Considering their mutual dependence on hot, 20-something actresses pretending to be clothing-adverse teenagers, combining a slasher film with a teen-titty comedy does sound like a natural fit, but efforts like Cheerleader Camp quickly prove this isn’t the case. Instead of just ending up with a terrible slasher movie, the filmmakers involved inevitably make something much, much worse: a terrible, bitterly unfunny slasher comedy.

Set in a strange, bizarro world where adults who have clearly graduated from college are slaughtered willy nilly while gathered together in a wilderness summer camp location to practice horribly choreographed cheerleading routines, the film doggedly reproduces only the worst aspects of both genres, with the result that you find yourself covering your eyes whenever it tries to be funny, and laughing out loud when it attempts to be frightening.

Chances are, however, you’re going to watch Cheerleader Camp anyway, since it features what has to be one of the most intriguing exploitation casts the period ever produced. Where else are you going to find a balding ’70s teen idol has-been (Skateboard’s Leif Garrett), two ’80s B-movie icons (Private School’s Betsy Russell and Breakin’ starlet Lucinda Dickey), two of the era’s most infamous Playboy Playmates (Rebecca Ferratti, who became a tabloid sensation after describing life in the “harem” of the Sultan of Brunei, and Teri Weigel, the only centerfold in the magazine’s history to become a hardcore pornstar), and George “Buck” Flower (They Live) to top it all off?

A perfect example of what happens when cynical filmmakers attempt to produce a saleable product instead of a good movie, Cheerleader Camp is one of those miserable experiences every genre fan has to suffer through because the cast, poster art and concept are too much to resist, resist it though they should. —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.

Popular legend has it that when Zombie High was (very briefly) released to theaters, its distributor printed the negative with the reels in the wrong order and nobody could tell the difference. True or not, there’s no denying the film has a jagged, unfinished feel to it that is simply too strong to be overcome by its talented cast and a plot ripe with satiric potential.

Virginia Madsen — at the height of her Virginia Madsen-ness — plays a scholarship student at a prestigious prep academy, which has just started admitting female students (including her roommate, Sherilyn Fenn, only then at the cusp of her potential Sherilyn Fenn-ness). Despite its reputation and successful alumni, there’s something definitely off about the students at the school. Turns out, they’re all emotionless zombies whose brains have been drained to provide the serum necessary to keep its ageless faculty members alive.

Despite acknowledging the comic possibilities of its plot in the third act, Zombie High ends up being a dry, flaccid movie that completely fails to take what it has and turn it into something entertaining. As a result, the few moments that do stand out seem to have happened more by accident than design. That it ends with a bizarre animated sequence apparently inspired by similar sequences found in Savage Steve Holland’s Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer only adds to the confusion.

A horror/comedy that is never frightening or funny, Zombie High is one of those films that prove that an interesting concept is ultimately powerless against a terrible script and incompetent execution.—Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.