I don't know how it happened but, through begging, borrowing and stealing (joking about the latter) I have acquired a delegate pass to London Film Festival. This means that, for the next month or so, I shall be posting a lot of reviews of the content of the festival, (but sadly not mingling with Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock) letting you know which films you should flock to, and which you should definitely avoid in the coming months.
It's been a very good year for very bad girls in cinema. From the silent, sinister girl who goes from outcast to cold-blooded killer in Park Chan-Wook's Stoker, to the gun toting, beer guzzling girls of Spring Breakers and the clueless criminals of Sofia Coppola's Bling Ring, teenage girls both solo and in new rebellious gangs have been proving how much fun it can be to be a bit bad. We may not approve of their actions, but that doesn't make them any less fun to watch. All Cheerleaders Die gleefully follows in this tradition, keeping the sense of rebelliousness and bitchiness, but upping the buckets of blood.
The feel of the film is clear from the off - we follow cheerleader and general Queen Bee Alexis, star of her ex-best friend Maddy's documentary project around school as she drops life tips such as "Always take remedial classes, that way you can always get straight A's" and simpers over her boyfriend, the equally popular Terry. So far so idyllic, until Lexi ends up breaking her neck during an ambitious cheerleading stunt. Three months later, Maddy is more than happy to fill her friend's shoes, and all hell breaks loose.
All Cheerleaders Die has an "anything goes" feel to it, gathering (and on occasion subverting) teen film cliches with glee. Obsessive wiccan ex-girlfriend? Sure thing. Douchey jock who thinks he rules the school? You bet. Enough curses to fill up a swear jar? Of course. Unlike a lot of recent films (Kick-Ass 2's painful teen girl subplot immediately springs to mind) these characters are, for the most part, broad stereotypes whose backgrounds are gradually and briefly filled in. But for a film whose plot increasingly picks up speed and keeps adding in different elements, this oddly works, especially when directors McKee and Silverston move away from teen bitching and towards straight gore and horror. It's predictable, but that doesn't make it any less fun. Like with any good horror film, the audience knows what's going to happen, and is kept in anticipation of it.
All Cheerleaders Die may perhaps not go on to be a definitive classic of the teen genre the way Heathers and Mean Girls have, rather instead it is the sort of will that could (and should) go on the gather a cult following around it. It may not be perfect, and it may be steeped in tropes, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because it's just so much fun! McKee and Silverston have created a film that can happily sit side by side with films like Spring Breakers, The Craft and Jennifer's Body in a marathon of good films that are about very bad girls.
Grace Barber-Plentie
