When I heard that someone had come up with the ridiculous idea of taking the Bring It On movie series into slasher territory, well, I was delighted. Having enjoyed all of the other films, to varying degrees (although I have yet to see Bring It On: Worldwide Showdown), I figured this might be a good way to reinvigorate a series that had faded away from the minds of movie fans some years ago. There's nothing wrong with a movie series creeping towards a natural end point, of course, but I just have a soft spot for the various cheerleading dramas I have been watching for almost two decades now.
Written by Rebekah McKendry and Dana Schwartz, and directed by Karen Lam, this instalment develops a story by Alyson Fouse (the main writer involved with every sequel to the 2004 original, as well as many other projects). A cheerleading team have to practice late at night in an empty building, but they soon find themselves being stalked by a mysterious killer. That's all there is to it.
Kerri Medders plays the main character, Abby, Tiera Skovbye is McKayla Miller, and Marlowe Zimmerman and Makena Zimmerman play sisters, Paige and Evee Simmons, and everyone else really blends in with the whole cheerleading squad. The one exception is Missi Pyle, making a small cameo in the role of Principal Simmons. It's not that the cast aren't given one or two characteristics supposed to help them stand out from the crowd. It's just that everyone spends a lot of time looking perky in a cheerleading uniform, or just coming in and out of the plot to do nothing more than up the potential bodycount.
While the mix of main elements should be fun, it sadly never reaches its full potential. There's no real tension, kills are disappointingly tame and bloodless affairs, and the comedy is ineffective (although works a bit better when just juxtaposing the attempts to maintain a sunny disposition in the face of a situation going from bad to worse). The expected third act reveal is fun, and far from the most ridiculous motivation that we've seen given to crazed killers, but things get a bit too silly when the writers think that using cheerleading as an integral part of the finale will help to justify branding this under the Bring It On umbrella. Maybe it was some kind of stipulation, I don't know, but it's disappointingly mishandled.
The cast all do well enough in their roles, and fair play to everyone who manages to do the kind of cheerleading moves I wouldn't have even managed when I was a teenager, but they're stuck in a film that doesn't help them. McKendry and Schwartz fail to pinpoint the exact tone they want throughout, staggering from one moment to another like a pair of drunk friends heading homeward after a big night on the town, and Lam does nothing to help, seemingly happy to present everything without any extra style or skill.
The central concept - that complete lurch into a very different subgenre - is strong enough to gain some goodwill, but it's a shame that Bring It On: Cheer Or Die wasn't allowed to lean fully into the horror. It's equally depressing that the writers couldn't do better with the comedy. I can't bring myself to hate this, but I won't cheer it.
3/10
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