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Satan's Cheerleaders
[VCI]
1977; color
Directed by Greydon Clark
Starring: John Ireland, Yvonne De Carlo, Jack Kruschen, John Carradine, Sydney Chaplin, Jacqueline Cole, Kerry Sherman, Hillary Horan, Alisa Powell & Sherry Marks
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I first saw this movie a long time ago, when I was an impressionable young lass, on one of Philly's local UHF channels, then-bastion of all sorts of weird programming. Perhaps it was the mixture of Satanism and cheerleading that originally drew me to the film. (Although I don't know, I've never been much for cheerleaders; or cheerleading for that matter.) Perhaps it was more the fact that it featured Yvonne "Lily Munster" De Carlo as a devil worshipping sheriff's wife. (And, just so you know what you're in for here, her husband's name is B.L. Bubb and they have two large Dobermans - one named Diablo, the other Lucifer.) Either way I've always had fond memories of the film. So, yes, even at the tender age of thirteen I had what most people would consider horrible taste in movies. But let's try and stay on topic. In retrospect this made such an impression on me that even though I literally have not seen it in at least fifteen years, I remembered pretty much the entire film, in some instances complete with dialogue. Except the part where the evil, stuttering, perverted janitor places what we can only assume is a Satanic curse of some sort on a pair of one of the cheerleaders panties. That crucial detail escaped me somehow. I did remember the evil, stuttering, perverted janitor's outfits though! (They may, in fact, be the scariest part of the film.) Maybe the panty incident was edited out for television. What's funny is that, as a teenager, I always assumed they cut out a lot of nudity and racy parts in order to show it on TV but in reality, according to this DVD edition at least, the nudity was generally absent - at least in comparison to every other movie with the word "cheerleader" in the title - and the raciness was largely implied. Another thing that I missed during my earlier experience was that this is some sort of horror / comedy. At the time I thought the people behind this film were making a totally serious attempt at making a horror film and just failing miserably, to the point that the movie was laughable. Now I'm starting to think it might actually be a parody of sorts and, in places at least, intentionally funny. As far as the plotline goes, this starts off very much like all other movies of this ilk with many shots of the girls bouncing around and letting people look up their skirts… uh, I mean practicing their cheers… and many more ridiculous, thinly veiled, and not so thinly veiled, examples of horny high school sexual innuendo. What sets it apart from other movies of this ilk is that, as the movie progresses, little bits of Satanic hoo-ha start to weave their way into the plotline. By the time you're halfway into the film, it's a full on cheerleader squad, and cheerleader coach, versus gang of small town satanic perverts duel to the virgin sacrifice. (A virginal cheerleader? How could it not be considered a comedy.) Will the girls survive this unfortunate series of events in order to resume their responsibilities of screwing the football team? Will Lily Munster be crushed by her seriously unstable Satanic altar? And why is the one big-eyed cheerleader always staring off into space while ominous music plays? All these questions, and more, will be raised and kind of answered for those who dare sit through the entire movie.
—Bunny
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