Woodyanders The 70's cheerleader teen sexploitation sub-genre receives an appropriately sleazy send-off with this satisfyingly tacky effort. The plot is slight, but serviceable enough: three bitter disgruntled former high school football star athletes along with one jock's dippy younger brother and a ruthless lesbian school nurse abduct a bus full of beautiful bimbo cheerleaders. Okay, the story ain't much and the film itself plays out as more of a tense, straightforward suspense thriller rather than the expected goofy innocuous comic romp, but the flick's exemplary trash picture credentials alone make it a worthy addition to this nifty sub-genre. Producer William Osco previously cranked out numerous porno features and later made the enjoyably atrocious toxic waste monster clinker "The Being." Jason Williams, the star of the immortal X-rated sci-fi outing "Flesh Gordon," portrays the hunky head kidnapper. "The Hills Have Eyes" survivor Robert Houston plays another one of the kidnappers. "Penitentiary" series star Leon Isaac Kennedy appears acting under the alias Lee Curtis as a disc jockey (in real life Kennedy worked as a disc jockey prior to embarking on an acting career!). The cheerleaders are played by such scrumptious, often undraped seasoned junk flick veterans as Kristine DeBell (star of the hard-core fairytale offering "Alice in Wonderland"), Elizabeth Halsey (the dirty soft-core musical version of "Cinderella"), Wally Anne Wharton ("Up in Smoke"), Lenka Novak ("Coach," "Vampire Hookers"), Tracy Ann King (a.k.a. Marilyn Joi, "Hammer," "The Kentucky Fried Movie"), and Janie Squire (the skinny-dipper who gets munched at the start of "Piranha"). Jeff Werner's capable direction doesn't skimp on the good stuff: there's more gratuitous nudity than you can shake a pom-pom at, lots of gleefully gross lowbrow humor (the cheerleaders tie all their panties together so they can trip one of their abductors!), a splendidly stinky pseudo-disco score, a tasty lengthy topless beauty contest, pot smoking, hideously bad soft-rock songs, garish cinematography, and an absolute dearth of taste, subtlety and artistic refinement. In short, it's a solid piece of blithely low-grade and hence quite entertaining schlock.

udar55 Jason (FLESH GORDON himself) Williams stars as one of three disgraced, former football players (!) who decide to kidnap a bus load of high school cheerleaders to hold for ransom for $2 million bucks from the girls collective parents. Of course, the girls are resourceful and give the kidnappers a F...I...G...H...T! Hidden behind a title and cover promising cheap T&A thrills, this is a pretty entertaining kidnapping crime flick. Of course, the filmmakers do deliver the T&A thrills but they ain't cheap dammit! It works within the story as one of the kidnappers demands the cheerleaders strip and perform an impromptu beauty contest. Okay, it's cheap. There are also odd moments of comedy (the Governor refusing to pay the ransom but offering the family loans with low interest rates) and romance (Williams ends up hooking up with main cheerleader Kristine DeBell, who lets him get away in the end). The film also features one of cinema's most convenient fruit & vegetable stands for an opening truck crash.

john-852 Outside of some gratuitous nudity, there is precious little to recommend this. This was made by some of the people involved with FLESH GORDON and ALICE IN WONDERLAND, the two mid 70's porno films. Both were released in a hard version and then re-cut and played for years in toned down R versions. CHEERLEADERS features Kristine Debell ( who played Alice ) and Jason Williams ( who played Flesh, and who co-wrote this disaster ), the only other cast member of note is Marilyn Joi. The movie veers wildly between dumb T & A and a ridiculous kidnapping plot, never finding any stable tone or providing any laughs or thrills. In fact, the plot is so ridiculous it's not even worth touching on. The acting is poor all around and the direction is laughable to non existent. Kristine should be the sole reason to watch this but the film fails miserably on this level as well. While top billed, she's barely in this, has very little to say or do, and never gets naked. A huge let down as Kristine was so beautiful back then. She was involved with producer Osco for several years following ALICE and perhaps that relationship allowed her to participate in a T & A film without showing any skin. She would go from this to MEATBALLS and onto bigger things, but her career never caught fire.

Jay Furr The classification of this movie into "Horror" isn't really appropriate. It's basically a goofy flick with lots of bared flesh and a plot involving the kidnap of a busload of cheerleaders on their way to a competition. There's never any danger and it all has a happy ending. The reason to see it is simple: you like watching goofy mindless 1980's-era teenage exploitation flicks, and they don't come any more to the point than this. The ultimate mid-1980's tour de force!