Head Cheerleader Dead Cheerleader (2000)

HEAD CHEERLEADER DEAD CHEERLEADER

WRITER: Jeff Miller

DIRECTOR: Jeff Miller

STARRING: Tasha Biering as Heather
Daniel Justin Roach as Danny
Andre Walker as Chris
Bobby Cerutti as Coach Cranford
Bill Roberson as Sheriff Bookman
Bob Carter as Joseph Hatterman
Amy R. Swaim as Rose
Amber Coker as Jezebel
Beth Hunt as Violet
Noelle Manuel as Molly
Debbie Rochon as Coach Elaine Riley

QUICK CUT: School rivalries reach the breaking point as the big game approaches.

THE MORGUE

Heather - The titular head cheerleader, less so the titular dead cheerleader. She has a reputation of going through boyfriends quickly, and being the leader of her squad. She also sits around the house a lot waiting for plot to come knocking.

Danny - Heather’s most recent boyfriend, the quarterback on the football team. He’s your typical jock, and a bit possessive.

Chris - Heather’s ex boyfriend. He’s also on the football team, and an aspiring artist. He desperately wants to get back together with Heather.

Coach Cranford - The football coach, a bit too hands of, and very appreciative of the scantily clad cheerleaders.

Sheriff Bookman - The top cop in town, who had a thing for Heather’s mom, and still clearly carries the torch for her, now that her father is dead.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Rahrah Trisk boom bah! This week, Trisk breaks out the pom poms and practices our tosses to cheer on our latest movie, Head Cheerleader Dead Cheerleader. I know less about this movie than I know about cheerleading, which is already a very low bar. It's an early 2000s slasher, it has cheerleaders, and that's about it. So let's get out on the field, girls, and give them a show!

Before the movie even begins, during the credits, we are already off to a great start. The movie apparently got criticism during it's production, and they decided to put one of the calls hoping they get sued if any cheerleaders are hurt 'because' of the movie. Amazing. If it’s real. I have no idea if this is a bit to have fun with horror always being on concerned parents’ shitlists, or if it’s legit.

After that, we get a proper start with the titular head cheerleader, Heather, meeting with football coach Cranford after practice. We learn one of the other cheerleaders has gone missing, and that people from colleges will be at tomorrow's big game. And if they beat the other team, especially their star quarterback, everything will be golden! I mean, the cheerleaders have little to nothing to do with that, but sure!

On the way home, Heater bumps into the very Christian Jezebel...really? and how she's upset that she didn't make the squad. The movie is definitely wasting no time stacking the movie with red herrings, huh?

Back at school, Cranford is kicking out all the kids from the locker room so he can close up, when he hears an eerie chortle. He looks around, and eventually finds Jezebel in the middle of giving one of the football players a blowjob.

Out on the football field, someone has decorated the goal posts with dead stuffed animals. As the janitor cleans them off, someone creeps up behind him with an axe. Oh good, finally, we can get this movie sta...

Aww damnit, it was just his assistant janitor wandering around with an axe for no good reason. I am not even joking.

Uh oh, looks like we have an Ozzy Osborne in the area.

The janitor is very perturbed by all this, and just knows that this stupid school rivalry means he'll just have to do it again tomorrow before the big game. That is, unless he stays out on the field and stands watch, which is exactly what he plans to do.

His assistant also mentions a Satanic church down the road, which is a plot point that goes absolutely nowhere, and the only reason I even mention it is to add to the pile of red herrings.

They also notice a burlap sack with all the dead animals, and cut it open to see what's inside. They pull out a bunch of pom poms and then out spills a very fake looking head. It looks so bad, I genuinely wasn't sure if it's even supposed to BE a real head, and not just a threat.

A head which at this time has no believability.

I'll cut to the chase here, but the movie will get to it later, and clarify that is the head of the missing cheerleader, who was killed before the movie started.

Meanwhile, cheerleading coach Riley is off on her own, and so removed from the plot, that she will not be interacting with any other characters except for over the phone. That's one way to get Debbie Rochon in your movie, and a hot tub.

She calls Heather to work out details of their cheer routine for the big day, and that's when they, and us, learn about Trish being killed, decapitated, and bagged up for freshness.

Heather's boyfriend Danny calls, hears the news, and agrees to come over to keep her company. Meanwhile, the killer shows up at Coach Rochon's house, so her performance isn't entirely literally phoned in, and slices her up.

Also, everyone's emotion over Trish's death is the ever popular "dull surprise". No one feels terribly broken up over this tragedy.

Please be careful while using our home mastectomy kit.

Back at Heather's she gets yet another phone call, and this one is from, long story kept from getting any longer, the killer, anonymously taunting Heather, because he liked the movie Scream a little too much.

Then there's a knock on the door, and it's Danny, doing his boyfriendly duties. You know, like making sure his girl is okay, dragging her ex, and being a jock.

After another ominous phonecall from our killer who decides to go by the name "Lizzie" thanks to some kids chanting the rhyme about Lizzie Borden earlier in the movie, the couple discuss their plans for the evening, and get on the subject of horror movies.

Danny takes the opportunity to say how there's no good horror movies anymore, not like the 80s, when they'd be filled with good ol' sex and violence, they're all too big budget Hollywood now! And if he slowly turned to look at the camera, I would have murdered someone.

So the movie isn't JUST sitting on Heather's couch waiting for someone to knock on the door, or ring the phone, we check in with George the Janitor standing guard over the football field. That is, until the killer slices his head open.

Then, we jump over to another group of canon fodder cheerleaders who make the attempt to round out the cast so we have actual cheerleaders to kill. They also sneak in a shot of the creepy bum wandering the town, so we have yet ANOTHER red herring to deal with. Which is good, since they just took George off the list.

Fortunately, the killer descends from the attic...somehow, and kills two of the girls, after the third one leaves to meet up with Heather.

He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice…

"Lizzie" calls Heather again, and tells her that if she leaves her house before midnight, she's in for a nasty surprise. However, if she's patient, stays inside, and waits, then the killer will pay her a visit at midnight, and explain the plot. Hold onto your hats for THAT folks, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Following a lengthy interlude with a bunch of football players recapping the plot and putting out theories, we jump back to Heather's where Jezebel is about to pay a visit. Or she would be, if the killer didn't take her out first.

After all this weirdness, Heather calls the sheriff, and he shows up to ask some questions. We also learn he was sweet on Heather's mom, except she chose her dad instead of the sheriff. And he is very creepy about it, because what's one more red herring?

Heather then gets ANOTHER call from "Lizzie" who threatens her cat, and then there's ANOTHER knock on the door. This time, it's her ex, Chris, showing up like he's a guest in one of those vintage Christmas variety specials.

Quick, get in, you’re letting the plot out.

Chris came by to deliver a sketch. A sketch of Heather drawn like one of his French girls. And every line he says is with that slick, seductive tone like he KNOWS something, or is really horny for Heater. This movie is going to great lengths to make every character Heather meets be as creepy or sleazy or both as possible.

Once he leaves, can you guess what happens? That's right! The phone rings! This movie is 80% phone calls and chats on the couch, in one location. A cheerleader slasher movie should not be a bottle episode! And yet, I almost want to commend them for having the stones to try and pull this off!

Then her mother calls to confirm the cat is okay, and THEN there is ANOTHER knock at the door! Welcome back to our program Coach Cranford! Why is he here? To seem creepy, why else!

The only award this movie will ever see.

Mixing things up ever so slightly, it's Heather's turn to make a phone call. She calls the cops, and the dispatcher on the other end of the line sound suspiciously familiar, and says so many strange things. It will make you want to shout at the screen that she doesn't recognise "Lizzie". Especially when Lizzie calls RIGHT after she hangs up the phone with the cops! And is clearly the same voice!

Once they hang up, there is ANOTHER visitor at the door, and this one is the rival quarterback they mentioned at the start of the film. He found some cheerleader's panties and a creepy doll in his locker, and assumed it was Heather or one of her minions. This will actually be a plot point.

The quarterback and his new girlfriends leave and THE PHONE RINGS AGAIN. How can a movie do so little while actually doing things?

"Lizzie" tells Heather to go up to the attic, to get a present he left for her. If it's not a severed head, I will be greatly disappointed. Sadly, it's just a gun.

You got me pom poms? You do know I have plenty of these, right?

The killer calls back YET AGAIN and has the *nerve* to say this phone thing is getting old. No shit, Sherlock.

Lizzie tells Heather to take the gun, turn off the safety, point it at her cat clock, and pull the trigger.

I've heard of a shot clock before, but that's not what they meant!

"Hey wait I didn't say put the phone down! Did you...can you hear me?? Fuck..."

They show a shot of the clock immediately afterwards, in the background, and I was going to make fun of them for not even having the commitment to actually shoot the clock, but they actually call out Heather herself for just being that bad of a shot.

Just as she shoots, the old bum from earlier stumbles into her house with an axe, and then passes out on her floor.

As he slumps to the ground, Danny and Chris enter the room, and the plot thinnens.

When you want Buck Flower in your movie, but can't afford Buck Flower. WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING.

So these two chucklefucks are the killers, and...their plan is ridiculous, absurd, and overly complicated. It could have been done in so many different easier ways, and the motive is just...bizarre. Well, that's not true, I get the *motive* but it's not really justification for their *targets*.

But 'm getting ahead of myself.

The big plan is, and I'll try and keep this as straightfoward as I can; see, Chris is a sucky artist, ball players make big bucks, with salaries rising all the time. Points for at least calling out sports culture, but there endeth the praise.

IF the team beats the rival team tomorrow, they can write their own ticket, but there is that pesky quarterback superstar that everyone keeps gushing over. So Danny and Chris concocted the plan to go around town, commit a bunch of murders, and frame the quarterback. Hence the dolls and panties as clues connecting him to them

I mean, that...but...it...but that doesn't REALLY explain why kill the cheerleaders. It really could have been almost anyone you could frame him for. It's just such a weak motivation.

Captain America and the Falcon: The College Years

They try and justify it by making Danny jealous of the attention cheerleaders get instead of the footballers, and...it's something? I guess?

Danny then picks up the very large picture of him that Heather has had sitting by the phone all night, and smashes the glass. She taunts him by asking if that's seven years bad luck and...and..THAT IS FOR MIRRORS!!

I just..I...I can't with this movie any more.

OH right, he did that to reveal the bug he had placed under the photo. That at least explains how "Lizzie" knew as much as he did. Well, almost, it doesn't explain how he knew about the Lizzie Borden rhyme, or was the police dispatch, but at this point, whatever.

The quarterback of Exposition High continues to explain his plot when Heather asks how he'll get college scholarships by killing cheerleaders. He details how they set up all the clues, got the gun into her house, etc etc, and NONE of this answers the actual question!

Heather asks a STUNNINGLY important question; why not just kill the rival quarterback? And Danny says, oops! I never even thought of that!

She then asks why they killed Coach Riley, and her two boyfriends are both surprised by it. Neither of them did it, which leaves a plot hole that gets filled by their dead bodies.

Coach Cranford arrives to reveal that HE was the one who killed Coach Riley! See, she saw that he was videotaping cheerleaders, and he overheard the two dipshits bleeding out on the floor plotting their murder spree. So he decided to add one more body to take out his own problem.

This movie is so...so stupid.

Cranford shoots his two players in the head to make sure they're dead, and then he suddenly wants to have his way with Heather. Now…it isn't so much that this comes out of nowhere - like I said, he was filming the girls, but it's rather sudden to shift from killing to "And now we shall do the horizontal tango!"

But at least we know why this movie made everyone seem so creepy. BECAUSE THEY ARE.

Anyways, before Cranford can lay his hands on Heather too much, he gets an axe buried into his back by the bum, who either sobered up enough, or was playing dead.

Heather then embeds a hammer in Cranford's face and the movie makes it's way to the endzone.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks better than one might expect, but it also has this very early 90s vibe to it. It’s clearly low budget, and it shows.

Audio: Perfectly average.

Sound Bite: “Billy was just trying to help me find my contact." "Where? Down his pants??"

Body Count: A decent amount, but it all feels hollow since they’re all just disconnected scenes.

0 - Trish's very fake head is found in a bag, killed before the movie started, or off camera.
1 - Seventeen minutes, and Coach Riley gets her boob hacked off, and more from the axe.
2 - George the janitor gets an axe to the face
3 - Violett gets her boob sliced off. It's a gag so nice we did it twice.
4 - And then Rose gets hacked up
5 - Jezebel is the next to meet the axe.
6 - Molly is revealed to have been killed off camera.
7 - Danny gets killed by the coach
8 - Chris gets shot next
9 - The bum axes the coach in the back, then he takes a hammer to the face

Best Corpse: Cranford gets the shout out this time around, just because the axe in his back AND the hammer to his face look somewhere between great and absurd.

Blood Type - C+: Not a lot of blood, and the effects look cheap as hell, but points for trying, and the blood we do get.

Sex Appeal: If you’re cutting off boobs, you’re gonna see ‘em, so this movie does not shy away from the boobage.

Drink Up! Every time the movie cuts to somewhere other than Heather’s house.

Movie Review: Hoo boy. What a messy movie. But, setting aside the absolutely convoluted, ridiculous murder plot, the movie isn’t THAT bad. The deaths are fun, and the broad idea of someone killing cheerleaders for some goal, or revenge, or something, is a plot with legs. So to speak. But man, that plot really drags things down. Like I said, it’s almost a bottle episode, at night, not doing a whole lot. Everything about cheerleaders and football are really only there as lip service, we never really see anything about it. The plot comes to Heather, we never go to the plot, or almost never. But the movie clearly states, they just don’t make cheesy horror movies like they used to, so this was all deliberate, they leaned in HARD to the kind of absurd 80s indie flicks, and uh, I guess they nailed it? If anything, they overshot and doubled down. The delight of those cheesy 80s movies is that they’re often just so simple. And this movie…is not. You don’t gotta try this hard! Two, four, six eight! Just how low will this movie rate? Two out of five pom poms, goooo team!

Entertainment Value: The acting is the right level of cheesy. Everyone is giving off these creepy vibes, and I love it. They are all clearly trying so hard to BE weird. And Heather just…never notices! Like I said, the deaths are fun, and it’s not every day you see a boob sliced off with an axe. You will be amazed at how the movie never really seems to move, but stuff just keeps on happening. It’s almost worth seeing just for the ???? factor of “Are we really just gonna get phone calls the whole movie?” and that big reveal of nonsense. Be aggressive! I’m gonna B-E aggressive! And only give this a three out of five.