CHEERLEADER CAMP (1988) Someone with a vendetta against cheerleaders is making mincemeat out of the pretty trainees at Camp Hurrah, a campsite for competitive cheerleading. Bodies start dropping after the arrival of nightmare-plagued Alison (future Saw alumni Betsy Russell), whose mental instability makes her the perfect scapegoat for the killings. A hot-to-trot blonde who sunbathes topless has her wrists slashed open. Another gets garden shears through the back of her head after openly flirting with Alison’s sex-starved boyfriend (Leif Garrett). The murders coincide with Alison’s blood-soaked dreams, the best of which involves the disemboweling of the resident pervert with an axe. Alison is eventually framed for the slaughter and arrested, at which point the real perpetrator is revealed to be jealous team mascot Cory (Lucinda Dickey) who dons Alison’s cheerleader costume and chants, “Gimme a C-O-R-Y!” when the cops haul Alison away in handcuffs. The unhappy—or happy, depending on your viewpoint—ending is a nice touch to a formulaic slasher that manages to be entertaining despite its campy (no pun intended) engineering. C+
GRAVEYARD SHIFT (1987) (AKA: Central Park Drifter) Vampiric cabbie Stephen (Michael A. Miranda, formerly Silvio Oliviero) drives the city streets at night, looking for women to seduce and sink his fangs into. After rescuing a suicidal customer and making her a creature of the night, Stephen returns to his mausoleum-like apartment to sleep the day away naked in his coffin. He eventually meets and falls for a sickly music producer (Helen Papas) whom he turns into his vampire lover, putting them both in danger when Papas’s philandering husband plots revenge against the couple. While the concept of Taxi Driver meets Dracula is an interesting one, it’s not fully realized in Graveyard Shift, the screenplay of which spends too much time on T&A sex scenes and not enough on bloodshed. That said, there’s still enough material here to enjoy, including competent acting, Mario Bava-like lighting, and a somewhat different view of vampire lifestyles than the usual crosses and garlic we’ve come to expect. Sequel: The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II. C+
PULSE (1988) Young David (Joey Lawrence) goes to California to spend the summer with his recently remarried father (Cliff De Young) unaware that his new house is host to a malevolent electrical parasite. The energy fries a television set and releases a fireball out from underneath the washing machine. Nobody believes David when he says there’s something very wrong with the electricity until his stepmother (Roxanne Hart) is scalded when the shower stall is turned into an oven by a malfunctioning water heater. There’s an old fart running around telling people about the dangers of modern technology, but it’s needless exposition in a story that doesn’t make much sense to begin with. De Young’s realization his son is telling the truth comes too late when he’s attacked by a handsaw in the basement. At this point, it’s also too late for audiences to sympathize with characters who continually make stupid decisions. In a bit of convenient writing orchestrated by some fairly impressive pyrotechnical FX work, the house implodes in a sea of sparks and melted fuses, but not before the inevitable pre-end credits “it’s-not-really-over” twist. Plodding and predictable. C
