Spoiler Alert:

I shall be analysing each of step All Cheerleaders Die, looking through its play-book and observing its routine to determine if the film is victorious or a loser. So read on only if you’ve already seen All Cheerleaders Die, or don’t plan to.

00:00:28 Mäddy (the inimitable Caitlin Stasey) is filming a student documentary on her high school’s cheerleaders, to the strains of a hard rap to beat [“Medication” by All Day].

Blackfoot High Media Technologies Class

Student Profile #4

Alexis Grace Andersen

Dir: Mäddy Killian

Screen card introducing us to our first victim. That we see this even before the opening credits says this film moves along at a good clip. Also, note Mäddy’s surname. Coincidence? Coincidence like flight attendants banging on the lav door when you’re making the wrong noises is coincidence.

0:00:42 In an interview about cheerleading…

Mäddy: So why do it?

Lexi (Felisha Cooper): Because it’s dangerous.

Mäddy: Like you can sprain a tit or something?

0:00:59 I like the editing so far. Very quick, but not too much so. I’m not even that put off by the old women (23 – 27 years old) dressed up as one of my least favourite American’ts: the cheerleader.

0:01:33 Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) steps in front of Mäddy’s shot and looks either like a serial killer or his victim.

0:03:21 A pain in Lexi’s neck. This film is so good so far.

0:03:35 Flash forward three months later (two days before senior year) and rap, like the girls, is not yet dead.

0:04:04 WTF!? For some odd reason, Lexi’s widower boyfriend Terry (Tom Williamson as black football stud) is driving her car with a new cheerleader girlfriend beside him (Brooke Butler as Tracy). I understand that he’s riding Lexi’s friend, but her car…?

0:04:52 Hannah (Amanda Grace Cooper), the school mascot, is another cheerleader’s little sister (Reanin Johannink is Martha Popkin). Think of her as a pet.

0:07:48 Mäddy joins the cheerleading squad and straight boys the world over rejoice in having one more girl in a half shirt and short skirt to amuse and abuse themselves to.

0:09:02 Mäddy swears she’ll make Tracy and Terry pay for crocheting crotches so soon after Lexi died.

0:09:58 Leena is Mäddy’s stalker, to the point of naming her pussy after Madeleine. (Kitten, actually.)

0:11:46  Bikini party montage.

Oh man, I want her to piss in the pool.

Footballer George Shank (Chris Petrovski)

0:16:15 Mäddy and Tracy sit in a car with girl folk music (Shay Astar – Selena).

Tracy: Mäddy, is the rumour about you and Leena true?

Mäddy: What’s the rumour

That you kiss like a snail. #LGBT

0:21:00 Apparently time has passed because, though it appears to be the same night as the pool party, the cheerleaders are now getting drunk with the footballers in a cemetery. Time flies when you’re a teenager, or a bad editor.

0:30:18 When Terry arrives at the party and tells his teammates there won’t be any fraternisation with the cheerleaders, Tracy ripostes:

Three people in my 17 years have made me cum. Myself, of course. This really sweet boy at summer camp, the summer after freshman year. Lovely fingers on that boy. And then, not even ten minutes ago, I got my friggin’ socks rocked off – by Mäddy. But never by you, Terry.

That’s below the belt.

0:30:50 The beginning was promising, but this film is on the edge of devolving into “Vampire Diarrhoeas”. Or “Pretty Little Whiners”.

0:31:12 Terry gives Tracy a punch, and he’s not a bartender. #abuser

0:33:26 Terry forces the carload of cheerleaders to drive off of an embankment into a shallow, fast flowing river. None of the boys with him, however, is inclined to call the police or an ambulance. Evidently, they’re like university boys who prefer their girls wet, underage, and unconscious.

0:37:42 Leena uses her magic stones mixed with her blood and the light of the full moon to make zombies of the cheerleaders. The stones enter non sexual orifices like fingers of a blind teen trying to find third base.

0:39:16 Zombie Tracy wakes up with the other girls at Leena’s place and throws a cat across the room, killing it. Apparently, you can swing a dead cat without hitting a zombie in this film.

0:40:48 Martha the cheerleader switched places with Hannah the mascot. #FreakFriday

0:45:42 Tracy goes across the street in her knickers and kills Larry the neighbour. In doing so, she calls the other zombie girls and they help kill Larry because all of them have big stones. And they eat Larry out.

0:49:53 Very nice. In addition to their exits, the living dead know how to make quite an entrance.

(The song is “Look Out Young Son”, by Grand Ole Party)

0:51:35 WTF!? Lena makes the stones dance on her desk and the one embedded in her chest glows like a headlamp, and no one in the entire class notices anything? Perhaps the rumours are true and American students don’t pay attention.

0:57:01 Al K Hall nudity alert. Breast double for Reanin Johannink.

0:59:16 Tracy goes with the marijuana addict sports star and levitates a glowing stone through his head before drinking his floating blood. Meanwhile, Hannah (in her religious sister, Martha’s body) has sex with the obsessed athlete. The other girls experience the physical sensations vicariously and collapse where they are, writhing in ecstasy on the pavement like worms on hot pavement.

1:01:28

Dude, it happened. Me, Martha, the handicapped bathroom… Dude, I was all up in that sweet, sweet freezer.

Manchester Mankiewitz after he sexes his crush

As it’s Manny’s first time, he doesn’t realize only most vaginas are frigid.

1:04:36 Martha (in Hannah’s body) kills Mannny because he had sex with her sister. She throws him against a tree, in keeping with the ‘wood’ theme.

1:08:21 WTF!? How did Terry and George know exactly where to go in the middle of the night to find their mate’s body? Do they have a sick sense?

1:12:42 While Martha is attacked by the surviving footballers, Mäddy tells the story of when she was raped by Terry days after Lexi was killed. Terry just can’t keep his penis to himself. Unfortunately, Mäddy hasn’t heard of calling the police, but she has heard about elaborate plans of revenge that can very easily backfire.

1:13:17 Terry digs out Martha’s stone from her side with a knife big enough to carve any turkey (except for Apartment 1303).

1:13:26 WTF!? Why does zombie Hannah have to drop her phone to run?

1:14:34 Martha dies again when Terry pulls the stone from her body. Poor girl, can’t stop dying. So Hannah’s body (with Martha inside), kills George by dropping beats on his head with a ghetto blaster.

1:14:44 Terry swallows the stone and becomes super-powered as well. #stoner

1:16:52 Terry takes off in the van with Hannah’s body, which he’s destroying limb by limb. In pursuit is Mäddy, refreshed from taking blood from Vik (the handsome, young Jordan Wilson), the only redeemable character in the film. Leena is on the motorcycle with her, and Tracy is following in Larry-the-neighbour’s car. It’s a parade I’ve dubbed Mardi Gross.

1:18:21 Terry killed Hannah and eats her stone as well, so he has rocks in more places than his head.

1:20:14 Zombie Tracy dies, this time in Terry’s animal traps, and loses her stone. What’s more, Terry has captured Leena, making Mäddy the only living zombie not in captivity. #EndangeredSpecies

1:22:32 While Mäddy attacks Terry, Lena uses the remaining stones to pull the stones that Terry swallowed out of him, killing Mäddy in the process. You can’t always kill who you want. So Leena screams loud enough for a stone to burn Mäddy’s throat and resuscitate her.

1:23:42 Mäddy and Leena kiss, a lot. I honestly am impressed that there’s a modern horror film marketed towards young people with a 17-year-old lesbian as the heroine. Even better, her sexuality isn’t presented as a selling point of the film, just as a natural aspect of average high school life. #credit

1:23:52 One of Terry’s stones sinks into the ground over Lexi’s grave, bringing her back to life, though she looks a little worse for where she’s been. Death be not proud…or sexy.

Roll credits

The music during the credits is a compilation of all the songs in the film and reminds me of the radio stations in Vice City.

Tally Ho’

• WTF!?’s: 4 screamers
• When to Follow: Not a traditional horror film – it’s better. If you’re looking for something to scare the shite out of you, look elsewhere, but if you’re in the mood for something cheap that’ll show you a good time, there’s a $10 whore, Boone’s Farm wine or All Cheerleaders Die. This film may not be perfect, but it’s close enough for me.
• Where’s This Found: Out of a possible 10, I have 7 F’s to give.

All GIFs used in this review were created with the Imgflip online meme generator