Cheerbleeders (2008)

High school sucks. Long ago, a gasket blew among all the plans to establish a public educational system which could competently prepare the teen population to enter the adult world. Public high schools are now more about teen culture than that of teen education; society’s well-intended construction of free education is nothing but a pop culture Petri dish fed by a constant warm bath of mass media consumption and shitty corporate music. As banally hellish as it already is, it seems fitting then to see it with one fine addition; demonically possessed cheerleaders looking to devour your soul.

Devon (Fenner) and Penny (Vail) are the two losers of their small town Idaho school. Rather than fight it, they revel in it; dressing themselves in counter-culture gothic trappings that openly put themselves at odds with the popular girls and jocks of the school. Their social standing rapidly changes when Penny accidentally exposes Devon to the ancient ritualistic drippings of great God Dionysus, infusing him with the power to put anyone of the fairer sex under his absolute control. So empowered, Devon assumes authority over the entire cheerleading squad and uses them for his personal pleasures before turning them into a pom-pom shaking death squad charged to mete out gory revenge against the jock oppressors.

Standing tall at a bit over 11 minutes, Cheerbleeders manages to carry all of the major beats of a feature film with hardly a moment to waste. This is a cute, if bloody, film with an effective dark wit and gory sensibilities, constructed with a subtext mocking the arguably ridiculous phenomena of high school culture. This is a commentary on the all-too-human desire to be popular, and it does it all with tongue firmly in cheek and with heads firmly removed from their bodies. Think of Heathers, except much shorter, much bloodier, and with a team of cheerleaders imbued with super strength and a desire to kill with their bare hands.

Cheerbleeders could certainly be adapted into a full length feature film. Director and writer Peter Podgursky has created a brilliantly funny satirical look at teen cliques and angst, and there is absolutely more than enough fodder here to carve out some entertainment over 90 minutes in length. For the moment, if you get the opportunity, be sure to check out this brief, bloody, and funny little film, and let’s look forward to whatever else Podgursky concocts for us next.