Bring It On: Cheer or Die

I'm hoping that this is the marker that rebooting the franchise to the level of theatrical release is around the corner. Bring It On has fallen far from its initial 2000's installation but most of the sequels have had some campy aspect to offer in terms of entertainment but this, oh boy, is by far the worst sequel yet. Doing a campy horror/comedy with the concept is fairly easy but its clear that this was given the most minimal of budgets giving it just above the ranks of a film school thesis project. And where are the jokes? For this to be a comedy i did not chuckle ONCE. This is definitely not the kind of film you watch alone, this is a group venture with ample breaks and talking to break up the monotony. There are some cast members that have a chance of this being a spring board for future projects but even that might be a stretch.

Rating Breakdown Story - 0.50 :: Direction - 1.00 :: Pacing - 1.00 :: Performances - 1.25 :: Entertainment - 1.25 TOTAL - 5/10

Ah, cheerleaders. The unsung warriors of high school, flipping, twirling, and dodging a body count. Bring It On: Cheer or Die had the perfect setup to be a deliriously self-aware mash-up of Scream meets Bring It On, but instead tumbles awkwardly, landing somewhere between Scary Movie's forgotten drafts and a lesser episode of Glee.

The three writers have cobbled together a plot that is both astonishingly basic and fundamentally unbelievable. A group of high-kicking teens, for reasons best left unexplored, decide to practice overnight in an abandoned school, where a masked killer lurks, waiting to cut them down one by one. What could have been a hilarious, self-aware bloodbath instead shuffles towards mediocrity.

The characters are walking, talking clichés, with psychopaths Marlowe and Makena Zimmerman chewing the scenery with reckless abandon. Their unhinged performances provide rare enjoyment, but they are shackled to a script that insists on taking itself just seriously enough to be frustrating. The so-called comedy leans heavily on the tired Camp Homosexual trope, because apparently, sassy, flamboyant side characters are still considered peak humour in some circles. Any remaining laughs come from moments so over-the-top they achieve unintentional brilliance; think Showgirls but with pom-poms and murder.

Missi Pyle, a consistently scene-stealing actress, is bafflingly underused. The film hints at a deliciously demented "Mommy's Psycho Lessons" subplot that could have elevated the material, but like a botched pyramid stunt, it collapses into nothing.

Director Karen Lam does what she can with a weak script, using shadows, long hallways, and grimy school doors to manufacture tension. There is a sense she knows what the film should be: A gory, outrageous, tongue-in-cheek ride, but she is held back by a screenplay too timid to embrace its own absurdity.

Bring It On: Cheer or Die could have been a blood-spattered cheer-fest, the kind of horror-comedy that earns cult status through sheer audacity. Instead, it feels stuck in limbo, torn between fun self-awareness and forgettable nostalgia bait. Is it entertaining? Sure, in the way that watching a train nearly derail is entertaining. Worth a watch? Perhaps, but much like a cheerleader attempting a backflip in a horror movie, it just does not stick the landing.

Determined to improve their routine, a group of cheerleaders forced to minimize their performances decide to sneak into an abandoned school nearby to secretly improve their chances, but during their practice they realize a masked killer is stalking them one by one and have to get out alive.

This was a disappointing if still decent enough effort. One of the few positives here is the overall setup that brings the group together at the location and how the killings start. The impositions against the team that's established against them where they're held back by limitations imposed by the authority figure that has a series of rules in place to prevent glamorous activity in place and the desire to rebel against them serve this one quite well. It brings a major focus to their desire to try to win and improve their squad's skills while also bringing about a great red herring in the unreasonable principal offering up roadblocks to their quest that has the proper motivation to go through with the excursion. The other fun part here is the fun energy provided to this one once the killer arrives and the kills start happening. The pace here is highly enjoyable as the first few attacks occur within a short span of each other as the bathroom sequences and the hallway chase lead to a rather fun series of confrontations involving the masked killer appearing and taking them out one by one. That this makes the group aware of what's happening quite earlier than normal means that there's a lot to like involving the escapes of the group throughout the school and featuring enough confrontations to make the killer imposing and threatening enough that it maintains a sense of fear due to knocking off as many as they do. All told, these manage to generate some more positive points than expected. There isn't much to bring this down but does have some rather big issues. The biggest factor to be had here is the most obvious one in the toned-down nature of everything to maintain the lighter rating. The lack of any kind of controversial content here is painfully obvious while making the complete dearth of blood or gore in the kills is completely underwhelming here with the characters either turning away from the killing blow or having the camera cut away obviously. This can be rather distracting and aggravating for those looking for something brutal and hard-hitting that would've been apparent from the setup, while the other small drawback here comes from the utterly underwhelming motivation for the killer's rampage. It feels like a first-draft type of motivation that would be a place-holder for a real motivation as the idea is there but its execution is several lacking. It's these factors that end up lowering this one.

Rated PG-13: Language and Violence.

I've been in a slasher movie kind of mood as of late. I watched New Year's Evil the night before last and To All a Good Night shortly before that. I decided to pay a visit to the Redbox because I noticed that two out of the three locations that my town had were removed without warning. Much to my surprise I saw that they had Cheer or Die.... because I heard that it was supposed to air on the SyFy Channel around Halloween. This movie is pretty much a bloodless affair and is so tame.... that with some tinkering.... this could've easily obtained a PG rating and premiered on Disney+. The movie contains almost a dozen death scenes.... none of which are particular memorable.... but I did find it odd that the killer brought a set of throwing knives to fling occasionally. This had the potential to be a decent time waster had they added gallons of blood and some creativity.... but this is barely a horror film as it stands.

It's PG-13 fluff with a horror twist. What's not to love? Cheerleaders practice at an abandoned school on Halloween night, get bloodlessly killed, and it's up to the survivors to unmask the person responsible. It's got a ton of humor, fun dialogue, cool dance/stunt work, and certainly will appeal to everyone. Plus it's 1,000% better than the last Bring It On movie! Of course it's not going to win an Oscar. Just turn your brain off and allow yourself to have fun! It's harmless silliness; all violence is bloodless and free of scares. But I had fun watching it. I loved the cast and thought they worked really hard to deliver a great movie.