User Reviews

The Majorettes starts out as a below average, badly acted, boring slasher film. A killer in camouflage is murdering the majorettes at a local high school. Big deal. But suddenly at the half way mark, the narrative shifts and it becomes a vigilante flick as one of the slain girl's boyfriends runs around shirtless, dishing out vigilante justice against a group of dope dealers with an M-16. You've gotta see it to believe it.

Needless to say, this bizarre twist boosts the entertainment value slightly and saves this movie from the doldrums of crummyville. No talent in front of or behind the camera, but worth a look for bad movie fanatics.

Spoilers herein.

Yeah all the usual production values are horrible. And the setup is along the lines of Jess Franco, but with adolescent body types.

All is pretty dreary until two thirds of the way through when the slasher is discovered and blackmailed. The thing quickly disintegrates into a battle among evil groups. It is an incompetent film, but a pretty interesting collection of events in that latter third, of a scope worthy of Tarantino.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Written and produced by John A. Russo, which he adapted from his own novel, this is yet another weird trip to Western Pennsylvania by the man who brought us the scripts for Night of the Living Dead and Midnight. Trust me, I live here, and I could tell instantly that this film emanated from my home base (Coraopolis and the Fox Chapel Yacht Club, in this case).

It's directed by Bill Hinzman, who was the first zombie that we see in Night of the Living Dead. He also made Flesheater, which is one of the absolute worst films I've ever seen, which really says something.

The astounding thing here is that this movie sets you up for a slasher where majorette squad members are getting offed one after the other, but then switches the plot numerous times to bring in police corruption, elder abuse, Satanic bikers and vigilante justice.

The end of this movie is pretty much as dark as it gets, but then again, this is also a movie that has someone who is not the slasher kills its final girl off nearly thirty minutes before the credits. You have to respect that level of disrespect for the more disrepsectful of all genres.

Just when you think there's nothing new out there, you see The Majorettes. A semi-slasher film that owes a lot to The Prowler, although certainly not the gore scenes. Bill Hinzman helmed this picture and only one other, Flesh Eater. Reportedly based on a novel, this isn't totally bottom of the barrel but it certainly tries.

A killer in camouflage is stalking the Majorettes at a high school. You will find out this is because he believes they are filthy and in need of killing. After seeing them dance and twirl batons, you, too, will seek to dismember them. They are truly awful. The acting is atrocious, as is the dialogue, and many scenes end awkwardly focusing on a character after they just finished their lines then the camera lingers a bit too long on their faces. There are some throat slashings, but most of the deaths by blade involve shots of the knife descending rather than hitting its mark.

And, just as I was getting supremely bored with this film, a stupid subplot comes out of nowhere and actually improves things. The film actually has a few subplots: besides the killer not-so-subtley stalking the girls, there is also a German nurse who wants to kill an old lady and her granddaughter(also a Majorette) to get an inheritance and a biker gang that looks like rejected roadies for Motorhead who want to get revenge on a jock for squealing on a dope dealer. These all crash into each other about an hour into the film and the murders actually take a back seat to the jock's showdown with the bikers. All of the budget effects went into this scene, which is a shame since it could have better been used during the killer's work.

The musical score is, well, interesting. Often derivative of other 80's thrillers, and this isn't a bad thing, we are also treated to a variety of guttural moans over the soundtrack. And it's not a woman moaning, so it gets very annoying.

This is for slasher completists or for bad movie night.

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."

In my years of trawling through cheap movies, I've discovered that there are two varieties of bad films. The first is the 'enjoyably bad' movie, which is poorly made and doesn't work, yet is still fun to watch mainly for all the wrong reasons. You can have a good time watching these kind of movies. The second variety is the 'just plain bad' type of film, the kind that rests at the bottom of the pile. I know I always pick on it, but the first film I bought for review was the Filipino atrocity THE THIRSTY DEAD. That's just a plain, boring, totally worthless bad movie.

ONE BY ONE is a film which falls into the former camp of bad movies. Sure, it's very poorly directed (by Bill Hinzman, the guy who played the famous cemetery zombie in the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD), the special effects are cheap and tacky and the acting is an atrocity in its own. Yet, I found myself glued to the screen, frequently laughing and incredulous at the antics playing out during the movie. You can't really get any more '80s than the beginning of this movie which shows a group of cheerleaders dancing to rubbishy music while a geeky photographer zooms in for a closer look. Creepy janitor Harry is also lurking around, pretending to mop the floor but instead getting an eyeful of the girls. He's the type of character who enjoys watching the girls undress in their locker room - and, coincidentally, the viewer also gets to partake in this activity. There's a lot of nudity which gives the movie a sleazy, slimy kind of edge.

It doesn't take long before the murders begin, with the beautiful young girls getting their throats messily slashed by a killer in an army costume. The splattery special effects in this film reminded me of the ones in Friday the 13th, so at least they have something going for them, although the majority of the good stuff has been hacked out by the censor's knives here in the UK. Now, scriptwriter John Russo wasn't content to have his film that straightforward. Thus begins a complex subplot involving a wicked nurse (who also happens to be the mother of Harry, the janitor), who cares for an elderly woman. The woman's granddaughter is one of the cheerleaders and is due to inherit millions on her 18th birthday, which is only a week away. When Harry snaps a photo of the killer, his mother blackmails the villain with the evidence and asks him to commit one last crime; namely, murder the granddaughter on her 18th birthday so that her inheritance will pass on to her grandmother, who can then also be bumped off to make way for the nurse to claim the money for herself.

Confused? Well, it explains itself pretty well on screen, although you have to admit that this premise is pretty unrealistic. These activities take up the first hour of the film, and while what's happening up on screen is pretty bad, at least it moves quickly and doesn't become boring. The acting, as I mentioned above, is dreadful from the cast of unknowns (overage actors pretending to be teens again), with the only familiar face being that of Russell Steiner, a.k.a. the unfortunate Johnny from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. It goes without saying that cronies Bill Hinzman and John Russo also find cameo roles for themselves to appear in.

Now, "what of the last half an hour?" you may ask, and "why is this labelled an action film?". This is where the film gets really crazy. It's like at the hour mark, Russo suddenly got tired of his slasher plot and switched track into making an urban thriller. Two young innocents, Jeff and Vicky, are captured by a biker gang headed by a drug-dealer who has been turned in by Jeff earlier on in the film. They are taken to a warehouse, where they are beaten until Harry the janitor intervenes. You see, Vicky is THE granddaughter, and if she dies before her 18th, there won't be any money for his mother. Meanwhile one of the gang members rebels against his leader and violence suddenly erupts, with the rebel, Harry, Jeff and Vicky all getting shot dead. The biker gang flee back to their trailer to hide.

Except that Jeff isn't dead. He goes to his house, grabs his dad's assault rifle and goes back to the trailer home of the gang...Yep, incredibly this film has now turned into a REVENGE thriller with the wounded Jeff turned vigilante! I really couldn't believe my eyes as I was watching this film, and the twists and turns the plot was taking. What follows is a highly cheesy shoot-out in the woods, with loads of stuff exploding and people getting shot. Things culminate in a one-on-one with the gang leader in which Jeff shows no mercy. Yes, ONE BY ONE is a bad movie. Yes, it's also an enjoyable bad movie, worth watching alone for the bizarre plot and unpredictable storyline. It's amazing the kind of films they make these days...

This film begins as your average run-of-the-mill slasher flick, with titular cheerleaders getting killed by a man in full camouflage dress. Is it the perverted/peeping tom janitor, the jealous football star, the European nurse or the zealot preacher? Well, the filmmakers lead us astray from the majorettes and seem to center on a group of thugs and their violent escapades - as the viewers knows that this group isn't responsible for the cheerleader slayings.

The initial plot is abandoned as we are fed this side story about the thugs and the star quarterback seeking revenge on them for killing his friend. So we have a slasher film in the Cheerleader Camp mold initially and then have some Ramboesque revenge flick near the end.

VIOLENCE: $$$$ (Plenty of it, seeing as how this combines the slasher with the revenge saga. However, if you're a fan of variety, then this will not appeal to you. All the majorettes get their throats slashed and the thugs blow people away. I found it quite strange that the high school quarterback had an M-16 in his gun cabinet. I supposed all future Peyton Mannings need semi-automatic rifles).

NUDITY: $$$$ (Plenty of it as well - although that big '80's hair gets in the way at times. The peeping tom takes photos of the majorettes in the locker room and Sueanne Seamans has a shower scene that doesn't end well for the buxom beauty).

STORY: $$ (There are plot twists, and then there are plot journeys. The screenplay wasn't quite terrible as it should have stuck with one genre rather then trying to mesh two. Also, writing in an Army arsenal for the high school quarterback was foolish).

ACTING: $ (There is a reason we have never seen these faces before or since. Kevin Kindlin does the best job as the revenge seeking football star while Jacqueline Bowman - as the only majorette that doesn't employ an entire can of hairspray in one sitting - give the best efforts here. Sueanne Seamans and Terrie Godfrey looked a little too old to be portraying high school students, but without Sueanne, the filmmakers wouldn't have reached the slasher film breast-baring quota).

Weird slasher with not so well written plot twists. However, it is entertaining because you will wonder: "What the heck is going on, and what non-sense situation will happen next?!".

The look and ferocity of the killer reminds me of "The Prowler" (1981), the music is a blatant copy of John Carpenter's score for "Halloween" (1978) (plus some grunts and heavy-breathing that is very similar to Michael Myers).

There's a plot twist that is "Rambo" (1982). Seen to be believed.

Movie is some sort of slasher-action-soap opera.

There are some interesting scenes involvilng well done and suspenseful camera shots, like the girl being observed in the pool.

Gore is decent, characters are not that bad when you consider that this is a mid 80's slasher.

I felt bad for the granny, she seemed to be sweet. And what the heck is about the psycho German nurse?

The "Peeping-Tom" sub-plot is kind of interesting but not enough to make this experience better.

Watch it only if you already saw the best slasher films.

Entertaining enough for slasher gorehounds.

Well so bad it's awful! One of those movies, back in the day, you look right past the box in the old V H S store and I was Happy I did and saved 3 to 7 dollars! What makes this stinker so bad it's awful well I will give you the run down. The Majorettes has a budget just above community access television. The biker compound!?! Give me a break! Well the camera work, and video quality is just above some ones home videos. Well maybe not with todays sell phone cameras, but that would be Blair Witch style, which is way too shaky. The acting is just above adult movies acting, which is wooden and done on the fast and cheap. Fast and cheep is the production and it shows. Well when you were sick and feel asleep while watching this one, like I did, I would say time wasted. 1 stars.