Satan's Cheerleaders

Satan’s Cheerleaders

1977

Director- Greydon Clark

Cast- Kerry Sherman, Jacqulin Cole, Hillary Horan, Alisa Powell, Sherry Marks, John Ireland, Yvonne DeCarlo, Jack Kruschen, Sydney Chaplin, Lane Caudell, Robin Greer

           

   A group of bratty cheerleaders are always getting into shenanigans. Luckily for them, their good hearted (and ditzy) coach, Ms. Johnson (Jacqulin Cole) is always there to bail them out. Most of the girls seem mainly focused on getting laid or making wise cracks, all except Patti (Kerry Sherman). Patti is the deep thinker of the bunch. They run afoul of the school janitor Billy (who bizarrely wears a rhinestone encrusted shirt???). He gets his petty revenge by peeping at the girls as they shower, but he has a sweeter revenge in mind.

            

    Billy is the talent scout for a local group of Satanists. He sneaks into the girl’s locker room and puts a hex on Patti using her clothes. On the way to the football game, the girls and Ms. Johnson break down and Billy (no surprise) shows up to help them. Billy, instead of taking them to the game, kidnaps them and takes them to a Satanic alter where he plans to have his way with them. It seems like Satan may have other plans though. Patti, after stripping naked, jumps on the altar and seemingly strikes Billy down with an invisible power. She comes to and remembers none of it.

            

    Ms. Johnson and the girls take Billy’s truck and look for help. They find a vagrant collecting trash (John Caradine, how the mighty have fallen!). He points them in the direction of the Sherriff’s house. The Sherriff (veteran actor John Ireland) and his wife (Lily Munster herself, Yvonne DeCarlo) take the girls in but they aren’t what they seem. The Sherriff turns out to be the head of the Satanic cult and his wife is the High Priestess. Satan tells them that one of the girls is a virgin and must be sacrificed (but doesn’t tell them which one).

            

    The girls escape, split up, and run for help. Unfortunately, everyone around seems to be part of the cult and the girls are caught one by one and brought back. The Priestess gets a bad vibe off of Patti and implores her husband to kill the girl, but he’ll have none of it. However, when sacrifice time rolls around, Satan has one more surprise in store for his followers. It seems that Satan has his eye on Patti and has given her some special powers that she uses to fight off the cult.

          

     I wasn’t sure what to make of this film through the first half. It seemed very 80’s with its extremely shallow portrayal of teenagers, though the constant disco soundtrack placed it firmly in the 70s.  The writing was bad and there wasn’t much to recommend it, except for the girls getting naked of course. About half way through the film though, it turned itself around. It never got scary, but it did get interesting and pretty funny. There was even some very witty banter amongst the Satanists.

            

    John Caradine starred in a lot of horror movies, but may be best remembered for his portrayals of Dracula. Though Caradine and DeCarlo are the only big stars that horror fans would know, most of the cast is recognizable. John Ireland was in a ton of movies and TV shows including All the King’s Men and Spartacus. Hillary Horan (one of the cheerleaders) starred in 35(!!!!) episodes of Happy Days, usually uncredited, and also appeared in another DeCarlo pic, The Munster’s Revenge. Jacqulin Cole was in several other 70s era exploitation films. Kerry Sherman (Patti) starred in numerous TV shows including her role as Amy Perkins in over 150 episodes of Santa Barbara.

           

    I usually can’t stand remakes but this film could actually be a good remake. It couldn’t quite decide what it wanted it to be. I could easily see someone upping the sex and turning it into a Troma film, or putting in some more humor and making it a black comedy. This is an uneven movie and definitely has its shortcomings, but if you can make it through the first half, the last half is rewarding. If nothing else you can laugh at the bad dialogue and gawk at the skimpy outfits.

Fun fact: Yvonne DeCarlo, after being Lily Munster, had a decent second career in B-movie horror. She starred in Nocturna (with John Caradine in fact) in 1979. That same year she appeared in Silent Scream (which also featured Barbara Steele). She also starred in Play Dead (1983), American Gothic (1987) and the creature feature Cellar Dweller in 1988.

Fun fact #2: This wasn't Kerry Sherman's only brush with the Satanic. She was also in the folk-horror tale Eyes of Fire.