This lowdown is packed with SPOILERS!
By the late 1980s, the slasher genre was burning out. Jason had stalked his way through too many campgrounds; Freddy had become a wisecracking comedian, and audiences were starting to tire of formula. Yet out of that fatigue came something oddly fresh… tucked in the VHS racks was Cheerleader Camp—a bizarrely bright, camp-inflected slasher that has since gleefully persisted in cult circles. In my Breathing Dead review, I said it “embraces its B-movie roots while delivering an entertaining experience,” and I’d add that its staying power comes from its keen use of genre tropes—some quite cheeky in retrospect.
Directed by John Quinn, it unfolds at Camp Hurrah, where Alison (Betsy Russell) battles nightmares and jealousy as her cheer squad is picked off one-by-one. Her own subconscious images of herself as the killer become the framing device that leads us—and the authorities—politely astray. When Cory, in mascot gear, finally reveals her true face, Alison’s world collapses.
While not a perfect film, Cheerleader Camp benefits enormously from the countless slashers that came before it. Having absorbed years of formula, clichés, and audience expectations, it refines the familiar into something sharper, funnier, and stranger—standing confidently on its own rather than collapsing under imitation.
Placed alongside its peers, Friday the 13th; A Nightmare on Elm Street; Sleep Away Camp; Sorority House Massacre; April Fool’s Day and Slumber Party Massacre to name a few, Cheerleader Camp feels less like a knock-off and more like a sly cousin. Sleepaway Camp went for the jugular with its infamous ending; Friday the 13th worked on shadows, archetypes and a twist; Elm Street made nightmares literal. With cinematography by Bryan England Cheerleader Camp instead basks in daylight and dances in the night. Written by David Lee Fein and R.L. O'Keefe it dabbles in comedy, and still delivers a bitter sting in the tail.
Of course, it’s the cast that truly anchors the chaos—bringing personality and charm to the carnage. The ensemble doesn’t just fill out the body count; they make the madness memorable.
Betsy Russell (Alison Wentworth) carries the film with her nervous intensity—long before the Saw franchise elevated her to genre legend. Russell brings vulnerability and tension to Alison—our emotional barometer in pastel decals.
Lucinda Dickey (Cory Foster)—from Breakin’ and Ninja III fame—lends unsettling energy to a performance that climaxes in the film’s most spiteful moment. Lucinda Dickey’s mascot reveal tops the chart for ‘unexpected genre villains.’
Leif Garrett (Brent Hoover), teen-idol turned slasher paramour, delivers one of the film’s most painfully memorable rap sequences—and brings meta level nostalgia for VHS kids.
Travis McKenna shines as Timmy Moser, the meddling “cuddy camcorder” perv whose nosy filming adds comic relief and keeps the suspense bubbling.
George “Buck” Flower (Pop): Hollywood’s ultimate grizzled character actor (They Live, Back to the Future), instantly elevating the supporting cast.
Lorie Griffin (Bonnie): Riding in from Teen Wolf, she delivers the archetypal gossip-prone cheerleader.
Teri Weigel (Pam): Later known Playboy career, she provides the requisite glamour role.
Rebecca Ferratti portrays Theresa Salazar, one of the camp’s sun-soaked beauties. Known for her appearance as Playboy’s Playmate of the Month in June 1986, Ferratti’s role adds a touch of 80s glamour to the film’s ensemble cast.
Krista Pflanzer (Suzy): her brief scene sunbathing is tertiary screen time, but feels endlessly meme-able and perfect in cult retrospect. That sunbathing cameo from Krista Pflanzer as Suzy still turns heads like it did in Penthouse magazine.
The 1980s slasher boom was as much about titillation as terror. Gratuitous nudity and “T&A” were often at their peak, a hallmark of the genre, with cheerleaders, sunbathers, and party scenes providing ample opportunity for eye-catching moments. Top-shelf magazines and adult-oriented imagery were widely circulated and culturally normalized, long before the internet became a mainstream hub for adult entertainment, giving films like Cheerleader Camp a cheeky, borderline risqué texture that today reads as both nostalgic and emblematic of the era’s B-movie bravado.
Vickie Benson brings spirited authority as Miss Tipton, Jeff Prettyman is Sheriff Poucher, and Tommy Habeeb pops in as a detective to name a few.
The tropes are reframed with style and this isn’t just another slash-fest. Cheerleader Camp leans into daylight-set killings, turning cheer routines into suspenseful gambits. Dream sequences function less as Elm Street homage and more as structural red herrings, keeping both Alison and the viewer off balance. Timmy’s camcorder earns a narrative awakening—until it snaps shut on his own woes. Jealous gossip and quiet smiles do more work than scream fx, culminating in Cory’s sly grin as the final sting.
The film’s release history also reflects the patchwork way slashers were received across the globe in the late ’80s. In the United States, Cheerleader Camp was rated R (certificate #29389), while Australia also classified it R. New Zealand placed it at R16, and Norway, interestingly, recommended it for 15 but assigned an 18 certificate on home video after heavy cuts. Germany proved the most restrictive—initially released uncut, the film was later hit with SPIO/JK “18” status and placed on the BPjM index of restricted media from 1991 until 2016.
Oddly, in the United Kingdom it seems unlikely that Cheerleader Camp ever received an official release. By the height of the video rental boom, the BBFC was firmly policing content in the wake of the video nasties era, and if the film had gone through official channels, there would almost certainly be a record of it. Bringing Cheerleader Camp over from the States wouldn’t have been much use to the average UK viewer anyway, since American NTSC tapes didn’t play on standard PAL VHS machines, certainly without specialist equipment or a costly conversion.
These variations highlight how the film’s blend of gore, nudity, and tongue-in-cheek humour sat uneasily with national boards, though that controversy only added to its cult mystique.
Like many 80s slashers, Cheerleader Camp went through a few identities before settling on the version most horror fans know. In some territories it was released under the title Bloody Pom Poms, a name that leaned harder into grindhouse sensationalism and promised blood-soaked cheer routines more than the actual film delivered.
While Cheerleader Camp is acknowledged in official circles such as the BFI, there’s still no solid proof it ever received a proper commercial release in the UK—no cinema run, no BBFC-certified VHS—leaving its availability here frustratingly hazy. Even today, the cover feels oddly familiar, as if it has always lurked on the edge of memory, that I had certainly seen in a dusty UK video shop. The ‘Mandela Effect’ perhaps? That very ambiguity only adds to the film’s underground mystique, giving it a forbidden allure among collectors and horror fans hunting for rare tapes. Over time, both titles have become part of the film’s quirky identity, with Bloody Pom Poms in particular enjoying cult notoriety across a variety of formats.
It was filmed in Camp Nelson and the Sequoia National Forest, with editing by future TV mainstay Jeffrey Reiner. Apparently, it premiered in the U.S. on June 21, 1988 theatrically with the European title Bloody Pom Poms, it then was released by Prism Entertainment on video cassette on November 16, the same year.
Prism Entertainment, a company well known for distributing genre films at the time. The cover art was classic slasher fare— a cheerleader skeleton, pom-poms, and a hint of summer camp menace—perfectly signalling the film’s blend of bright daylight sequences and lurking horror.
It lived a long afterlife on VHS, until Anchor Bay Entertainment released the film on DVD on August 3, 2004. The soundtrack has since become celebrated, although its release is as murky as the films home video history.
Though the USA theatrical exposure was limited, the film has since remained accessible. UK viewers can now stream it via services like Amazon Prime Video, keeping its legacy alive for retro horror fans and those discovering this sun-soaked slasher for the first time.
Why Cheerleader Camp Still Counts? It is this balance—goofy rap numbers and mascot pratfalls on one side, sharp misdirection and a downer ending on the other—that gives the film its staying power. It wasn’t built for prestige, but for the shelves of a video rental store where discovery was half the fun. That’s why decades later, with its soundtrack reissued and its cult status secured, Cheerleader Camp deserves more recognition than its initial reception afforded.
A sunlit slasher with pom-poms, a sinister mascot, and one of the meanest closing shots of the decade—what more could VHS kids of the ’80s have asked for? The film isn’t flawless, but that’s good—it lets the legacy of earlier slashers serve it. It refines clichés into something sharper, funnier, and unexpectedly forward. Unlike Sleepaway Camp’s brutal twist, or Friday the 13th’s shadow stomp, this movie plays in daylight, makes jokes, and delivers a final punch that lingers. A slasher made for discovery, not acclaim—one that VHS kids traded among friends. Today, it's rightly earning its place as a sunny slasher oddball that dared to be different… a crisp 4K of the scanned original negative—bring it on!
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