Pep Squad (1998)

Director:

Steve Balderson

Writer:

Steve Balderson (writer)

Genre:

Comedy | Horror

Tagline:

Is this what it takes to be heard in Amerika?

Plot:

Set in and around a small town high school in Kansas, Beth is a naive senior student who asks her two new friends...

Plot Keywords:

High School | Violence | Black Comedy | Surrealism | Murder

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Brooke Balderson	...	Cherry
Amy Kelly	...	Terra Simpson
Jennifer Dreiling	...	Beth Violet
Summer Makovkin	...	Julie Thurman
Adrian Pujol	...	Scott Mendota
Eric Sherman	...	Lester 'The Molester' Anderson
Betti O	...	Miss Nelson
Meghan McDonald	...	Suicide Chick
Tricia Johnson	...	LaTaqwa
Miriam Climenhaga	...	Kelly
Richard McCauley	...	Tommy
Nancy Pujal	...	Barbara Violet
Mike Rogers	...	Carl Violet
Francile Albright	...	Wanda Clark (as Fran Albright)
Molly McPeak	...	Thelma Melvins

Also Known As:

I've Been Watching You 2: Prom Night (UK) (video title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, language, and sexuality, and for teen substance abuse.

Runtime:

94 min | UK:90 min (DVD)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:R | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Manhattan, Kansas, USA

Company:

Dikenga Films

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: The 'Premiere Edition' DVD packaging credits 'The Aslum' as the production company instead of 'The Asylum'.

Weird, twisted, worthy of your time....if you enjoy dark humor

I'm not sure why so many people seem to dislike this film, at least ones that have reviewed it on IMDb. I have now seen this twice and found it to be just as weird and hilarious the second time as the first. Beth is a lonely young lady at a Kansas high school that makes two new friends, one of whom is Student Body president, and the other is his girlfriend, and on the school newspaper. Now Beth has a somewhat troubled home life, as her parents are whacko, so she's often tardy for school, for which she gets called to the principal's office. His intention is to make a pass at her but it's unsuccessful when she brains him with a trophy, and she then enlists the help of her new friends to help her dispose of the evidence....oh yes, the principal is still alive, for now, anyway. He's taken to the basement of this one girl's house and held captive. Unfortunately for our heroic trio, this was all witnessed by Terra, an "absurd" girl with outrageous clothing and hairstyle (think one of the B-52's wearing 70's polyester, for want of a better description)and Cherry, the angry rich girl with psychotic tendencies, to say the least. Of course the principal is accidentally loosed from his bonds and then shot, also accidentally, sort of. So now there's a body to dispose of but Cherry seems to know a lot about that, so her help is enlisted. As a subplot there were several girls chosen as prom queen nominees, and Cherry, who isn't nominated, of course wants to be prom queen, so she's busily mowing down the candidates in her Jeep Cherokee and even picks off a few in a drive-by. This is a busy movie. Now, this is very well done considering it's a low budget film with no-name actors and actresses, and the film makers had a pretty good sense of humor and it comes off quite well. Mind you, the humor is mostly jet-black and this ain't no run-of-the-mill mindless teen comedy. Makes Kansas seem like quite a scary place, too. I give this 8 out of 10, if you like black comedies that take good taste for a drag through the mud, you'll most likely enjoy this. If you're looking for a dumb teen comedy, look elsewhere.