The Majorettes (1986) poster

The Majorettes (1986)

Rating:


USA. 1986.

Crew

Director – Bill Hinzman, Screenplay/Producer – John Russo, Based on His Novel, Photography/Music – Paul McCollough, Special Effects/Makeup Effects – Gerald Gergley. Production Company – Ross & Hinzman.

Cast

Kevin Kindlin (Jeff Halloway), Terrie Godfrey (Vicky McAllister), Mark V. Jevicky (Sheriff Braden), Sueanne Seamens (Judy Marino), Denise Huot (Helga Schuler), Carl Hetrick (Ronald Martell), Mary Jo Limpert (Marie Morgan), Harold K. Keller (Harry Schuler), Tom E. Deroscher (Mace Jackson), Russ Streiner (Preacher), Jacqueline Bowman (Nicole Hendricks), Colin Martin (Tommy), Bill Hinzman (Sergeant Sanders)


Plot

Someone is killing the girls of the high school’s cheerleading squad. Police detective Ronald Martell is brought in to aid the sheriff’s department as suspicion falls on various people from boyfriends, a local drug dealer and the perverted school janitor.


The Majorettes is a film made by alumni from Night of the Living Dead (1968). Its’ principal distinction is that it is written, produced by, based on a novel by and even features an acting appearance by John Russo who was co-writer of Night of the Living Dead. Russo later wrote a novelisation of Night of the Living Dead and several sequel spinoffs. He began writing original novels with The Majorettes (1979) and has turned out sixteen others. He has also directed several films with The Booby Hatch (1976), Midnight (1982) and its sequel Midnight 2 (1993), Heartstopper (1993), Santa Claws (1996) and My Uncle John is a Zombie (2012). Russo also wrote the screenplays for Voodoo Dawn (1990) and the remake of Midnight (2020).

Furthermore, Russell Streiner, who produced Night of the Living Dead, as well as played the role of Johnny in the opening scene, can also be seen here in the role of a preacher. Furthermore, the film is directed by Bill Hinzman, another alumni from Night of the Living Dead, who played one of the zombies, Hinzman maintained a small acting career based on the Night of the Living Dead association over the years, including minor parts in some of George Romero’s other films. He worked as a cinematographer on several films but only directed two films, first with The Majorettes and followed by the zombie film FleshEater (1988), before his death in 2012.

Sueanne Seamens goes to take a shower as the killer lurks in The Majorettes (1986)
Sueanne Seamens goes to take a shower as the killer lurks

The Majorettes was a belated entry in the Slasher Film – it came at a point when the early 1980s slasher cycle had peaked and the horror genre was starting to move on to Freddy Krueger copies. As such, it does little more than rehash the basic formula. There is a reasonable line-up of cheerleaders and we get to see most of them topless at certain points and then killed. As the slasher film goes, there is nothing particularly terrible about this but equally nothing original.

The film does arrive at an interesting twist about two-thirds of the way through where it seems to slip from being a slasher film into a completely different film – a Psycho-Thriller. Here [PLOT SPOILERS] Denise Huot, the nurse to the elderly woman, makes the discovery of the identity of the killer – and then proceeds to blackmail the killer into bumping off the elderly woman’s daughter so that she will stand to inherit her employers’ fortune in the will.


Trailer here


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