Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

All Cheerleaders Die Blu-ray Movie Review

But Do They Have a Good Time?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 16, 2014

USC film school classmates Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson first made All Cheerleaders Die on a shoestring, shooting it themselves on video cameras during four weekends in 2001. Over the next decade, the partners often worked on separate projects. McKee directed The Woods and May, while Sivertson made the Lindsay Lohan bomb, I Know Who Killed Me, and the little seen but much superior Brawler. By the time the pair reunited to remake their early student film with a professional cast and crew and a genuine budget, they had become experienced filmmakers. Until they'd finished the remake, they refused to show their producer, Andrew van den Houten (In the Family), their initial effort, perhaps out of embarrassment (which may explain its omission from the Blu-ray, though it would have made a terrific extra).

The 2013 version of All Cheerleaders Die has the technical sheen of a professional product, but it retains the anarchic spirit of the beginners who initially conceived it. Like many concoctions cooked up in film school, it's intensely aware of genre conventions, which McKee and Sivertson pick up, spin around and frequently toss away just as casually as they grabbed hold of them. The approach is risky, and most writer/directors don't get away with it. A Joss Whedon or a Quentin Tarantino can smash genre boundaries and subvert conventions, because they seem to have precise internal alarms that warn them whenever they're about to go too far—and they never lose control of their story, no matter how often it twists back on itself. With McKee and Sivertson, you're often unsure whether they really intended to shift gears as abruptly as they often do in All Cheerleaders Die. There are moments when it feels like a scene or even a whole sequence was dropped in editing (or maybe they forgot to shoot it). Still, the backstory does eventually get filled in, and the enterprise has a hypnotic fascination, like being inside the mind of a pop culture junkie having a bad trip that's still an interesting ride.

All Cheerleaders Die is set on the same high school battlefield that energized both Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV series) and Veronica Mars. The film opens with the video diary of top cheerleader Lexi Andersen (Felisha Cooper), which is shot in classic "found video" style. Fear not, however, because Lexi's diary is just a prologue. It sets up the story, but doesn't establish the style. The film's real heroine, Maddy Killian (Caitlin Stassey), is reviewing the diary of her childhood friend as part of her plan to avenge Lexi (and others) by taking down Lexi's former boyfriend, football captain Terry Stankus (Tom Williamson), along with his current girlfriend, perky blonde cheerleader Tracy Bingham (Brooke Butler). Maddy plans to accomplish this feat from the "inside", by giving herself a makeover into the kind of mindless airhead that the cheerleading squad selects for its ranks—much to the dismay of Maddy's longtime BFF and confidante, Leena Miller (Sianoa Smit-McPhee), whose goth getup proudly signals her outsider status. Leena also happens to be a practicing wiccan, with talents much greater than even she suspects.

Maddy's plot initially seems to be going according to plan, as she sows dissension among the cheerleading ranks, which include two sisters, Hanna and Martha Popkin (Amanda Grace Cooper and Reanin Johannink), who don't need much of an excuse to argue. Maddy also drives a wedge between Tracy and her superjock boyfriend by making each one think that the other is cheating. In Tracy's case, it's effectively true, because Maddy, whose sexuality is ambiguous at best, seduces her fellow cheerleader. Whether Maddy is doing this because it's her nature or out of pure calculation is something I leave for the viewer to decide, but it leads to a memorably bitchy confrontation between Tracy and Terry, when she tells him in public that another woman is better than him in bed. (This turns out to be a very bad idea.)

All the while, Leena the teenage witch tries to keep tabs on her former friend, still baffled by Maddy's overnight transformation into a Stepford student. And Leena's concern is well-founded. About a third of the way through the film, everything changes when a combination of violence and the supernatural transforms a few of the cheerleaders into—well, no one actually says what they become, but the film's title provides a clue. Think of a hybrid between a zombie and a vampire. The affected group also seems to share certain primal sensations such as pain, hunger and sexual gratification, so that if one feels it, they all do. Their situation is complicated by the fact that two of the affected pom-pom girls have swapped bodies in the process. (No, there's no explanation for it.)

Even as corpses accumulate that resemble the shriveled remains in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce, McKee and Sivertson keep their film hurtling forward at such breakneck speed that there's no time for the authorities to intervene, even if they would know what to do when confronted with superhuman strength, beings who emit otherworldly glows and floating stones with mystical properties. All Cheerleaders Die races toward its conclusion in a trim 90 minutes, but that conclusion turns out to be only the cliffhanger ending of "Part One". Whether this is a joke on the part of McKee and Sivertson or they really do have a sequel up their sleeves, they've concluded on just the right note for a film that never loses sight of its genre roots, even if it does try to hold onto too many at once.

All Cheerleaders Die Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Detailed information about the shooting format of All Cheerleaders Die was not available, but the cameras shown in the "Behind the Scenes" featurette are obviously digital, and the film's end credits suggest that they were the Arri Alexa. The cinematographer was Greg Ephraim, whose prior experience was mostly in short films. After post-production on a digital intermediate, including some critical digital effects, the result on Image Entertainment/RLJ's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is the typically superior image we have come to expect from digitally originated projects delivered on Blu-ray without any intervening analog conversion. People and objects are sharp and clear, detail is excellent, blacks are solid and noise and artifacts are almost entirely absent. The colors of All Cheerleaders Die tend toward the bright and oversaturated, consistent with the turbulent, overheated emotions of adolescence and the gothic horror aesthetic that becomes its main focus, as the film zig-zags along its path. Hot hues predominate—the school color, appropriately enough, is red—and they're accentuated.

Image/RLJ still favors tight compression and BD-25s. All Cheerleaders Die is no exception, at an average bitrate of 21.98 Mbps. Given the digital origination and the black letterbox bars, the bitrate is sufficient, and there were no artifacts.

All Cheerleaders Die Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's 5.1 soundtrack, presented on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, provides an intriguing combination of teen beats suitable for dancing, workout and partying, with appropriately dark horror motifs courtesy of Danish composer Mads Heldtberg (You're Next and Cheap Thrills). The surround array immerses the viewer in the maelstrom, whether it's cheerleading practice, the football team's workout room (with the sounds of various weight machines all around), one of several angry confrontations or various supernatural events. Dynamic range is broad, although the bass extension has no occasion to reach for the lowest possible registers. The dialogue is always clear, even when the speaker happens to be possessed by some kind of spirit.

All Cheerleaders Die Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 23:45): This superior "making of" contains a little bit of everything: interviews with all the principal cast, audition tapes, rehearsal, training and comments from the producer. The writer/directors aren't interviewed, but they are seen and heard working with the actors. Several participants address the casting coincidence that so many of the characters, all of them American, were played by natives of Australia and New Zealand.



• Trailers: The film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays trailers for Cabin Fever: Patient Zero, Wolf Creek 2 and Way of the Wicked, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

All Cheerleaders Die Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

All Cheerleaders Die may be messy, but it benefits from an unmistakable enthusiasm, especially from the cast, who are fully committed to these goofy caricatures they've been given to play, treating them with utmost seriousness and never playing down to them. In the featurette on making the film, producer Andrew van den Houten espouses the increasingly old-fashioned philosophy that actors are the best special effect. They certainly are the best part of All Cheerleaders Die. It's no masterpiece, but it's worth watching for genre fans who want to see something different. The Blu-ray presentation will not disappoint.