THE
MAJORETTES (1986)
aka ONE BY ONE
Directed by Bill Hinzman
Media Blasters DVD
Reviewed 05.17.05
Review by Joseph A. Ziemba
THE FILM
Follow this trajectory: Credits.
Electric baton. Skull with a permed
wig. Eye-beam title card. Gigantic
boombox. Gymnasium dance sequence.
Girls in showers. K-Mart killer
camouflage. Baptism in a lake. What
in the hell is going on? Oh yeah...It's
1986.
Oozing from the minds of key Night
Of The Living Dead big shots
(John Russo, writer/actor; Russ
Streiner producer/actor; Bill Hinzman,
director), The Majorettes
is so wonderfully insane that unchallenged
obscurity is only fitting. Only
the most cracked in the head trash
devotee can welcome this overly
religious, Chuck Bronson-inspired
slasher with open arms; normal people
don’t stand a chance. Based
on John Russo’s earlier novel,
this Pennsylvania time warp aims
for the cheap seats and piles on
the weird, never faltering in its
quest for ridiculousness. Extend
a hand, ‘cause it’s
time to meet Mace Jackson and the
rest of his swarmy pals. Don’t
worry, they do bite.
Here’s the deal. There are
three plots at work in the film,
all of which wrap around a few bloody
neck-slashings and lots of white
trash T&A. The slayings are
perpetrated by a bulky camouflaged
killer against homely members of
the high school majorette team.
In one corner, there’s stay-at-home
nurse Helga and her half-retarded
son, Roland. They’re hoping
to score some inheritance money
from Vicky, the school hot-stuffs
who stands to grab a cool half-million
on her 18th birthday. At the same
time, we follow sweethearts Jeff
‘n’ Judy, gnarly 80s
victims to the core, as they argue
and try to figure out who the murderer
might be. Still want more? How about
Mace Jackson and his biker gang,
local homicidal “dope pushers”
with a long history of being very
bad dudez? Or maybe the underdeveloped
religious tangents, supposedly anchored
in the killer’s “purifying”
intentions, but actually just downright
hilarious? It all climaxes with
some machine gun revenge and slowly
arrives at an extremely strange
ending. Yes, it’s all quite
fitting.
You've heard it a million times:
the acting is intrusively terrible,
the pace drags at the midpoint,
and nothing makes sense. So when
has that ever been a problem? For
a film as strange and laughable
as The Majorettes, the
typical low budget pitfalls are
just icing on the cake. And did
that bloodied victim just blink
when the killer placed her body
in a gymnasium shower stall? Yessir,
I believe she did.
AUDIO AND VIDEO
Bill Hinzman's directing debut has
always looked muddy on home video,
so the anamorphic widescreen print
presented here is a splendid surprise.
There's very little print damage
and the picture is bright and colorful.
The stereo soundtrack had a few
spurts of white noise during quiet
moments, but was otherwise great.
EXTRAS
The supplemental centerpiece is
the ambiguously titled "One
By One." featurette. One
By One was the UK title of
The Majorettes, but that
fact isn't discussed until a later
extra. Anyway, this 30 minute collage
of talking heads (Hinzman, Russo,
Streiner, and special effects guy
Jerry Gergely) and footage from
the movie is very thorough. All
aspects of the film are discussed
and Russo relays some very strange
anecdotes (guns, ropes, and duct
tape in his trunk?!). Things get
somewhat tedious towards the end,
but this is still a nice extra.
Next up: one of the most hilariously
dumbfounding features I've ever
come across. Should you be so brave,
a click of your remote will unveil
all 27 minutes of the film's grating
cheese-synth soundtrack, complete
with the film's theme song, which
sounds like a hackjob rip on Madonna's
"Borderline." Move on
quickly. The remaining extras are
pretty straight forward: a "One
By One" trailer (with an intro
explanation from Russo), a two minute
behind the scenes still gallery,
and four non-authentic trailers
for additional Media Blasters titles.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It's highly derivative (yet strangely
unique), it's weird, and most importantly,
it makes little sense. The Majorettes
is a gaudy skunk-fest, solid junk
through and through. If you're an
80s trash deviant, you'd be a fool
to pass this up. |
Sweet pics
I'm scared
I'm even more scared
Ripped
|
