PEP SQUAD (1999) **

Pep Squad is similar in many ways to Jawbreaker and Heathers as they are all about teenagers resorting to kidnapping and murder to achieve popularity in high school.  The first and third acts work the best as the various sociopathic and psychopathic girls vie for the title of prom queen by murdering the competition.  The second act, which revolves around some of the teens kidnapping the child-molesting principal isn’t nearly as clever or funny.  Not only does it bog the middle portion of the movie down, it seems like it’s a part of an entirely different film altogether.

Pep Squad works mostly as a showcase for Brooke Balderston who plays Cherry, the fiery redheaded killer who literally throws people under the bus in order to be prom queen.  She’s really the only actress that captures the tone that writer/director Steve Balderston (her brother) is going for.  Her campy, over-the-top performance is easily the best thing about the film, and it only really comes to life whenever she is front and center chewing the scenery and taking out the competition.

Most of the humor is sloppy and uneven, but there is some funny stuff here.  The more random moments work the best (like when the cheerleaders do a cheer to an El Camino).  Unfortunately, there are just too many jokes that land with a thud to consider Pep Squad a winner.  

Balderston’s style is sort of reminiscent of Mike Mendez, as he plays up the violence in a campy, cartoonish, and outlandish way.   It was filmed in 1998, a year before Columbine, so I don’t know how the scenes of characters nonchalantly engaging in drive-by shootings and mass murder at the school will play for some viewers.  Some may find them incredibly tone-deaf, especially when school shootings seem to be the norm nowadays.  Maybe Balderston was trying to tell us something and we were just too stupid to listen.  

AKA:  I’ve Been Watching You 2:  Prom Night.