Cheerleader

A cheerleader is one who participates in the act of cheerleading. Such individuals, usually female, but sometimes male, are part of an organized group that promotes team spirit and effectiveness for a sponsored sports team. Cheerleaders rally both athletes and fans by intoning a set of spoken cheers, and performing a series of gymnastic achievements including tumbling, flips, etc.

A notable cheerleader character from the "Grindhouse" era of horror was Lynda van der Klok from John Carpenter's 1978 classic, Halloween. Although cheerleading did not play a major role in the film, the character of Lynda van der Klok has become an immortalized staple of the classic scream queen victim trope.

Cheerleading played a significant role in the 1992 horror/comedy film Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Kristy Swanson. In the movie, Buffy Summers was a member of the Hemery High School cheerleading squad, which cheered for the school's varsity football team, the Hogs. In one scene, Buffy leads the squad in a cheer:

"How funky is your chicken? How funky is your chicken? How loose is your goose? Our goose is totally loose! So come on all you Hog fans, So come on all you Hog fans And shake your caboose. And shake your caboose."

Cheerleading is also a recurring theme in season one of the WB Network television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Most cheerleader characters are students or former students at Sunnydale High School in Sunnydale, California. One notable cheerleader from Sunnydale's past was Catherine Madison. Nicknamed "Catherine the Great", she was the captain of the school's cheerleading team and made the team tri-county champions, a feat that had never been accomplished before or since. As she grew older, she longed to recapture the glory she knew in her youth. She began practicing witchcraft and used it in an effort to possess the body of her now teenage daughter, Amy Madison, who did not share Catherine's poise or grace. Catherine fought against vampire slayer Buffy Summers and tried to kill her with a powerful hex. As she hurled the mystic bolt however, Buffy deflected it with a mirror, reflecting the blast back upon her. In a spectacle of dazzling light, Catherine Madison's body disappeared. Her essence was locked inside a bronze statue of herself located within a trophy case in the school commons.

Buffy Summers herself tried out for the school's cheerleading squad, desperately trying to find something close to normalcy outside of the hectic lifestyle of being a slayer. Her mentor, Rupert Giles, poo-pooed the idea however and Buffy quit the team.

The Stephen King character, Carrie White, always seemd to have problems with cheerleaders. In both the novel and the original 1976 film version of Carrie, Carrie White was antagonized by a squad of mean-spirited cheerleaders in the girl's locker room, who threw tampons at her after she suffered a shocking and unexpected bout of menstruation. In the 2002 Carrie television miniseries, actress Katharine Isabelle played a bitchy cheerleader named Tina Blake, who was the ringleader of those who chose to torment poor Carrie.

When they're not involved in the affairs of some blonde-haired vampire killer, or tormenting the crap out of some socially awkward misfit, cheerleaders may also occasionally be seen getting the dirt end of the stick in horror fiction. Such was the case with the 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses, directed by Rob Zombie. In the film, Baby Firefly and her family kidnapped five high school cheerleaders and brought them to their home, where they were suspended from the ceiling of a barn and mercilessly tortured. Baby took this opportunity to vicariously live out her own dreams of once again being a cheerleader.

Cheerleaders took the central role in the 2003 Jim Wynorski horror film Cheerleader Massacre as well as it's aptly named 2009 sequel, Cheerleader Massacre 2 by Brad Rushing. In the first film, five high school cheerleaders, their coach and a couple of adolescent sex-crazed guys travel to a cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway only to be killed off one by one by an unseen maniac.

Notes & Trivia

 * Actress Kari Ann Peniche played a cheerleader in the 2004 sci-fi/horror film Species III.


 * Actress Ashlynn Brooke was a former professional cheerleader before turning her sights on the adult entertainment industry. She later went on to play the role of a cheerleader in the 2010 horror comedy Piranha 3D.


 * Another Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum who shook her pom poms was Amanda Wilmshurst. She played senior cheerleader Joy in the episodes "Witch" and "Some Assembly Required".