Satan's Cheerleaders (1977)

In the “party” movies I've covered during Spring Break, there is a distinct cut-off between “party” and “action.” For example, in “Girls' Nite Out,” the first half hour is nearly all party scenes and the latter are pretty much all horror scenes. "Satan's Cheerleaders"'s approach is especially bizarre. This cut is painfully obvious and takes place at the 40-minute mark. If you were to watch a scene from the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes back to back, your initial comment would be “How the hell did this turn into this?”

Right down to the nudity, Satan's Cheerleaders does
the cinematic concept of "nothing" much more justice
than Evils of the Night.

The thing that defines Satan's Cheerleaders as a piece of work really is the first 40 minutes. For those of you who read my review of Evils of the Night, I was bored shitless by its useless and protracted establishment shots. On the other hand, "Satan's Cheerleaders" manages to make the concept of “nothing” intriguing and fun. This movie proves that the old saying “It's not what you say, it's how you say it” applies to cinema just as much as real life.

We open on a beach where we see a large group of kids from Benedict High School excitedly playing pick-up football. The group is supervised by a cast of entertaining side characters, including an overly anxious football coach and Ms. Johnson (Jaqcueline Cole), a female cheer coach who seems like a kindergarten teacher. There's also Mr. Brooks (Jack Kruschen), the incredibly sketchy janitor who is there exclusively to ruin the fun, spending most of his time "telling these darn kids off.” Additionally, we meet our quartet of cheerleaders: Chris, Debbie, Sharon and Patti. These characters are ridiculously happy and over the top for the entire introduction. The movie is explicitly aware of this, taking it so far that their cheer uniforms literally bear their names plastered over their breasts in large letters. It's as if the movie is trying to tell you “Yeah, we know these characters have little identity, so we're just gonna put their names right where you're the most likely to look. There ya go!”

It's vastly entertaining to watch this group of high schoolers. They talk trash to an identical group of kids from the opposing school. The school “bad boy” switches the locker room gender signs around, causing the coach to take a local group of holy people right into the girls' locker room where the cheerleaders are changing. Ms. Johnson is there, too, because the girls follow her around like a pack of Pikmin. The football coach is constantly panicking that his players will wind up injured before the big game, vocalizing these concerns whenever they engage in even the most minor of physical contact. These sorts of situations absolutely saturate the first 40 minutes of "Satan's Cheerleaders" and an uber-happy 70's rock and disco soundtrack is notably present the entire time. Nearly no sense of story is established, and that's not a bad thing at all if you don't mind style over substance.

"Satan's Cheerleaders" isn't absolutely devoid of substance, hence the latter 50 minutes. The film focuses in on Mr. Brooks, who is a secret adherent of Satanism. We get our fair share of decent Satanic imagery, but the movie's innocent vibe shines through regardless. After a short prayer, “Satan, oh Lucifer, deliver from my hands... those who make fun of me and laugh at me!” The evil janitor takes off to land our cheerleading team in hot water.

While driving to an out-of-town game, the cheerleading team's van pops a tire. Conveniently, good old Mr. Brooks happens to be driving by. He maniacally drives the group directly into a remote forest, where he proceeds to perform some kind of strange ritual on one of the cheerleaders, Patti (Kerry Sherman). The girl becomes an entirely different personality: previously the mellow member of the group, she is now outspoken, confident, and entirely aware of Mr. Brooks' evil plan. Among the 3 other faceless cheerleaders, Patti definitely sticks out as the best-acted of the group. (Sherman even had several spots on great TV shows such as "Murder, She Wrote", "Hawaii Five-O" and "The Six Million Dollar Man").

Our cheerleaders find themselves in an odd, isolated little forest town where they meet the “sheriff,” Mr. Bubb (John Ireland). His wife, Mrs. Bubb is portrayed by Yvonne De Carlo (Lily Munster from “The Munsters” TV show). The crew is held captive in Mr. Bubb's cabin as Mr. Bubb and his Satanic cult prepare for a ritualistic sacrifice. The scenes that follow aren't great, but they're not bad. The group attempts to escape several times. It turns out that the pseudo-town they're in is actually run by Bubb's Satanic cult. The Bubbs turn against each other, we're given a healthy dose of unintentional humor. It's pretty standard stuff, but it's all shot, directed, and produced pretty well.

The first half of "Satan's Cheerleaders" may outshine the second half due to its relentless sense of charm and happiness, but the movie competently staples the two halves together and it really works. The result is an enjoyable, silly little movie that's definitely worthy of multiple viewings.