The Majorettes (1986)

Memorable, crazy movie

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Hey … what's with all the harsh and negative reviews on "The Majorettes"? I watched this movie before checking out what people thought or even taking a glimpse at the rating and thought it was a surprisingly enjoyable film! I was convinced it would have some loyal fans among the reviewers, but strangely enough practically all comments are discouraging others to see it. Well then allow me to be one of the only souls on the Internet promoting this eighties action/horror oddity! Avid and knowledgeable fans of the genre will immediately recognize two of the displayed names in the opening credits of "The Majorettes"; i.e. John Russo and Bill Hinzman. Both these gentlemen played fundamental roles in the establishment of one of the greatest milestones in cinema of all time; George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead". Russo was the co-writer and Hinzman played the legendary cemetery zombie with whom the invasion of the dead all begun. They went onwards with lesser successful careers in the 80's (Russo wrote and directed the obscure "Midnight" and Hinzman put together the dreadful "Flesheater"), but "The Majorettes" was their mini-reunion! That being said, "The Majorettes" opens exactly like you expect an 80's horror movie with such a lurid title to start! With a posse of chicks in tight gym suits doing aerobics to the tunes of dreadful pop music and then collectively stripping nude to hit the showers. So far so good, I'd say… After that it's getting even more typically 80's with voyeuristic janitors, love-making couples getting slashed in the backwoods and harsh bullying all within a span of five minutes! "The Majorettes" can overall be filed in the slasher cabinet, but there's certainly more than meets the eye. The plot is reasonably ambitious and there are some clear attempts to generate tension and atmosphere in between all the gratuitous nudity and brutal gore. A vicious killer dressed in a military camouflage outfit goes around slitting the throats of high school majorettes. The local drug dealer and boyfriend of the first victim is the main suspect, but it seems that the real killer has much more religious motivations for his killing spree.I spent quite a number of years looking for "The Majorettes" before finding it on a DVD-compilation along with "Hell High" and "Hitcher in the Dark". I have no idea why it's so relatively obscure, as it really isn't any worse than the vast majority of 80's stalk & slash movies. Quite the contrary, at least this movie tries to insert some significant twists and additional story lines. It's a mishmash of obvious red herrings and genuinely inventive plot twists. The whodunit factor is reasonably well-structured and effectively keeps you guessing along. The teen characters are also surprisingly likable and not at all the stereotypical bimbo-dimwits you anticipate to encounter in this sort of films. The acting is adequate (the copper with the mustache not included), there's plenty of excitement and the special effects are pretty cool. As far as yours truly is concerned, "The Majorettes" is one of the slasher-sleepers of the decade and urgently needs a fan base! PS: Keep an eye open for the sequences with the grandmother! She looks as she had no idea she was on a film set!

This film begins as your average run-of-the-mill slasher flick, with titular cheerleaders getting killed by a man in full camouflage dress. Is it the perverted/peeping tom janitor, the jealous football star, the European nurse or the zealot preacher? Well, the filmmakers lead us astray from the majorettes and seem to center on a group of thugs and their violent escapades - as the viewers knows that this group isn't responsible for the cheerleader slayings.The initial plot is abandoned as we are fed this side story about the thugs and the star quarterback seeking revenge on them for killing his friend. So we have a slasher film in the Cheerleader Camp mold initially and then have some Ramboesque revenge flick near the end.VIOLENCE: $$$$ (Plenty of it, seeing as how this combines the slasher with the revenge saga. However, if you're a fan of variety, then this will not appeal to you. All the majorettes get their throats slashed and the thugs blow people away. I found it quite strange that the high school quarterback had an M-16 in his gun cabinet. I supposed all future Peyton Mannings need semi-automatic rifles).NUDITY: $$$$ (Plenty of it as well - although that big '80's hair gets in the way at times. The peeping tom takes photos of the majorettes in the locker room and Sueanne Seamans has a shower scene that doesn't end well for the buxom beauty).STORY: $$ (There are plot twists, and then there are plot journeys. The screenplay wasn't quite terrible as it should have stuck with one genre rather then trying to mesh two. Also, writing in an Army arsenal for the high school quarterback was foolish).ACTING: $ (There is a reason we have never seen these faces before or since. Kevin Kindlin does the best job as the revenge seeking football star while Jacqueline Bowman - as the only majorette that doesn't employ an entire can of hairspray in one sitting - give the best efforts here. Sueanne Seamans and Terrie Godfrey looked a little too old to be portraying high school students, but without Sueanne, the filmmakers wouldn't have reached the slasher film breast-baring quota).

The Majorettes starts out as a below average, badly acted, boring slasher film. A killer in camouflage is murdering the majorettes at a local high school. Big deal. But suddenly at the half way mark, the narrative shifts and it becomes a vigilante flick as one of the slain girl's boyfriends runs around shirtless, dishing out vigilante justice against a group of dope dealers with an M-16. You've gotta see it to believe it.Needless to say, this bizarre twist boosts the entertainment value slightly and saves this movie from the doldrums of crummyville. No talent in front of or behind the camera, but worth a look for bad movie fanatics.

No wonder, nobody bothered to comment on this piece of s...! What starts out to be a slasher (and a extremely bad one, that is) then suddenly change direction and becomes an action movie, with a lot of gunfight and explosions!? I can only hope that the book is better (which it doubt). So don't bother watching this. There's not enough blood to make it a good stalker/slasher flick, and there's not enough action to make it a good action movie. The plot(?) is non-existing, the acting is worse than bad, the "effects" are really dull (all victims get their throat cut, how inventive) and even the editing is bad.You're better off renting the old classics like Friday the 13th, the prowler, helloween and if you liked the action part of this movie you're better off with all Craig R. Baxley's movies.