ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT CHEERLEADER (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

This Roger Corman production echoes the title of a nineties flick for the same producer's New Horizons label, ATTACK OF THE 60-FOOT CENTERFOLDS. However, while both films are sold on Corman's dependable attractions of T & A, my memory is that CENTERFOLDS had nothing else, while the Michael MacLean script for CHEERLEADER injects some intelligent humor into an undoubtedly silly concept.

Possibly the silliest concept with which CHEERLEADER begins is that main character Cassie (played by beauty queen Jena Sims) is supposed to be an unatttractive science nerd because she dresses badly and wears glasses. College-student Cassie pursues science in the university's laboratory alongside her colleague Kyle (Ryan Merriman), but Cassie's mother (Sean Young) constantly tries to live through her daughter. Because the mother was a cheerleading phenom, she insists that Cassie should do the same. But when Cassie makes an attempt to join both the college's cheer squad and an influential sorority, she's shot down by a mean girl with the rather predictable name of Brittany (Olivia Alexander).

For some reason Cassie and Kyle's project leads to beauty-enhancement in a test animal, so the distraught woman has a Doctor Jekyll moment and uses the beauty-serum on herself. Instantly she's a gorgeous creature to whom every male is attracted, and she likes being the center of attention, particularly when it includes shafting Brittany and joining the squad. But the serum also enlarges its recipients, and soon Cassie is getting literally too big for her britches.

A lot of episodic comedy-bits follow to prop up the latter half of the movie, all pleasing but none memorable (including some contributions from Treat Williams, Mary Woronow and Ted Raimi). Meanwhile Brittany seeks to utilize the beauty-enhancing drug without knowing about the side-effects, and she too gets injected. This leads to a scene in which the two tit-titans clash in the college stadium, for a much livelier catfight than we got in Corman's early big-girl flick.

All ends happily for Cassie and unhappily for Brittany, and Kyle and the other guys just exist to goggle at them, in contrast to the male/female conflicts played out in the original ATTACK OF THE FIFTY-FOOT WOMAN.