Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977)

Once you’ve come up with a title like Satan’s Cheerleaders, most of your work should be done. I mean, what’s so complicated about mixing devil worship with sexy teenagers? Based on the evidence of this misbegotten attempt at a comedy/horror hybrid, apparently the process is trickier than it seems, because director Greydon Clark and his collaborators botched the job. Beyond simply being amateurish, dumb, and tacky, Satan’s Cheerleaders doesn’t even have enough sex and violence to pass muster as a guilty pleasure. The story follows a quartet of horny cheerleaders and their goody-two-shoes coach, Ms. Johnson (Jacqueline Cole), through a series of adventures. Among other things, the cheerleaders make fun of a simple-minded janitor, Billy (Jack Kruschen). Later, when Ms. Johnson’s car breaks down while she’s driving the girls to a game, Billy comes along in his pickup truck, abducts the ladies, and announces his plans to rape all of them. Then he gets into yet another accident. After escaping from Billy, the ladies make their way to the home of a sheriff (John Ireland), unaware that he’s the leader of a devil-worshipping cult. Oh, and one of the cheerleaders, Patti (Kerry Sherman), discovers that she has magical powers. Not one moment of this flick is believable or suspenseful, because the acting is as atrocious as the writing, with stupidity guiding the behavior of all of the characters. Jokes fall flat in every scene, leering shots of scantily clad babes are distasteful, and supernatural moments are filmed so clumsily as to create narrative confusion. Sleaze-cinema fans should content themselves with enjoying the movie that the title Satan’s Cheerleaders conjures in their reptile brains, because it’s a damn sight better than this one.

Satan’s Cheerleaders: LAME