RELEASE DATE: 1986
RATED: R
REVIEWED BY: The DarkSider
The film starts out with a bunch of majorettes doing their thing in practice. I suppose the film makers wanted us to suspend disbelief to think that most of the �kids� in this movie were high school age. If thats the case, I�d say most of them were on the 8-year graduation plan. During the highly uncoordinated routine led by coach Marie , a nerdy fellow by the name of Tommy is snapping photos. Also watching them is a creepy janitor named Harry.
The girls hit the showers (go figure in the first 5 minutes no less...bad sign plot wise) and we find out Harry is a peeping tom. He snaps a few pictures of the girls getting undressed from his hiding spot.
Cue up pointless subplot number one which features Harry�s mother Helga who is taking care of a woman named Elvira. No not the Mistress Of The Dark, rather an old lady who pretty much stares into oblivion for the whole movie. Fear not though, she turns out the film�s best acting performance. Helga talks sh*t to the vegetable Elvira how she is going to one day inherit her millions. Turns out, Elvira is the grandmother to one of the majorettes named Vicki. This stupidity comes full circle much later though.
For the next hour or so the film focuses on a psychotic killer on the loose killing off the majorettes. The first one to go is a girl named Nicole. She hooks up with Tommy and informs him that she is pregnant with a guy named Mace�s kid. Tommy informs us that Mace is one of the biggest dope pushers in school. More plot stupidity this way comes later. Anyhow, an unknown assailant slices and dices them. Oddly, the killer dunks Nicole in water much like Baptists do. Once again...more stupidity to be covered later.
Local Sheriff Braden gets on the scene and is assisted by Magnum PI clone Roland Martell. Martell informs the Sheriff that the killer will strike again. Wouldn�t you know it, he is right. After all we still have a bit of movie time to fill. Cue up a few more deaths with the obligatory drawn out stalker scenes leading up to them.
The film, somewhere in the middle, introduces star quarterback Jeff. He is rather upset about the recent deaths and his majorette girlfriend feels the same way. As you can probably guess, his chick gets off�d later in the film. After one of the deaths, he gives law enforcement inside information about Mace.
Speaking of the bad boy who I mentioned several paragraphs ago, Mace is introduced as well. His gang of baddies (who I swear none were under 40) talk in a horribly constructed make shift strip bar about how Mace is being blamed for the slasher killings. Mace maintains his innocence and responds with that his current girlfriend is his alibi. He also swears vengeance on Jeff.
Well 800 years into the plot later, turns out Harry got a snapshot of the killer who happens to be Sheriff Braden...gasp! The Sheriff tell us that he dunks his victims in water to purify their souls. Um ok...Helga blackmails the Sheriff into killing Vicki when she turns 18. That way she can collect all of Elvira�s assets. Um ok...who the f*ck filled out that will?
Now here is where the film absolutely loses whats left of it�s mind. Mace catches up with Jeff who is hanging out with Vicki. Harry, who gets the right place at the right time award, spies on them. Mace and his gang abduct the two and take them to some sort of warehouse. The gang start to mess with Vicki and the obligatory �hey thats enough man� gang member steps in. This one so happens to greatly resemble Pete Townshend of The Who. By the way, why does every damn gang in movie history have to have the �hey thats enough man� member?
Anyhow, Harry arrives which makes sh*t go haywire. Everyone minus Jeff, Mace and a few of his gang members get out alive. Jeff, in one of the most unbelievable antihero angles ever, turns into Commando. He heads home, takes the obligatory look at a picture of his deceased lover, gets an M60 out of a gun cabinet (were they that easy to get back then???) and heads out to confront Mace and his gang.
He finds Mace and his friends who are hanging out in their trailer. How do we know its their trailer; from the graffiti outside that reads �AC/DC� and �666" silly. Anyhow, Jeff MacGyvers his shirt to explode the gang�s van and quickly starts popping holes in the gang�s ass. All the while, cars explode everywhere for no apparent reason.
Jeff wounds Mace who stumbles out into the woods. Mace leaves false blood trails to fool Jeff. Somehow it didn�t seem he was squirting much blood to do that but really, I didn�t care by this point. Jeff catches up with Mace and kills him off after saying �I got you�. I had to add �sucka� after he said it to make it proper.
Realizing the film had a forgotten slasher angle to wrap up, Helga gets word of Harry�s demise and kills off Elvira. She brags about how she is glad she still has the incriminating photos of the Sheriff. However the Sheriff, who apparently had no problem finding these ever so important photos, kills off Helga and makes it looks like a suicide. The film wraps up with a rather dark ending which features Mace getting penned for the murders and the Sheriff getting off scot free.
So although I give points for the dark ending but I have no frickin� clue where this film�s focus was at times. Perhaps the biggest shocker of them all is the movie is based on a book by one John Russo. You know, the guy who partially brought us the screenplay for Night Of The Living Dead. I can�t blame him for any ill thoughts I have on this film mainly because I have never read his book. At heart it tried to be a decent slasher film but really ended up being a clone of any psycho on the loose film in the 80s.
The football quarterback turned renegade angle really blew my mind. Where it belonged in the film is beyond me. Oh well, it was the 80s and it was the guideline to have crap blow up somewhere in the movie after all. Too bad it was the plot that got blown to pieces like a colon after Indian food.
1.) Majorette Problems - Majorettes get killed in the shower, while swimming and making out. I can�t believe how unbelievably original these death situations were. Um yeah...
1.) Harry - I recall a janitor just like this guy in my elementary school. You�d swear his eyes were on you but then again every kid in the school felt that way. He�d run in at the first sign of someone chucking a tater tot with a look in his eyes like he was going to decapitate the perpetrator. Looking back, I�m beginning to think many school janitors were the devil�s imp.
2.) Helga - A graduate of the Mengele school of medicine.
3.) Mace And His Gang - Supposedly the high school�s roughest bunch of dope pushers. Although I�m almost certain that these guys had their offspring as classmates.
