Attack of the 50 ft. Cheerleader review

If you like your comedy on the buoyant side then this week’s pick is probably for you. It also wraps up a delightful B-Movie month which, while the films won’t be winning any awards between them, have been a degree or two of entertaining – even if the star ratings don’t reflect that.

Where will we go next and what will we do? The only way to find out is to stay firmly tuned! Give me a ‘B’, give me an ‘M’, give me an ‘O’… etc, etc.

Attack of the 50 ft. Cheerleader (2012)

Look at the size of those pom poms!

Director: Kevin O’Neill
Starring: Jena Sims, Sean Young, Treat Williams

Synopsis:

Aspiring college cheerleader Cassie Stratford consumes an experimental drug that grants her beauty and enough athletic ability to make the cheer squad. It has an unforeseen side effect – she starts to grow and grow and grow.

Cassie is your typical science nerd. You know, coke bottle eye glasses, light acne and is repellent to all men, especially the jock boy she badly wants to bone. Luckily, as the daughter of former head cheerleader and president of Zeta Mu Sorority at her new university, she’s a shoe-in to both circles, right? Well, even though she’s a legacy, current Zeta president/Cheer captain Brittany has other ideas and relishes the power of torturing Cassie for sport.

It’s always a Brittany, isn’t it?

When Cassie isn’t trying to get in with the cool crowd, she works in the biology sector of the uni, where she and her platonic male friend Kyle are working on a secret serum that… makes things beautiful. (If you find yourself with a large question mark over the science of that sentence, just WAIT).

Eventually, sick of Brittany’s torment, Cassie’s driven to injecting herself with the beauty serum and the fun begins. First, she wakes up, Spider-Man style, with perfect eyesight, better posture – and enormous bazongas. She’s effortlessly gorgeous suddenly, much to the horror of Brittany and her hench crones, though the attractiveness doesn’t end there, no sir.

Cassie becomes super athletic, nailing cheers with little to no practice, smashing humiliating hazing rituals like she’s Wonder Woman (complete with WW sound effects). She also – shocker! – catches the eye of Brendan, Captain of the football team and her major crush.

So all’s well that ends well really.

Syke! As with any rags to riches story, there has to be a rub somewhere and in our girl’s case it comes in the form of accidental giantism. Yes, Cassie may be breathtakingly sexy now but she’s also turning into a literal giant. Oh yes, and there are some monster spiders running around for some reason as well.

When Brittany realises what’s going on with her arch nemesis, she’s quick to seduce Kyle for the formula which leads to a violent (and overtly sexual, Russ Myers-esque) showdown with Cassie at the university football stadium. Who’ll come out on top – and, perhaps most importantly, is all this beauty, boobs and bouncing hair worth the trouble?

My thoughtss

Before I put down my thoughts, I thought I’d share some of my standout quotes/moments/questions:

• Brendan shouting through the bedroom door to Brittany, who’s having a violent reaction to being injected with the beauty serum: “Brit, are you waxing your pubes, or something?” – classy
• Treat Williams (RIP) yodelling into Cassie’s supposedly cavernous vagina after she’s been subdued and restrained
• Cassie’s mum, Brenda (played by Sean Fucking Young) greets a black man at the stadium with: “Well, hey there chocolate thunder!” before smacking his arse
• There’s a lot of sexual harassment/abuse here and a lot of it at the hands of the women. While Brendan is horrible, he is clearly traumatised by his encounters with both Giant Cassie and Giant Brittany, the latter of whom has sex with him against his will – and it’s played for Carry On-style laughs
• The final face off where both girls battle with their tops off – probably a social commentary about exploitation in there somewhere but… it’s very cringy
• What happened to those poor gargantuan spiders? There one minute, gone the next.

Perhaps needless to say, this film isn’t very good. I feel like it had potential – as it has a clear ‘she was beautiful this whole time’ message – that true beauty comes from within, and is not dependant on the size of your jugs. Cassie is a nice girl who overdoses on the power her newfound attractiveness brings and would do almost anything not to return to her old, invisible life. Which I get.

There’s an interesting comment on legacy and living up to an ideal set by a parent too – and it also feels as though O’Neill is satirising R Rated comedy by having bras pop off all over the place – it’s just not done very well and I feel sad for the cast that they weren’t given stronger material to work with.

That said, it is fun – and anything giant or shrunken down in film gets an automatic pass from me.

My rating

1.5 pom poms out of 5

Find out what Jill thinks here.

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