plot is remarkable for a teen slasher movie: not only do the slashing at a summer camp, but it is a summer camp for CHEERLEADERS!

Just the fact that cheerleaders are getting slashed at a summer camp is enough to bring a smile to the face of anyone who loves terrible 80's teen movies, but it is the CASTING that elevates this one to the top of the heap. They have dragged out some of the most bedraggled early 80's teen icons for roles in this. Under what rock did they find Leif Garrett? He doesn't even have a chance to sing. In case you're not up on your trivia, Leif was Brooke Shield's first boyfriend when she was a 13-year old sex symbol (although it was Dean Cain that got to break her in at Princeton). Leif was a Tiger Beat and 16 Magazine staple of the late 70's, battling it out for column space with the Bay City Rollers and even released an album that was a hit, including some of the least inspired Beach Boys covers ever. Then he completely disappeared to the C. Thomas Howell nether regions, only much deeper than C. Thomas has delved. In the Brooke Shields role we have Betsy Russell, who was kind to Phoebe Cates what Phoebe Cates was to Brooke Shields in the early 80's. Rounding out the casting coup are two Playboy Playmates, which is always good for the trivia buff, especially when one of them is Terry Weigel, the only playmate I know of who went on to make hardcore porn. I don't have anything bad to say about Lucinda Dickey, except the idea that the MASCOT also goes to cheerleader camp was just too inspired for words. It simply can't be expressed the joy I get knowing that this film exists. It is a pinnacle of its sort.

This is supposed to be a horror film, but the filmmakers were obviously too preoccupied with the oodles of (first-rate, I must admit) nudity and sex-related jokes to care very much about the "horror" aspect. The film does have at least one astonishingly gory scene, but the killer's identity is painfully predictable; it's practically spelled out for you. Betsy Russell's performance is better than this film deserves. Seriously. (**)

For once, this stereotypical 80's horror movie is not just set in a sport-crazy American high school or at a summertime camp but in.... a combination of both!! An actual cheerleader camp! Do these really exist? Anyway, this setting means there's a double portion of clichés, dumb teenager jokes and naked breasts guaranteed, so it can't be all bad, right? The opening sequence, which seems to come straight from a "Nightmare on Elm Street" sequel, gives us the false impression that "Cheerleader Camp" might be more ambitious than the usual 80's slasher, but it rapidly turns into a silly and by-the-numbers horror comedy. A group of competitive high school girls and two incredibly dumb males attend a camp where the best group (including their mascot) can win tickets for the national cheer leading contest...or something. Of course, their main concern quickly becomes surviving, as there's a vicious killer around as well. The best thing you can say about this film probably is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. The murders only occur halfway through the film because the opening is too busy playing out the fat guy pranks! Travis McKenna (who truly has a gigantic bottom) is more than just a comic relief; he "fills up" the first 40 minutes of this film with vulgar fat-guy behavior, like videotaping the girls sun bathing topless and "mooning" the entire camp through the windows of his van. There's absolutely no attempt to build up tension and the murders are delightfully cheesy. Quite gory, but certainly not unsettling and only diverting your attention from the lousy storyline. The killer's identity is so easily predictable and even the typecasting of Buck Flower as the eerie old janitor couldn't possibly make you doubt.

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.