Summerhouse Slaughter

Before he began churning out bottom of the barrel, stock footage snoozefests, Dustin Ferguson came onto the scene with a few low budget 'sequels' to old slasher favorites such as Scalps and Silent Night Bloody Night along with this in-spirit sequel to Cheerleader Camp.

They hall have the production levels of a high schooler with a camera and a group of friends, but this time he was able to grab Young Jason actor Ari Lehman as well as Jennifer Banko, who, as a young girl appeared in FT13 7, TCM 3 and Barb Wire among other things.

Also unlike most of his productions, Cheerleader Camp: To The Death has a decent sized cast and some cheap-but-fun goopy gore. The panda costume the killer has is decent, but barely appears on screen and the movie limps to a mediocre ending.

Make no mistake, this is still very low budget, but if you are curious about watching one of these pseudo-sequels that Ferguson loves to churn out, this is one of the more tolerable ones.

Arriving at a training camp in the woods, a diverse group of cheerleaders arrives at the camp and decides to start their training there, but as personal pettiness starts to strike the group alongside a mysterious killer they must try to resolve their differences to get away from the killer alive.

This was a rather fun indie slasher effort. What works so well for the film is the adherence to the old-school formula when it comes to the general style and approach that it takes to its material. Starting off with the prototypical prank gone wrong against a slew of victims that sets everything in motion, the arrival at the location years later and revealing the trauma that's been lurking inside over the coincidence that's kept them alive the entire time is all a classic formula tactic in these kinds of slasher efforts. Rife with an authentic atmosphere and some of the later setups that are prevalent in the genre, there's a really enjoyable old-school tone present in the film. As well, once it gets to the stalking and slashing that's at the center of the story there's a lot to like. The initial prank is quite gruesome and graphic, getting this off to a fine start with the rest of the shocking kills throughout here. The start of this one at the camp where the killer takes the disguise off the victim is a rather fun sequence, much like the rampage throughout the rest of the film where the killer strikes victims in the bathtub or in the bedroom among other sections around the camp manages to generate some fun scenes. Again employing the old-school setup of the killer never being visible and only using shadows or parts of their body to orchestrate the kills, all of which combines with the fun pace that always keeps something going to give this one a lot to like about it. There's not much in the way of holding this one down. The biggest problem here is the rather underwhelming finale where this goes against a majority of the usual approaches in the genre in the final battle against the killer comes up a little short. It's incredibly rushed and barely features any kind of physical interaction in terms of stalking and chasing that usually gets introduced in a slasher effort in favor of a verbal confrontation involving the final girl and killer about the motivations behind it which doesn't have the same ring to it. As well, some of the low-budget issues that are normally found in this type of film show up, from the limited sets, guerilla approach to filmmaking and some of the special effects work but these are more notable elements about the film than outright flaws.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.