BRING IT ON: CHEER OR DIE (2022)

Studio:     Syfy/Universal 1440 Entertainment
Director:    Karen Lam
Writer:     Dana Schwartz, Rebekah McKendry, Alyson Fouse
Producer:  Griff Furst
Stars:     Kerri Medders, Tiera Skovbye, Missi Pyle

Review Score:

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Summary:

A masked killer stalks a high school cheer squad with mysterious connections to a tragedy that took place 20 years earlier.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Representing the Elk Moore High School Diablos at their regional cheer competition in 2002, jealous cheer squad captain Becca intentionally drops superior cheerleader Sandra. Sandra gruesomely breaks her neck and dies. Elk Moore High School closes down following the tragedy, but eventually reopens in a new location on the other side of town.

20 years later, team captain McKayla Miller leads the new Elk Moore High School’s reformed cheer squad. Cheerleaders include co-captain Abby, Regan, Sydney, Jackie, Tori, Mateo, stoner Quincy, mute member Silent Stu, and freshman Paige, who is the daughter of Principal Simmons and whose twin sister Evee expresses disappointment about not joining Paige on the squad.

When their longtime rivals The Green Knights outperform them at a football game, McKayla leads the squad in a risky aerial maneuver, even though the school forbids stunts. The stunt fails. Not wanting to suspend the squad since her daughter is a member, Principal Simmons only reprimands McKayla and Abby with a warning that cheerleaders are banned from leaving the ground.

With the 2022 regional cheer competition coming up, McKayla plots to incorporate aerial moves into the squad’s routine since Principal Simmons will not be attending anyway. To get around the rule about not practicing stunts on school grounds, the cheerleaders agree to secretly practice over Halloween weekend at the abandoned Elk Moore High School across town.

Having broken up due to him kissing another girl, Abby’s ex-boyfriend, quarterback Scott Becker, tries reconciling with Abby to no avail. Abby also has an awkward encounter with Evan, a longtime friend from elementary school who harbors a crush on Abby, but whom Abby and other classmates consider a weirdo.

A murderer dressed as the school’s devil mascot kills McKayla in her home. When McKayla fails to show up the following day, Abby overcomes self-confidence issues to assume the captain role in leading Regan, Sydney, Jackie, Tori, Mateo, Quincy, Stu, and Paige in cheer practice at the abandoned school. To ensure everyone stays focused, Abby confiscates all cellphones.

Regan badly injures her ankle when the squad practices their pyramid routine. With the squad forced to take a break, Sydney recounts the story of how a cheerleader died doing a stunt at the 2002 regional competition. Sydney also discovers that the bag of cellphones Abby collected is missing, preventing them from calling for help.

Evan arrives at the abandoned school. Evan passes something unseen to someone unknown before saying he wants “to be there for Abby’s moment of truth.”

The mascot murders Tori while she searches for ice packs in the nurse’s office. The mascot then murders Sydney in the bathroom. From different stairwells at opposite ends of a hallway, Mateo and Jackie see someone put an ax into Quincy’s back, but they misinterpret the attack as drug-induced behavior.

Regan discovers a notebook containing a competitive kill list with points identifying each person by a stereotyped personality. After Jackie finds Sydney’s dead body and the cellphones discarded in a toilet, the remaining cheerleaders realize someone is trying to kill them.

Remembering an earlier text request from Abby, Scott forces Tori’s boyfriend Danny to check on McKayla with him prior to attending a party. A wipeboard in McKayla’s bedroom mentions the old school, so Scott and Danny go there to look for McKayla and Abby.

While the mascot pursues Mateo, Abby finds a television with a video queued up for her to play. The footage shows Scott and McKayla making out. Scott finds Abby watching the tape. As Scott attempts to explain, the mascot attacks him. Abby flees in the commotion. The mascot murders Scott.

Mateo runs into Danny in a hallway. Mateo warns Danny about the killer, but the mascot fires an arrow into Danny’s head.

Mateo and Paige regroup with Abby, Regan, Jackie, and Stu in the gymnasium. The mascot enters. Paige suddenly takes Regan at knifepoint as the mascot unmasks to identify herself as Evee.

Evee taunts Abby by revealing she killed Evan, who had the idea to record Scott and McKayla in hopes of getting together with Abby. Evee and Paige then argue over how to fairly tally points in their cheerleader killing competition.

The twin sisters reveal that their mother, Principal Simmons, was the twin sister of Sandra, the cheerleader who died in 2002. Abby’s mother, Becca, was the person who killed her. When she gave birth to twin daughters of her own, Principal Simmons raised Paige and Evee to avenge their aunt’s death by training them in survival skills and teaching them to hate Abby and other cheerleaders.

With Regan held hostage, the sisters force the cheerleaders to play a game of “Cheer or Die” where they have to perform perfect routines or be killed. Jackie and Mateo each win their rounds. To prevent Regan from losing due to her injury, Abby leads an assault where the surviving cheerleaders use their athletic skills to attack Paige and Evee.

Abby, Regan, Jackie, Mateo, and Stu escape to an alleyway outside. The other cheerleaders motivate Abby to overcome her fear of heights so she can climb to the roof and pull everyone up with a rope. Abby pulls everyone up except Mateo, whom Evee pulls back down with a rope around his ankle.

Abby jumps back down to confront Evee so Mateo can continue his ascent to safety. Abby pleads that they don’t have to live their mothers’ lives, but Evee attacks anyway. Abby ultimately kills Evee before rejoining everyone on the roof.

Regan, Jackie, Mateo, and Stu climb down on the other side of the building, but their rope breaks in the process. With Paige catching up to her, Abby is forced to perform a backwards dive off of the roof, but the other four cheerleaders catch her.

The five surviving cheerleaders make it back to the bus that brought them to the location, but Paige suddenly kills the driver by shooting him with an arrow. Abby gets behind the wheel and uses the bus to run over Paige.

One year later, Abby leads the rebuilt Diablos squad in victory over The Green Knights at the 2023 regional cheer competition. However, Principal Simmons secretly plots her revenge.

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Review:

More mainstream movie properties ought to follow “Bring It On’s” lead by branching out into unexpected horror offshoots. Imagine Renee Zellweger returning to her B-movie roots with “Bridget Jones’s Necronomicon.” Or maybe “Legally Blonde” moves its klutzy comedy out of a courtroom and into a haunted asylum. If “Bring It On” can evolve from Kirsten Dunst championing a cheer squad’s PG-13 pep to Syfy slasher for Halloween season by its sixth small-screen sequel (yes, “Cheer or Die” really is the seventh “Bring It On” film), then there’s no reason why “Mamma Mia!” can’t go from Abba-themed musical to making Meryl Streep a supernatural serial killer for its third installment.

“Cheer or Die” doesn’t really have anything to do with the “Bring It On” series per se. It certainly doesn’t include any previous characters, storylines, or anything like that. Basically, the filmmakers produced a cheerleader-themed fright flick and someone said, “How about we make this part of the ‘Bring It On’ brand?” It’s a relatively low-risk dare to futz with the genre on a franchise that’s comfortable in a direct-to-DVD niche anyway, but kudos still go to whoever had the chutzpah to do something completely uncharacteristic with a concept that’s traditionally more “Degrassi” than “Friday the 13th.”

Compared to Syfy’s other twisted takes on established IP, “Bring It On: Cheer or Die” isn’t as subversively edgy as “The Banana Splits Movie” (review here) or as daringly slick as the “Slumber Party Massacre” remake (review here). Its horror leans lighter, and its tone does too, making for a movie that’s nevertheless enjoyable as a one-night lark, which seems to be how its creators treated it as well. That’s A-OK for a breezy B-movie built on mildly flippant fun. It’s just that no one should expect “Cheer or Die” to reinvent made-for-cable thrillers or cause crowds to clamor for more where this came from.

20 years ago, a jealous cheerleader caused her rival’s death during a regional cheer competition, which also caused Elk Moore High School to close down following the tragedy. The school eventually reopened in a new location, and even brought back the Diablos cheer squad, but under the strict stipulation that cheerleaders must never leave the floor again.

Vanilla routines just don’t cut it when you’re going up against The Green Knights though. Even though Principal Simmons expressly forbids aerial maneuvers, team captain McKayla and co-captain Abby know getting risky is the best way to win. To get around the ban against performing stunts on school grounds, McKayla and Abby convince the squad to give up their Halloween weekend to practice in secret at the abandoned school across town. They’re in deeper danger than they could ever expect, however, because a psychopath disguised as their mascot is deathly determined to butcher each and every last one of them.

As you can tell from that summary, “Bring It On: Cheer or Die” follows the formula for whodunit horror. As you might also suspect under these low-budget circumstances, the murder mystery doesn’t have the depth for its misdirects and MacGuffins to make much of an impact in the intrigue department. The killer’s identity isn’t obvious. You’re merely unlikely to be sitting on pins and needles waiting to see the mascot unmasked.

People can come up with plenty of petty, albeit valid, criticisms like, how is it that these teenagers haven’t even heard of a gruesome death that directly involved their cheer squad 20 years ago? Ten seconds on Google would immediately link the people who were part of that event to their descendants, and you just know classmates would constantly gossip about those connections. And why would the murderer need a disguise when the victims end up dead anyway?

Then you have to remember, “Bring It On: Cheer or Die” isn’t grounded in reality that way. The film isn’t full speed tongue-in-cheek, but it obviously isn’t meant to be taken with rigid seriousness either.

The murderous mascot prioritizes victims with a points-based kill list that literally identifies each character according to dominant stereotypes, e.g. slut, ditz, stoner, jock, basic b*tch, etc. Because it doesn’t really have to, “Bring It On: Cheer or Die” never pursues an ambition to get truly inventive about playing with teen horror clichés. Simply wringing some dark comedy out of typical tropes lets the movie hit for passable par on this basic cable putting green.

Of course characters have names like Paige and Taylor, and they live in suburban homes decorated with inspirational text art from Target. Of course melodrama gets manufactured from a snarky blonde bullying a wide-eyed good girl. Even in using predictable pieces though, “Bring It On: Cheer or Die” creates some good gags and good lines to sprinkle the bloodless slaughter with light laughs.

Someone notes that mats borrowed from the wrestling team “smell like sadness.” Someone calls the co-captain the “Kirkland Signature Brand” version of their regular captain, which earns the backhanded compliment, “Only Kirkland Brand is good!” Then there’s the person who remarks, “If this is a ‘Saw’ thing, I’m totally not cutting off my leg” upon recognizing a torturous situation. The comedy goose isn’t exactly laying golden eggs, but there’s enough here for “Bring It On: Cheer or Die” to wreak a harmless brand of humorous TV havoc.

Constructed out of semi-witty quips, gore-free deaths, and a straightforward slasher story, “Bring It On: Cheer or Die” checks safe boxes as gateway horror for a 13-year-old. Viewers who’ve aged out of that target audience might need to accept who occupies this territory before registering any real complaints. Let the kids have this one. For more mature tastes, “Cheer or Die” can take a secondary assignment as an inoffensive soundtrack to accompany 90 minutes spent focused primarily on your phone.

Review Score: 65

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