A big, camouflage wearing psycho killer is going around offing the girls in a high school cheerleading squad. It's up to the local Sheriff (Mark V. Jevicky) and a big shot detective (Carl Hetrick) to weed through the possible suspects. One recurring clue: this killer seems to have a thing for the purifying qualities of water.At first glance, this would seem to be a VERY typical slasher, albeit one directed by the legendary Cemetery Zombie of "Night of the Living Dead", S. William Hinzman, and scripted by John A. Russo, based on his novel. There's zero suspense and zero scares, but Hinzman goes through the motions adequately, serving up lots of nudity and violence. Some of the actors are reasonably amiable, but the performances are, by and large, amateurish and dull. (Russ Streiner, a.k.a. Johnny in NotLD, appears here as a pontificating priest.) The trying-to-ape- John-Carpenter electronic score is good for some chuckles, to be sure.Where this actually gets interesting is at the two thirds mark. Here, the killer gets revealed, and even if you've guessed their identity correctly, it's a hoot that the way that the plot thickens. Then the killer, due to their compromising position, is obliged to help a character from a subplot take care of their problem. (Reminding this viewer of the 1975 Giallo "The Killer Must Kill Again".) Things go bad for almost everybody, and eventually the story turns into a tried-and- true revenge saga! This finale comes complete with some nifty explosions and bloody squib action.The final third of the picture may be a turn-off for some die hard slasher fans, but just speaking personally, it's what helped to make "The Majorettes" more than just run-of-the-mill for this viewer.Seven out of 10.

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!

A psychopath wearing camouflage with a hunting knife as his weapon, commences in slaying female majorettes across the throat while bathing their bodies in water "purifying their sins". A reluctant county detective is placed on the case with a sheriff who doesn't want his company. A nurse, whose son is the high school janitor and resident idiot with a vent opened up in his supply closet so he can spy on the majorettes removing their clothes in preparation for the showers(..while also taking snapshots of them, for his private collection), hopes to gain a great sum of money from her employer's will..the employer is an invalid, pretty much a vegetable unable to speak due to a stroke that has left her practically a zombie in a wheelchair. The nurse informs the poor woman of her diabolical plans while injecting her with heavy doses of insulin. Meanwhile, a gang of drug-dealing hoodlums selling their dope to underage teens cause problems towards a high school quarterback and his friend(..she's the granddaughter of the invalid the nurse plans to kill, and also a victim-to-be set up for execution due to what she'd receive in the will at the age of 18)which culminates in two tragic shoot-outs leaving quite a many dead. The nurse, thanks to her voyeur son's taking photos of a victim as she's being mutilated by the killer, blackmails the serial killer, wanting him/her to execute her employer's granddaughter to keep their silence.While I give a lot of love to the "Russo camp" for keeping it real by investing the film with local folks, this film is burdened by the cast's inabilities to adjust to acting in front of the camera. The screenplay is uneasy as the film moves from one scenario to another, with nearly everyone winding up dead. Though, everything ties together somehow, the glue is running and so is the audience for the eject button. I did think the twist regarding the identity of the killer was nifty and the final scene I thought worked really well. The slasher portion of the film I felt was rather clumsily staged and dragged out a bit too long removing the power these are supposed to bring when we are being led through a building murder sequence where the killer is about to strike his prey. The attacks are rather uninspired and typical of the genre. I feel the convoluted uneven story will leave many slasher fans frustrated and the killer's identity is revealed a bit too soon. The shootout belongs in another film(..although, I did enjoy both shootouts I must admit)and feels tacked on..although, the first shootout spoils the nurse's initial plans and shockingly some important characters wind up dead a lot sooner than one would expect. There's some nudity, particularly in the majorettes' locker room. As far as the attacks, most of the violence, except a few throat slicings, is off-screen. Kevin Kindlin, the quarterback who wages war with the nasty bikers, would later return as the lead "vampire" in Russo's flick, "Dark Craving."

This lame attempt at a film was based on Russo's book by the same name and as with all of Russo's movies one wonders how Night of the Living Dead could be so good. Cheerleaders get knocked off in very boring, predictable, and basically uninteresting ways for the first hour and then it becomes a shoot-'em-out, for no real reason, so long that when they get back to the cheerleader killer plot line you forgot what you were watching. Acting is bad, but dialogue is worse, and only one man can take the blame for that.The last scene (don't worry I won't spoil it) is surprisingly well done though and I like the last plot twist. The action were well shot, but in the wrong movie. Ultimately you can't be mad at the movie because it's just as confused as you are, but Mr. Russo has no excuses.