Chainsaw Cheerleaders (2008)

Directed by Donald Farmer
Starring Tiffany Shepis, Debbie Rochon, Michele Gray, Jackey Hall
Unrated
USA

"I wish I was Anna Nicole Smith."
"Why is that, dear?"
"Because dead people don't get sent to cheerleading camp."

I'm not sure which event happened first - Donald Farmer's acquisition of several porn starry cheerleader outfits, or the life-altering epiphany he experienced when the cockamamie-but-irresistible phrase "Chainsaw Cheerleaders" popped into his skull - but obviously one followed quickly after the other. Everything else that happened after that was largely irrelevant. I mean, his job was already 99% done at that point.

As any self-respecting sleaze hound surely knows by now, Tennessee's own Donald Farmer has been churning out shot on video splatter flicks on a consistent basis since the mid '80's. His high water mark remains 1987's Cannibal Hookers, a tawdry, hairspray-abusing bit of heavy metal horror dreck, but he has dozens of similarly-titled and themed weekend wonders under his belt, including Demon Queen (1986), Scream Dream (1989), Red Lips (1995), and his last magnum opus, 2006's Dorm of the Dead. While not officially a sequel, Chainsaw utilizes most of Dorm's cast, and like Dorm, the film is littered with gum-snapping mean girls and psychotic goth chicks. So what's the difference? This one's got chainsaws, man. And cheerleaders.

Chainsaw Cheerleaders begins, sensibly, in 1508, somewhere in Europe. This affect is achieved mostly by putting Tiffany Shepis in a Ren Faire dress. Tiffany is Lucinda, an evil witch who torments some chick with a low-rent CGI pemis monster and then tears her heart out and eats it. Then a bunch of dudes in robes show up and burn her at the stake. The end.

Not really. Fast-forward to the present day. Sally (Erin Bushko) browses around a tacky giftshop, looking for props for her high school drama club's production of Macbeth. Angelique (Harmony Xanix), a heavily-pierced punkette that runs the joint, suggests a gnarly-looking hunting knife, which she says is 500 years old and once belonged to - you guessed it, Lucinda the wicked witch. Angelique tries to convince Sally that together, they can bring Lucinda back from the dead. I am not sure how that benefits anybody, but whatever. Sally tells her she's nuts, so punkette licks her face.  This does not convince her otherwise. Sally decides to split, but then some dude shows up and drags her off.

Meanwhile, Dawn - who's also sort of punky, but also sort of Lesbian-y, as well - is having a rough day. Mom finds the sex tape she made with her goth-y boyfriend Dax (Christopher Shaw), and goes suitably bananas. Dawn decides to take a walk until things cool down, and she runs into her BFF Ciara (Ciara Richards) who informs her of Dax's infidelity. Right on cue, Dax shows up with another girl on his arm. Dawn chases her away and then breaks Dax's nose with her boot.

Clearly, Dawn needs some change in her routine. The school guidance counselor (Debbie Rochon), drops by and suggests Dawn join the cheerleading squad to help her with her IED - Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Sounds valid. For whatever reason, Dax agrees not to press charges if Dawn becomes a cheerleader. And so she does. There are three other cheerleaders (this must be a very small town), all of 'em bouncy and blonde: Bambi (Misty Marie), Chassy (Jackey Hall), and Jessica (Rabecca Lee). So, you know, this is not going to go well.

The cheerleading team's trip to regionals is supposed to be funded by magazine subscriptions, but the squad is too lazy to bother trying to sell any. They convince Dawn that if she sells one subscription - at the spooky old house everyone's afraid of, naturally - then she can slip their strict Red Bull diet. She goes for it, figuring possible kidnapping and murder is still preferable than hanging out with a trio of anorexic blonde bubbleheads.
Dawn knocks on the door, and Angelique answers. Stalling for time, she asks for a glass of water, and when Angie goes to get it, Dawn sees a body on the floor, flailing away in a plastic garbage bag. Freaked, she bails and catches up with her cheer squad in the school's locker room.

Sadly, none of them are in a state of undress. Dawn tells the girls she thinks some sort of criminal mischief is afoot at the creepy house. After promising to be head cheerleader Bambi's slave if they don't find anything, the girls agree to check it out with her, so off they go, Scooby Doo style.

Dawn shows up just in time to see Angelique slash Sally's throat. Her gushing lifeblood opens a portal to another dimension (ball of light video effect) and Lucinda the witch plops though, still wearing her purple Ren Faire dress. But wait, shouldn't the dress - along with the rest of her - be a pile of cinders? Yep, except she managed to go through the portal right before the burning, so now punkette has to take her place. That's cold-blooded, Lucinda. You really are a wicked witch!

Lucinda turns the still-gurgling Sally into a zombie. And then she sets her sights on Bambi, who is loitering outside in her SUV. Lucinda uses some witchy mumbo-jumbo to take over her body. Not sure why, although Bambi is a good 4 inches taller. Maybe that's it.

Meanwhile, at the 50 minute mark, we finally get to see some boobs. The good news is that they belong to Debbie Rochon, and they are pretty spectacular. The bad news is, she's getting raped by some dope in a Halloween mask while they're out. Anyway, it turns out to be some role playing scenario anyway, so I guess we break even there. The faux-rapist splits and Debbie settles in for some relaxing self-pleasure, but Lucinda sends in her penis monster and...well, the results are suitably grotesque. By the way, the splatter gag here is well above average for a Farmer flick. I'm not sure why Lucinda would have any beef whatsoever with Debbie's character, but what the hell.

The proceedings liven up significantly in the next scene, when Bambi lets her over-ripe melons out for a soapy shower. She even gets Jessica to gently wash her back for her. And then she makes out with her a little. So that was good.

But them Bambi sprouts Star Trekky spikes on her suddenly swollen forehead. That is not so good.

Oh, remember sex-god Dax? He's still banging the chubby chick. He's got a nasty surprise coming. Even nastier than whatever he's already up to.

Later on, Dawn shows up to find the mutilated corpses of her ex-boyfriend and his plus-sized lover. And then a detective shows up and finds her standing there with a fuckin' chainsaw, and that's pretty much it for her. But then Bambi shows up and pulls some kind of brain-whammy on the detective.

Bambi convinces the other two cheerleaders that all this mayhem is Dawn' s doing. They don't handle it too well. One of 'em pees herself.  But then they rally for an epic cheerleaders plus witch in cheerleader outfit VS. goth chick in cheerleader outfit battle to the death.

Well, one of 'em runs away and she eats the other one. So really just the witch and the goth chick. Plus her friend Ciara. Who, incidentally, was the same girl Lucinda killed 500 years ago. Logic was clearly tossed right in the garbage can around this point.

Oh, and then Chassy shows up again. She gets a chainsaw too. This, I imagine, is to justify the plurality of the title. Chainsaw Cheerleaders are go!

Good thing, too. Because Bambi's down at the Hot Spot Lounge, and she's just about to skin the waitress.

The climax is prime Farmer splatstick, with lots of goo, decapitated head gags, and screaming metal guitars. The end.

It should go without saying that Chainsaw Cheerleaders does not live up to its ecstatic title. I don't think anyone, including Farmer himself, ever expected it to. The problem, then, is that Chainsaw Cheerleaders does not fail as spectacularly as you'd like. Over the years, Farmer fans have come to expect certain glaring inadequacies that make the whole ordeal worthwhile - especially shoddy dimestore effects, perhaps, or woefully shaky acting. His previous film, Dorm of the Dead, had fistfuls of both, including a howlingly off-kilter performance from bratty Jackey Hall.

While it still wasn't a badfilm classic, it was close. With Chainsaw, everybody's acting is one notch closer to presentable - Hall even shows a knack for rubber-faced comedy. Likewise the effects, while still shoddy, are never quite as Ed Wood-y as you might like. And so you're left with a film that never approaches good, but doesn't wallow in its badness either. It just sort of rolls wobbily along, giving you just enough incentive to stay with it, but never delivering the goods.

Still, the film is called Chainsaw Cheerleaders, so there is a certain segment of the population - you and I being prime examples - who are going to watch this, whether we want to or not. We will be rewarded by two sets of boobs - both well-worth the effort - and the surprisingly effective comic mugging of Jackey Hall. Is that enough? No, of course not. But it's got chainsaws, man! And cheerleaders!

- Ken McIntyre

Nun of That (2009)

Directed by Richard Griffin
Starring Sarah Nicklin, Alexandra Cipolla, Shanette Wilson, Ruth Sullivan
Unrated
USA

"I want those fuckin' nuns dead!"

The 48 Hour Movie Project is an annual event wherein speedfreaks and manic-obsessives all over the world write, produce, and edit a short film during one long and bleary-eyed weekend. Nun of That began as one such 48 hour mini-flick and, emboldened by the awards and accolades (Best Editing, Providence, 2008), the filmmakers decided to give it the full-length treatment. The result is a campy girls-with-guns comedy that parodies various 70's trash-cinema sub-genres (Nunsploitation, blaxploitation, Jesus freak musicals, Italian police thrillers, etc.) at a breakneck pace and wears its shabbiness like a gold (foil) medal.

The story involves one Sister Kelly Wrath (workaholic Z-queen Sarah Nicklin, well on her way to becoming the next Debbie Rochon), a rebel nun ousted from her cloister for battering a lesbo sister in the shower and breaking a pervy priest's arm for molesting a girl scout.

On her way to the ghetto nunnery she's been banished to, she gets shot in the chest by some rival sisters of the cloth and goes to Heaven, which turns out to be a pretty groovy place with lots of wine-gulping and foot massages. Groovy Jesus does a little song and dance number by way of introduction, and then he recruits Sister Kelly in the Order of the Black Cloth, an elite force of vigilante Super Nuns. And then he shoots her back down to Earth to get shit done.

Her mission? To take on the Corbucci mob family. And yes, in case you're wondering, every Italian guy in the entire movie has a first and/or last name based on either a spaghetti western or Italian gore-flick director. You know how that goes.

Along with her gang of Super Nuns (Sister Lust, Sister Pride, and Sister Gluttony, natch), Sister Wrath blasts through the bad guys, eventually squaring off with the devil himself.

Hardcore sacrilege fans should note that Nun of That lacks the pervy grit and the softcore slurping of the vintage 70's Nuns-amuck cycle (Killer Nun, Flavia Priestess of Violence, etc) that it apes in its posters and box cover. Beneath the habit, it's really just a goofy, low-budget action comedy with a smattering of nun-centric jokes.

Very much in the same tongue in cheek vein as Griffin's previous flicks - Necroville (2007), Splatter Disco (2007), and so on - Nun of That is exactly what you'd expect from a life-long exploitation fan who grew up in the big-box VHS era. It's got gore, it's got laughs, it's got cameos from Debbie Rochon and Lloyd Kaufman, and it's got nuns with studded belts and stretchpants blowing scum away with machine guns. What more could you want?

Well, ok, more lesbian nun-on-nun scenes. That goes without saying. But it's got everything else.

Nun of That is available from Camp Motion Pictures!
Listen to an interview with director Richard Griffin on the Alternative Cinema Podcast!
Visit the official Nun of That Myspace page!

- Ken McIntyre

Bikini Bloodbath (2006)

Directed by Jonathan Gorman, Thomas Edward Seymour
Starring Leah Ford, Debbie Rochon, Carmine Capobianco
Unrated
USA

"I can't find the fruity shit."

Bikini Bloodbath could, for all intents and purposes, call itself Slumber Party Massacre 4 and get away with it. It's got all the elements: a clutch of attractive high school girls (including one plucky self-starter and one weird-girl-who-nobody-likes), a fetish-y killer, a ridiculous red herring, and, most importantly, shower scenes and an all-girl party. This particular get-together is a bikini-only affair, mostly to justify the title. Also like the '82 film, Bloodbath is a slasher movie and a send-up of the genre at the same time. They're both low budget - although this one could be more accurately labeled 'no budget' - and feature a handful of first-time actors. The difference? Slumber Party Massacre had a little forethought. Bikini Bloodbath is a let's-get-drunk-and-make-a-movie sort of affair.

White Liger - a real band, sorta - blasts away on the soundtrack as our plucky young protagonist Jenny (Leah Ford, sporting an awesome Stephanie Fondue/Cherie Curie/Tegan & Sara-esque girl-mullet) wakes up, shows off her teacup titties, and starts her day. She heads to school where she meets up with her gang of hussies and mean girls. Lucky for us, we meet them all on gym day.

They play volleyball in tight shorts, while their self-hating lesbian gym teacher Miss Johnson (Debbie Rochon) occasionally molests them. They mostly seem to like it though, so no harm done.

After the game (they are all quite terrible at volleyball, by the way), they take a shower and discuss the big party at Jenny's house. All the girls are invited except, of course, for Suzi (the impressively curvy Sheri Bomb), the resident ick-girl. After they towel off, the girls run into the football team. They've heard about the girls' party, and they are unimpressed.
"We're throwing our own party," says one of the jocks. "Guys only. We're gonna have balloons."

By the way, just so you don't get confused, most of the characters in this film wear t-shirts that identify who they are. Rochon's reads "Gym Teacher". Everybody on the football team have "Football Player" shirts. Etc. It's actually very handy. Life would be simpler if we made this mandatory.

Oh yeah, we're supposed to get a bloodbath going, right? There's a mad chef on the loose - with his scraggly orange goatee, he actually looks more like the bass player in a stoner rock band, but whatever - who skulks around the neighborhood, occasionally slicing open a local with his pear-knife. The crazed psycho-chef slashes his way through a succession of victims, including one of the volleyball girls, a cheeseburger-obsessed bum, and then poor, horny Miss Johnson. This is generally accomplished via one of those dimestore retracting knives and what seriously looks like ketchup. Maybe it's funnier that way?

Cut to: Jenny and Sharon (Anna-Karin Eskilsson) buyin' stuff for the party. The girls run into Suzy while they're in the grocery store. She tries to invite herself to their party, but is soundly rebuffed. We so far have no reason why the girls detest her so much. She does have bigger tits than the rest of them. Maybe that's it?

While the girls are unpacking their groceries, they hear a strange noise outside. They go out to investigate, only to find a blood-splattered chef in their backyard. Luckily, it's not the killer, it's just their screwy next door neighbor, Mr. Robinson (Phil Hall). Seems he was making peanut butter and grape jam sandwiches, and things went awry. They shoo him away, but not before he suggests the girls take a shower together. That does sound like a good idea. And that's exactly what they do.

Later on, their friends show up and the girls have an awesome dance party. Aside from Pam's ( Dana Fay Ensalata) spastic moves, I could watch that all day.

The football team, on the other hand, sit around eating ice cream and S'mores and occasionally playing a bit of grab-ass, and Suzy - dressed casually, in skin-tight pink underwear, quietly assembles a jigsaw puzzle at home.


The boy's party quickly descends into what looks like the opening scene of a hardcore gay porn film. The boys' coach, by the way, is none other than the Galactic Gigolo himself, Carmine Capobianco!

Two of the fellas decide that the football party is getting too homoerotic for their tastes - and after reach-around Twister and talk of spin-the-bottle and "Frenching", I can see their point - so they decide to head out and see if they can wrangle some girls.

Meanwhile, after splashing bright pink slushy drinks on one another, the girls all change into bikinis. It's about fuckin' time, man. They slip into a hot tub and talk about blowjobs. Because that's what happens at these things.

Next door, Suzy hears something in the backyard and ends up stumbling into Mr. Robinson's house. She finds his headless torso at his computer desk. Panicking, she bolts out of there, but smacks into the office door and knocks herself out.

And then the dudes have a dance-off. The fat guy even does the Flashdance pull-the-chain ending.

Suzy wakes up in Mr. Robinson's house surrounded by body parts. She rushes over to the girls' house and barges in. Snotty Portia (busty Katie Gil) eyes her blood-soaked classmate and sneers.
"You look like a tampon."
"Can I have some water?" The out-of-breath Suzy asks.
"Yeah, sure. The toilet's in the bathroom."
They are very mean to Suzy.

The killer-chef finds his way into the house and starts picking them off one by one. Sharon grabs a knife and heads out to get help. She also promises to bring back tacos. A first, the remaining members of the party try to figure out a way to escape, but that proves to be too much trouble, so they down a bunch of daiquiris instead.

While all this mayhem is going on, we cut to Sharon, who is at Das Taco, quietly eating a 7-pound burrito in her blood-smeared bikini. The taco joint has a Hitler cut-out on the door, so I'm guessing it's a Nazi Taco place. Which you don't see very often.

So, you know, everybody eventually gets killed. Jenny - who we knew would be the Final Girl from the beginning, because she has the smallest boobs and shortest hair - is left to do battle with the chef in her garage. He's got a couple cleavers, she's got a rake.
"I'm gonna rake the shit outta you, Frenchy", she growls.

By the way, there's a lot of disturbing-looking stuff lying around in that garage. It was clearly not a dressed set, and was shot exactly as it usually looks, but there are literally hundreds of wire racks packed in with what looks like either a tanning bed or a casket. There's a stray wheelchair in there, too, and an old turntable with a warped record wobbling soundlessly away. Crazy.

Jenny rakes him and wanders off. The end. And then, as I fully expected, there's about ten minutes' worth of credits.

So, who was the chef? Dunno. But I bet he's into stoner rock.

It seems sorta senseless to offer criticism of a shot-on-video quickie called Bikini Bloodbath, especially since it did, pretty much, deliver on its promise. However, there is no other excuse for shoddy, Karo-syrup-splashing-on-the-wall special effects at this point except for sheer laziness. You can find budget Savini-esque solutions to your slasher movie problems within ten minutes of surfing You Tube, utilizing junk you've already got lying around the house. Clearly, realism was not Gorman and Seymour's goal, but a few reasonably effective splatter-gags would have gone a long way. The script, too, seemed to waver from witty, self-aware, pop-culture referencing black comedy to juvenile drivel, especially during the seemingly endless football party. Sure, we get the joke - flip the gender around, and you get a much different sort of movie - but that particular point is driven home in about 30 seconds. Taking half the film to prove that slasher movies look like gay porn if they star football players is a tad excessive. Also, Bikini Bloodbath does not star scream queen Debbie Rochon, despite her top-billing and prominent placement on the poster. Rochon's only in the film for 15 or so minutes, and even then, it was clearly a weird period for her. That double-chin was no special effect, man.

Ah, but these are minor quibbles in the big scheme of things, really. The fact is that there's half a dozen bouncy young girls in this movie, and they are either topless or barely clothed for most of it. When it's firing on all cylinders, it's also very funny ("I'll be out in a minute, I just gotta get rid of this boner"), and has the decency, in these busy days, to get in and out in an hour. Also, you can probably masturbate to the dance party scene. The girl's version, anyway.

Bikini Bloodbath proved enough of a success to warrant two sequels: 2008's Bikini Bloodbath Carwash, and 2009's Bikini Bloodbath Christmas. Most of the cast carry over into the other movies, despite being killed in the first one. I dunno about you, but I can't wait to see 'em.

Availability: Bikini Bloodbath is available on DVD.

Link: Bikini Bloodbath website
Clip: Official Trailer!

- Ken McIntyre