Gimme a ‘Z’! Gimme an ‘O’! Gimme an ‘M’! Gimme a ‘B’! Gimme an ‘I’! Gimme an ‘E’! What’s that spell? Lashings of fun for everyone who watches the latest Grand Guignol exsplatterganza from maestro Pat Higgins: Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead.
Emily (Charlie Bond) is a waitress with a lifelong aversion to cheerleaders, thanks to a dark family secret. Trying to get on top of her fear, she sets up a cheerleading squad with an aim of entering a TV talent show. However, it turns out the path to the top – much like the road to Hell – is paved with good intentions, and a cursed amulet owned by Emily turns their main rivals – a boy band named Starmen, with an insatiable hunger for victory – into zombies with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. And, also, victory. Can Emily and her misfit squad win the day, and also the contest?
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Back in 1996, Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s Scream turned the spotlight inwards on the genre of horror movies, highlighting all of its tropes, cliches and rules, and making characters cognisant of how slasher flicks would usually play out. Suddenly, things were now very postmodern and meta, with lots of knowing nods and winks from filmmakers to the audience, who were now in on the ‘joke’. The line separating horror and comedy – as well as other genres – would end up being blurred, and horror had a wider (and – arguably – far more knowing) canvas on which to paint. Mostly in shades of vermillion.
Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead is a film which comfortably straddles several different genres at once, being a mix of romcom, musical, horror and satire. Having been in the business of making horror-centric features for some two decades, writer and director Pat Higgins has made quite a niche for himself with his growing brand of low budget but high ambition independent films. Anybody familiar with Higgins’ back catalogue will know just what to expect, and will not be disappointed. However, Powertool Cheerleaders certainly deserves to get as wide an audience as possible, including those who are not typically viewers of ‘schlock and gore’-type material.
It certainly has the kind of crossover appeal of something like Shaun of the Dead, refusing to be pigeonholed into a single, easily definable category. As a result, it means that Powertool Cheerleaders should be readily accessible to a broad spectrum of viewers with varying tastes. Not a fan of musicals? Not a problem, some evisceration will be along presently. Don’t really care for horror? Just cover your eyes, wait for all the splatter sounds to stop, and await the next imminent laugh. Are banging soundtracks more your sort of territory? Well, there is plenty to enjoy here, with Powertool Cheerleaders being awash with cracking tunes (as well as a lot of bodily matter).
At the centre of the action is Emily, with Charlie Bond giving a great performance as our reluctant heroine turned kickass lead. Bond takes us convincingly on Emily’s transformational journey, showing an endearing vulnerability, as well as some real mettle when required. All of her ‘Power Cheer’ troupe are also well cast and played, from Carrie Thompson’s haughty and aloof Brianna, to Megan Rose Buxton’s deceptively vapid Olivia, Liz Soutar’s perky social media influencer Ashley, and – perhaps the least likely of all the cheerleaders – the gothic vision which is Faith Elizabeth’s Mackenzie. This ensemble of seeming opposites blends well, and complement each other perfectly.
Of course, such a brilliantly daft concept as this one, which is understandably larger than life in all ways, could only ever be served up in a brash, ballsy and uncompromising manner. If the vocal performances during the songs are sometimes less than on point, then the sheer gusto of the delivery will carry that piece through without question. The end product has a certain polish which you might not expect from a relatively small-scale production, and what we get on screen ends up looking rather more expensive than you might think such a modest budget would allow. When everyone on both sides of the camera is clearly giving it their all, it helps gloss over any minor blips or qualms.
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While we have seen zombies mixed variously with comedy in Shaun of the Dead, reality TV in Charlie Brooker’s miniseries Dead Set, or musicals in Anna and the Apocalypse, what we have here in Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead is quite the heady cocktail made from all of those seemingly disparate elements which probably should fail to mix together, yet against all the odds makes for quite a superb concoction. If you should only see one musical rom-zom-com satirical feature this year, make sure it’s this one. Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead is definitely the psychic hug that we all need right now. Two-four-six-eight, here’s a film to really rate.
Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead is out now to rent or buy on Google TV, YouTube Movies, and Amazon Prime Video in the UK and US, with more platforms and territories to follow.
