The 2000 hit Bring It On was turned into a franchise after doing well at the box office and earning a place among other iconic teen movies. Yet with five so-so sequels under its skirt, each one more or less performing the same routine as the original, it makes sense for the series to try something new. The latest Bring It On scores big points for stepping outside the box and attempting to reinvent itself, but this genre outing has a less than perfect dismount.
Bring It On: Cheer or Die (originally titled Bring It On: Halloween) marks a first in the franchise; the seventh installment is touted as a horror movie. And with slashers being popular again, it seems only natural for the cheerleaders at Elk Moore High to be the targets of a depraved and disguised killer. Before any actual slashing takes place, though, the story opens with a flashback. After a cheerleader dies during a competition in 2002, the cheer program is cancelled until Abby and McKayla (Kerri Medders, Tiera Skovbye) petition for its reinstatement in the present day. The hammy-as-hell principal’s (Missi Pyle) only stipulation is there can be no cheer stunts, otherwise someone might get hurt again.
Surprise surprise, Abby and McKayla don’t heed the principal’s “no stunts” rule because otherwise, they don’t stand a chance at Regionals. Their drive to win then inspires a last-minute training sesh at the school’s old and abandoned campus during the Halloween weekend. Since they obviously can’t let anyone know they’re there, the mysterious killer uses this as an opportunity to pick the spirit members off one by one. Hiding inside the Diablos’ mascot costume, the assailant uses everything from arrows to throwing knives to permanently dismantle this cheer squad.
Despite prior reports of this sequel ditching the humor, Bring It On: Cheer or Die is a comedy. The only problem is the movie’s not all that funny. Most of the jokes fall flat, often due to listless delivery. The rare moments of cleverness come from the characters using their cheerleading abilities to evade or inflict harm. More of that would have added to the movie’s camp value.
As much as the movie fumbles as a comedy, it succeeds even less as a slasher. The PG-13 rating limits what can be done and seen, yet there’s no real attempt to work within the system. The kills are as uninspired as they are limp to look at. And once the killer is unmasked — which could have happened later rather than sooner — the already overlong story fills time by having the survivors play a goofy game (also the movie’s namesake).
Cheer or Die is applauded for trying to breathe new life into an old-hat series. Tweaking the formula to include a whodunit is clever, though the follow-through leaves a lot to be desired. This oddball sequel struggles to find a balance between its roots and its vision, only causing the movie to have no real identity in the end. Even worse, it never takes full advantage of a creative concept.
Bring It On: Cheer or Die is available for Digital rental and purchase on DVD starting on September 27, and it will also premiere on SYFY on October 8.
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