Heeeey bitches! Time for another bedtime story - and I don't wanna hear any static out of you hoes and hosers 'cause you've heard this all before from a dozen other movies 'cause I gots me the floor right now and Ima gonna speak my piece so shut up and listen up! You don't like my title? Hey, you don't have to know how to spell to be a cheerleader you know. Now listen up kiddies 'cause this is one story that has so much duh, copying of other movies, plot contrivances, and just 'WTH is this stuff?' that it actually becomes fun to watch.
This is one of those few movies where the entertainment overcomes the DUH of the plot. And the actors. And the situations. And the fact that this movie has doomed itself immediately by telling you it's gonna have a sequel. Never NEVER do that. Just ask... oh, never mind. This was written and directed by Lucky McKee/Chris Sivertson based on their original film 'All Cheerleaders Die'. What they meant by that (besides it being totally stupid) is that they remade their OWN movie that came out in 2001. This is how it plays out:
Maddy (Caitlin Stasey) is making a cheerleading movie with her friend Alexis ('Why do you call the cheerleaders bitches?' 'Cause - the players are the Bloodhounds so we're the bitches, a'ight? It's gangsta!'). Alexis tries to show off and ends up breaking her neck. Three months pass, and we see Maddy determined to 'ruin' Alexis' boyfriend Terry (Tom Williamson) for... several things he's done.
The cliche's and stereotypes fly fast and heavy throughout this whole thing: Cheerleaders are super skinny (they're not - it takes muscles to do those moves), football players are demi-gods always looking to score sex and drugs and alcohol, (they're not, although many of them might like to think so) kids who are different are outcasts, losers, or 'emo'.
So this is a 'I'm gonna get you sucka' kind of movie where we only have to wait for the rest of the cheerleaders and football players to die right? Well... not quite. But this film also has a bit of a messy plot line and what it's going to shape into is not quite made clear until you're twenty minutes or so into the movie. And I had given up on it at first. Buuut, I try to finish every movie I start no matter what, so I waited a day and tried again.
Okay, Alexis goes boom and three months later for the new high school year, Maddy decides to infiltrate the cheerleading squad to get her revenge. For Alexis? Kinda sorta. She's got other reasons of her own too. She makes the squad because, you know, if she didn't the movie would be over. Everybody's happy except her ex-lover Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee; how's THAT for a name?), who is into 'Wikka witch bullshit' (that's the movie talking, not me) and foresees that Maddy is in deep shit.
We have the obligatory pool party full of cheerleaders. And a party in the cemetery (two cliche's in one). There's a small side story that Leena, playing with her magic stones, tells the younger sister of a cheerleader that if she wants it badly enough, she could have her sister's boyfriend - if she accepts the consequences. That comes later.
The 'boys' stop by and, as Maddy had planned by making out with cheerleader Tracy, she and Terry get into a fight and break up. Terry was Alexis' boyfriend and started dating Tracy right after the funeral. He gets mad enough to punch Tracy (and the Foley guy better not get any more work for making a simple punch sound like concrete hitting harder concrete).
After that, he needs revenge AND to prevent any of the girls from calling the police and ruining his high school year. It escalates into a sort of drag race with a car full of 'bitches' and the other car full of 'bulldogs'. The girls crash into a river. The guys chicken out and leave. The girls are dead.
Emo girls practicing Wicca witch bullshit must have super strength because Leena was able to break into the car that is upside down in the river and drag all the girls to the edge. Of course, they're all dead but she IS a witch, right? She notices her stones rattling... sure enough a stone for each girl starts to glow and embeds itself into wherever they were injured. As for Leena, her part in this... uh... whatever they're trying to make it, is to have one purple stone glow, then embed itself into her throat. Oh goody. For whatever reason, that means she is now their leader. Why? <Sigh> How long do you want to be here?
Next morning, all girls 'wake up'. And, in Freaky Friday tradition, the two sisters are in the wrong bodies. Why? That comes later. But what they do discover (by watching Leena resurrect her cat for the third time - a little Re-Animator anybody?) is that they have no heartbeat, and they also have a thirst for human blood. But hey, there's school.
And time for another cliche'. The super slow hot-chicks-walking-down-the-hall-making-everybody-stop-and-look scene which includes a tarted up Leena, the leader of this group. Why? I dunno, she has the one ring... umm I mean the one stone?
While at school, the younger sister (in her older sister's body) boffs the older sister's boyfriend (Remember the 'consequences' story? No? You've gotta pay more attention dude...). Another kills and drinks the CGI blood of one of the football players. When they feed, they heal up and feel better. When one has sex, the others all collapse to moan and wriggle on the ground to the entertainment of the other kids.
When Maddy collapses, Terry sees her back glowing (where the rock went in). Then Terry and a couple of the other football players find the body of their fellow player that got killed and Terry figures the glow has something to do with it.He kills one of them, digging where he saw the glow. He gets it out and it fights like hell to get away from him but he swallows it. He now is... something else. He decides to kill them all, get all the stones.
Terry steals Leena's bag - now he's going after the rest of the stones. Leena and Maddy have to go get them - and since Leena is letting Maddy 'feed' on her blood, they're best bud... umm I mean they're girlfriends again.We get the cheesiest 'love story' type of music as the two girls go after Terry on a motorcycle - taken from a guy who really liked Maddy so she really... killed him. Kind of like Romeo and Juliet - you don't know Romeo and Juliet? That's okay, they don't know you either.
So it all comes to a head at the grave of the munched cheerleader from the beginning. Why? Don't ask questions or you don't get dessert, you mouth breathers. Terry's got Leena and set traps for the other two surviving girls because he wants Leena's 'secrets' - he's already swallowed two or three stones so he's like... dumber than ever. We find out that the main reason Maddy's been after him is not just that he went for Tracy practically at Alexis' funeral, but he also raped Maddy the summer afterward. He thinks Maddy's dead but... Tracy fell on the traps Terry set, and Maddy landed on HER so she lived. Sooooo....Maddy rescues Leena, Terry tries to kill Maddy, and Leena concentrates on her stones. They beep (do NOT ask questions) and circle in the air above Terry which scares him for some reason even though they're the size of quarters. Now everybody must get stoned... umm I mean unstoned as all stones come out of everybody to join the little dance.
Leena gets 'em and the purple one goes to Maddy, bringing her to life for the third time, but one goes underground... hmmm... says the movie critic with the Horror Movie Worksheet (patent pending) already filled out - I wonder what THAT will do??? DUH!!! Up through Terry's body (which was the coolest scene in the movie) comes Alexis and SHE. IS. PISSED. She screams for Leena...And that's the end of Part One. And all the other parts, we hope. And just for ONE MORE IRRITATION, during the credits the music changes like somebody with ADD is listening to the radio and keeps changing stations. Thanks guys. I feel... horrible.
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