Now available from MVD
A group of cheerleaders from different schools sees their bus heading to a state competition taken by a group of men who hold them ransom.
Written by D.W. Gilbert and Jason Williams, and directed by Jeff Werner, Cheerleaders’ Wild Weekend is a very specific product of its era, one where topless babes were all the rage in some comedies and any excuse was good to get ladies in their early 20s to show as much as they could get away with. There is a feel to this film here that puts it a bit above the Vixen films by Russ Meyer, but not but a lot. Here, we get an actual plot with a bit of mystery, a bit of action, and a whole lot of reasons to get shirts off and show some boobs. Gratuititties the Movie basically. The writing here is filled with cliches and a few issues to say the least, but it mostly works. The direction is decent in that it manages to bring the film to the screen in a coherent manner. It doesn’t have much flair and edges on the side of sleazy, but it works.
The cast here works decently well as well, giving performances that are either as expected for the material or just a touch above that. The work is working, the cast delivers their lines more or less believably and gives the viewer a reason to keep watching. Of course, nudity is de mise here so it becomes part of the characters and the performances. It’s there and it’s inevitable. In terms of shining through with some of the better performances, Krstine DeBell, Deslyn Bernet, and Jason Williams are the breakthrough of the film, the ones viewers will likely remember longer than the rest or possibly longer than the film itself.
The cinematography by Paul Ryan is also decent, nothing particularly special, but not egregious either. Some of the scenes, maybe even a lot of them, suffer from bad lighting choices and some questionable angles, but overall, the images are clear, if a little dark, and make the story easy to follow.
Cheerleaders’ Wild Weekend is a film of its time, late 1970s, with issues aplenty but an odd quality that keeps viewers interested. It’s a film that is of limited interest, but those who would be into it are likely to really like it a lot.
This new re-release on blu is decent with good image quality and sound as good as it can get considering the source material for both. The extras are plentiful as usual with highlights being the audio commentary with director Jeff Werner, actress Marily Joy, and editor Gregory McClatchy. Following this commentary, the interviews with Kristine DeBell, Jason Williams, Marilyn Joi, and Leon Isaac Kennedy are also quite interesting.
