Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: The young cheerleading squad of Benedict High School’s pom-poms run afoul of satanists on the way to the big opening game vs. the local rival’s at Baker. Rah-Rah-Rah!

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Yvonne De Carlo? This should be interesting.
• Is it just me or is the name Yvonne De Carlo just sound so appropriately sinister? Just me eh? Oh well.
• Credits began with what looked like the customary black mass but before they finished the credits we cut to the beach. They never showed the mass or anything. What a tease!
• Now we meet the “Cheerleaders” practicing on the beach. But then moments later they’re playing football with some jocks. With lines like:
  “Wouldn’t you girls rather play tackle?
  “First we touch, then we tackle!”
  Andy Sidaris would be so proud.
• The football coach is in a panic over his team playing football with the cheerleaders. He says “it’s not allowed during football season. I should suspend you [Steve] right now!” So they can’t play football during football season and that he should suspend his star from playing football for playing football. That makes a ton of sense.
• Where is this beach anyway? The Cheerleaders’ cheer coach is there with them and the coach came running out of the dunes earlier? I thought the beach was like behind the High School or something and this was after school. If it’s not even anywhere near the school then why is are the coaches here?!
• Don’t tell me the rival school’s jerks are here on the beach too? I guess this beach is not close to the school.
• Ms. Johnson, the cheerleader coach kinda reminds me of Sarah Palin and Connie Britton.
• OK, they just spent way too long explaining what “Chicken fights” are.
• I don’t think I’ve seen a chicken fight out of the water before.
• There’s this really bad disco tune that keeps repeating “One for all and all for one.” and it’s been playing for about 8 minutes straight.

• At this black mass, some wimpy guy wants Satan to punish anyone who makes fun of him. He drinks from the blood of darkness hoping it comes true. Seems like a menial wish if these requests actually do come true. Especially since in the next shot we learn he’s the high school janitor. You would think he would wish to not be a janitor anymore?
• The janitor’s shirt is bedazzled. I’m not kidding.
• This film’s success to me is heavily hinged on how cute these cheerleaders are. So far it’s succeeding.
• Baker High totally TP’ed the football field! What humiliation!
• This is the dumbest and best water balloon fight in history! I’m surprised all the girls aren’t wearing white T-shirts.
• It just dawned on me that this is only a 4-girl cheerleading squad. My high school had at least a dozen girls on the varsity cheerleading squad.
• The coach just fucked himself by suspended the starting quarterback Steve all because he was horse-playing on the field with the cheerleaders and their rival’s Baker High. Seems a very steep disciplinary action especially since it’s his star QB. If only Joe Paterno was this strict. Sorry, too soon?
• Wait a minute. This is a college!? You’re kidding me right?
• Coach tells the dean that he says God is more important than football. What bizarro world is this movie set in anyway?!
• Girls’ Locker room! Bewbs!!
• The janitor is a peeping tom! I’m baffled at what seems to me is a blatantly obvious peeping hole in the showers. It was a 4×4 hinged hole with a screen on the shower side. How does anyone not know what that is?!
• Some very quick shots of some of the girls’ bewbs. And then a quick shot of most of their tushies. This movie is such a tease.
• What a minute, Ms. Johnson just said that they shouldn’t be late for their game. So the coach suspended his QB mere hours before their first game?!
• The jocks are pulling a prank on the coach by switching the BOYS and GIRLS signs on the locker rooms. Is the coach that stupid that he would forget which side the BOYS locker room is? It’s not like it’s his first day there and could be easily confused right? Well anyway, if it means more shots of the girls’ bewbs then I don’t care.
• Why is the coach even giving a tour of the BOYS locker room to the dean?
• Coach to Steve: “Wait until I get my hands on that boy!”
  Debbie: “That’s my job coach! Don’t worry I’ll straighten him out!”
• Ms. Johnson to Steve while he’s making out with Debbie: “Oh I hope coach lets you play.”
  Chris: “Oh he’s playing alright. Scoring a little bit too, eh Stevie?”
• Man, Ms. Johnson is such an airhead.
• The janitor kinda reminds me of Jack Warden and Capt. Kangaroo.

• So the Janitor is fixing the BOYS/GIRLS sign on the locker room when he decides to go into the girls locker room to steal some of the girls’ clothes. He’s caught by Steve and other jocks. Steve says he’s some sort of “prevert.” Not “pervert” but “prevert.” But if the janitor’s a prevert, what does that make Steve and his friends who are also sneaking into the girls’ locker room?
• My Captain Kangaroo comparison is quite spot-on since the Janitor is now wearing a bright red jacket.
• OK, I’m not sure how that happened but the cheerleaders were steered off the road by another car what was vexed by the janitor who was also driving on the same road. I understand the curse/magic angle but the movie didn’t make it clear how the other car hit Ms. Johnson’s car.
• Ms. Johnson doesn’t know how to open her car hood. But why would she need to when they just veered off the road with virtually no harm to the car?
• Oh, good! The janitor can give the Cheerleaders a ride! He was so sure that they would be hitch-hiking that his pick-up truck with hood was completely open and ready for them!
• Now Ms. Johnson said she’d tell “the principal” that Mr. Brooks the janitor is basically kidnapping the ladies. So is it a dean or a principal at this school? Is it a high school or college? Why do I care?!
• For some reason (black magic probably) Patti takes off her top revealing her bewbs as she walks into the woods and sees a goat-head statue. While this makes sense to the context of the movie, the other 4 ladies are doing jack-shit about what’s happening.
• Patti is now getting raped (I think) by an invisible force, as Mr. Brooks gets angry about missing out on what he deserves is his. He fights the invisible force so hard (not really) that he dies.
• As soon as Mr. Brooks dies and the chanting stops and Patti gets up off the altar, Ms. Johnson asks her “Patti, what happened, why are your clothes off?” She was watching the rape with the other girls the whole time. But now the girls are saying that they don’t remember anything past the car ride. Whatever.
• This bum on the side of the highway(?) kinda looks like Crazy Ralph from Friday the 13th.
• The road sign read “NETHERCALIF” Did they mean Nether California?
• Ha! the Sheriff’s name is B.L. Bubb. Zero points for originality.
• The girls are laughing at the sheriff’s humble redneck abode and says they’ll run into “Opie and Anthony.” Hopefully it’s Whip ‘em Out Wednesday!
• All these ladies are very attractive. If I had to choose one I’d go with Debbie. Or maybe Sharon. Perhaps Chris. Possibly Patti. Ms. Johnson is no slouch either.
• This Sheriff Bubb is a very kindly and jovial fellow.
• Jim is right, Yvonne De Carlo does look odd in color.

• Mr. Brooks is actually still alive. If only the Cheerleaders actually checked a pulse or something before they left him out in the middle of nowhere. Morons.
• Now Mr. Brooks is fighting the sheriff because he “cheated” him out of having Patti. What a horny idiot. The sheriff is most obviously Satan and is armed with a pistol. Not that he needs it thought because Mr. Brooks is one lousy fighter. The Sheriff throws him down a steep hill and yells “Geronimo.” Again, I’m not sure Mr. Brooks is dead or not, although it’s likely.
• How convenient that the Sheriff was contacted by the Prince of Darkness to perform the human sacrifice at the black mass tonight just as he has 5 ladies in his home.
• So as the 4 ladies are escaping from the bathroom window, Patti is accusing the Sheriff and his wife of a nefarious plot. What was the girls’ plan anyway? Leave Patti with them while they go get help? Poor Patti got the short straw on that plan.
• And Ms. Johnson is having difficulty dropping from the roof when her feet are only 4 feet or so from the ground and instructs the girls to leave her and get help. So now Ms. Johnson is captured again by the Sheriff. This plan is utter garbage.
• I think Ms. Johnson is going to get raped by the Sheriff. 
• Patti is throwing some serious shade at Yvonne de Carlo.
• The bum is living in the woods by a broken down car and when Debbie finds him he’s very shocked that she found him and that she wasn’t supposed to find him. But he’s just in the middle of the woods. It wasn’t like he was hiding or anything.
• Hahahaha. Chris finds a public phone and is just about to get in when some random dude in a cowboy hat steps in front of her, closes the door and makes a call. Chris scoffs and waits outside. That’s hysterical. She doesn’t even mention that she’s in a life or death situation. And that guy clearly knew she was going to use the phone because she was running towards it but he doesn’t give a fuck.
• Now Debbie finds another fella in the woods. What a coincidental day she’s having. He’s also wearing a satanic medallion like the bum and Mr. Brooks.
• Hahahaha. Sharon runs into a man feeding chickens wearing a brown monk costume and she pleads with him to help her from this meaning cult that she’s fleeing from.
• Patti has some sort of demonic power and Yvonne knows it and is scared of Patti. My question is, why would Patti be raped by Satan and given special power when she clearly can overpower the cult members? Shouldn’t Satan try to help the cult not find ways to harm them?
• Why would the sheriff lock up the girls in a shed/barn where Patti could simply reach out of the bars and is able to reach the latch and open it? Ponderous.
• It’s been over an hour now and I really thought that this is called Satan’s Cheerleaders because they were minions of Satan not trying to escape the cult from sacrificing them. The title makes very little sense now.
• The sheriff’s dobermans are named Lucifer and Diablo.
• The monk dressed cult member keeps giving the sign of the cross. A. Why if he’s a satanist? and B. If he frequently does this, wouldn’t the sheriff and other cult members really do him harm for doing it so often? The Sheriff said, it’s a nasty habit to him. Is it this film’s attempt at humor? 
• Ms. Johnson is so exhausted trying to flee that she “can’t go another step.” Ms. Johnson is worthless.
• Does Patti know that she has extraordinary powers, whatever they may actually be. I mean, the girls are being pursued by cultists and dobermans and they are scared, running and trying to arm themselves with sticks. Patti doesn’t seem to feel any more confident with her powers than the other gals.
• This monk guy is the film’s attempt at a comic relief, not that the film is that serious in the first place. The Sheriff, realizing that his wife let the dogs out says “Damn that woman.” And the monk replies, “Yeah I know what you mean.” The sheriff then says, “What do you know about woman?” The monk answers, “I’m very well read. And I dream a lot.” The Sheriff asks, “You what?” and the Monk amusedly replies, “I dream a lot.”

• This “chase” scene is going on far too long. The girls are walking, the satanists are walking, the dogs are walking. Yvonne De Carlo is praying to Satan. Nothing much is happening.
• Yvonne De Carlo is repeating the same 3 lines over and over again and it’s getting annoying since her words are doing nothing. She’s also trying to psychically command the dobermans to kill the girls but the dobermans are nowhere to be found.
• Finally, Patti is using her new satanic powers to fight Yvonne back with her prayers. The only signs that any of this is doing a thing is wind.
• Why is the Satanic altar so far away from the sheriff/high priest’s house? You’d think it would be on his property or in the barn for easy access.
• Patti commanded the dobermans to kill Yvonne. But it had all the excitement and gore as a Scooby-Doo episode.
• So they need a virgin to sacrifice to be the maiden to Satan but they don’t know for certain if these girls are virgins or not. They are asking each girl and some growling noise coming from the altar if they are “unspoiled.” All the girls need to do is say that they are not virgins and they wouldn’t know if they were lying or not.
• So the Sheriff is in big doo-doo because apparently only Ms. Johnson was the virgin up until he raped her earlier.
• So to get out of trouble with the rest of his cult he takes off his tunic and claims he’s not a priest and that the growling sound was just a tape recorder. He also tries to attack Patti and claims she has no power but she actually does have the satanic power and kills him.
• Now they made it to the game and Steve gets injured. Patti commands him to go back out there and win the game and they absolutely destroy Baker!
• Also despite the horrible ordeal they all went through, especially Ms. Johnson, they are all very peppy and happy about the team winning.
• Back to the “One for all, and all for one” disco song. This song is going to be stuck in my head for a week.
• Script Supervisor: Debra Hill!?!? Got to start somewhere I guess. Although in less than one year she makes Halloween with John Carpenter so that was quite the leap in career success huh?
• And another Halloween connection that this was filmed by Dean Cundey. Weird.

Scare Level: This was a horror-comedy so there’s really no intention of it being scary. I hope not anyway. 

Gore Level: There was more blood when I nicked myself shaving this morning than this whole movie.

Nudity Level: We just see Patti clearly but quick glimpses of some of the other ladies while in the shower. But not worth it enough to bother fapping to.

Best Line: Coach to Steve: “Wait until I get my hands on that boy!”
Debbie: “That’s my job coach! Don’t worry I’ll straighten him out!”

Best Scene: Any scene that features the Cheerleaders practicing a cheer, frolicking, cavorting, playing football, showering, walking, talking, etc.

Worst Scene: Any scene that attempts any terror, scares or anything remotely horror-related. Especially towards the end with the cult members searching for the girls while De Carlo did her obnoxious chanting.

Level of Hell: Horror-Comedy be Damned!

Overall: This could’ve been a lot better but it definitely had its charm and fun. I don’t know why they went limp on the nudity especially when it definitely is geared for such depravity. I mean, c’mon, anyone who goes to sees this movie is doing it for really one reason only and that’s to see cheerleaders being frisky. I liked the chemistry of the girls a lot actually and thought they did a bang-up job being funny, cute and heroic, Patti especially. This movie also felt very cult classic exploitation and it also felt like an early Troma-like production. Like I said, it wasn’t great but I will give the devil his due in saying that I’ve seen way way way worse during Schlocktoberfests. I also would recommend anyone even remotely interested in seeing it too.

Score: 6 One For All, and All For Ones! (out of 10)