I’m finally starting to notice that books on fringe cinema, in combination with blu-ray sales, have resulted in some unfortunate additions to my movie library. First, I read P.J. Thorndyke’s excellent Satan in the Celluloid: 100 Satanic and Occult Horror Movies of the 1970s, then there was a Target 3-for-2 sale, and so I came to acquire 1977’s Satan’s Cheerleaders.
I likely don’t need to elaborate on this film for you to guess how lousy it is. Even the film seems to know how lousy it is, as there is some obvious self-awareness. While that doesn’t fully excuse the film, what is truly baffling is a quick succession of twists near the end that hint at the better film this could have been.
But I’ll get to that ending later. First, there’s the opening credits, which are effective at establishing the general vibe. The lettering of the titles is in purple and in a font that would otherwise be used only for porn of that era. Those titles overlay a dark scene of a Satanic ceremony. And, by dark, I don’t mean the content. I’m referring to the image. It was so underlit that I couldn’t tell what was happening on the screen.
That surprised me, as the director of photography was Dean Cundey, who went on to do stellar work on John Carpenter’s best films. I was wondering if an introduction had been made to that director via Debra Hill, the producer of those films, who served here as script supervisor. As always, it is interesting to see where people start out who will go on to far more significant careers.
Fortunately, the scene under those opening credits is probably the only one without decent cinematography, though there is nothing in the course of the runtime I would describe as more than competent. Not that the material really warrants anything special, as this is a film by Greydon Clark.
Through additional glimpses of that ceremony later, we will see everybody there is solidly upper-middle-age, a demographic I don’t first think of as being potential Satanists. And yet, they seem to be just that in many such films, including Rosemary’s Baby, The Devil’s Rain and The Sentinel.
Among the worshippers of the dark one are John Ireland and Yvonne De Carlo, two veteran stars whose professionalism demands they deliver unnecessarily good performances. Another of the old followers of old scratch is played by Jack Kruschen, who wants the dark one to punish those who humiliate him. In a jump cut, we see him at his job as a janitor at a school where he’s wearing a denim shirt decorated in rhinestones. I imagine Satan is like, “Look, I’ll try to help you, but you gotta meet me halfway here.”
It is no surprise he spies on cheerleaders while they shower. The song on the soundtrack while watching him watching them is an up-tempo R&B song that is all about “Who you gonna love tonight?” There’s a self-aware moment where we see him twitching his ass in time to that music he shouldn’t be able to hear, in a self-aware moment that suggests there was at least the potential for a smarter film, or at least a total parody of the genre.
That music, like much of that in this picture is all “wacka-wacka” guitar funk, like the kind of music everybody associates with porn of that time, even if they have never seen a clip of the real thing. And that brings to mind one of the most curious aspects of this film–everything from the title on down almost demands this be porn, but this isn’t even softcore fare. Instead, it is a curiously chaste affair, with seemingly only a token amount of nudity thrown in. I wasn’t surprised to learn after the fact such material has added to make it an R film after it bombed when released as PG. What did surprise me is they didn’t go for an R rating (and, let’s face it, a hard R) from the get-go.
Instead, we have that trickle of nudity jarringly contrasting with a film without any blood or profanity. The latter is especially notable in the “aw shucks” performance of Jacqulin Cole, as the cheerleading coach. Every one of her line readings is flat, awkward and delivered in the same manner, regardless of the situation. At one point, she’s getting slapped in the face repeatedly by Ireland, and her only response is to whine, “Would you stop it?” in the mildly annoyed way one would get with a sibling engaged in some minor torment they know gets on the other’s nerves. More than a few of her line deliveries feel like the notoriously bad performance of Sally in A Charlie Brown Christmas, emerging like this: “Have you gone [awkward pause] completely mad?” So, why is she in this movie? It probably helped that she was married to the director and chief writer.
Faring only slightly better, and to varying extents, are the four cheerleaders of the squad. I was curious why the school only had four football cheerleaders, but maybe that’s a normal thing. Then again, there also appear to be no more than four football players, at least at the only practice we see, and I know that isn’t right. I was also confused by whether this institution was supposed to be a high school or a college.
Anyway, Kerry Sherman is best of the lot, which is probably why she seems to have had more of a career than her fellow cheerleaders. Alas, standing out from the crowd is likely what makes Lucifer single out her out for raping and possessing her body. Kruschen is outraged because he had abducted the girls in the hope of violating her, only to be deceived by the one he worships. In pictures like this, I never cease to be amazed people are worshipping somebody who goes by, among other names, the great trickster, only to be shocked when they get double-crossed.
Much of that transpires over the course of the runtime is sub-moronic. A typical line of dialogue has a football player remarking of one of the girls: “I can’t help it. I’m wild about your backfield in motion.” Not that the girls are much more high-minded, such as when one asks what’s wrong with Sherman, resulting in this exchange: “She’s thinking.” “Why would anybody want to do that?” Maybe Sherman was trying to think up a better prank than the boys pull on their coach, just putting a sign saying “BOYS” on the girl’s locker room. That the coach falls for this is an insult to the intelligence of the viewer.
What makes Satan’s Cheerleaders a frustrating watch is that weird series of twist endings I mentioned earlier. These surprises are odd, and I’m pretty sure each one is somewhat contradicted by another. Still, they hint at something better than anything which proceeding them. Curiously, the smartest thing in the entire movie is the very last line, when the coach says to Sherman after an impossibly high-scoring game, “Well, I’ll be damned.” Her response: “Most likely.”
Dir: Greydon Clark
Starring: John Ireland, Yvonne De Carlo, John Carradine
Watched on VCI blu-ray