Cheerleading is dangerous!

Of course, if you’ve been watching Lifetime for the past month or so, you know that.  Lifetime has spent most of October showing movies about cheerleaders who are either killing or being killed.  Now that Lifetime has decided to show Christmas movies for the rest of the year, the deadly cheerleader movies have moved to the Lifetime Movie Network.

For instance, last night saw the premiere of The Pom Pom Murders!  Now, I was co-hosting the #ScarySocial live tweet last night so I missed The Pom Pom Murders but, fortunately, my sister Erin had the foresight to set the DVR for me.  Thank you, Erin!

As I always do whenever there’s a killer cheerleader movie on the DVR, I tried to get Erin to watch it with me.  Erin was a cheerleader in high school and I always feel it’s good to get an expert opinion on whether or not these films accurately reflect the cheerleading experience.  (I always refused to try out for cheerleader in high school, mostly because two of my sisters had done it and I wanted to establish my own identity.  Of course, since I was a teenager at the time, establishing my own identity meant writing a lot of emo poetry.)  Erin, however, declined because no one was murdered while she was a cheerleader.  I guess she has a point.

Anyway, The Pom Pom Murders is about Audrey (Anna Marie Dobbins), who tries out for a spot on the cheerleading squad of the Los Angeles Renegades basketball team!  She makes the squad and she even gets a charming new boyfriend when star player Walter Wilson gives her a ride home!  Everything seems to be perfect, until the murder of Bailey (Grace Patterson), a member of the squad and Walter’s ex-girlfriend!  Bailey is strangled while her dog watches, just in case you needed any more evidence that this killer is ruthless.

With Walter as the number one suspect and an apparent killer stalking the Renegade Girls, can Audrey cheer the team to victory without losing her life?  One would normally think so, seeing as how this is a Lifetime film and most Lifetime films do, eventually, have a happy ending.  However, this film also features a rather snarky voice-over from Audrey, one which suggests that this story might not have a happy ending.  Of course, Audrey also suggests that she might just be saying that to make you watch so one huge reason to watch the film is to see if Audrey’s an honest narrator or not!

The best Lifetime films always mix the melodrama with a healthy dose of self-awareness.  These are films that go cheerfully over the top and make no apologies for doing so and that’s certainly the case with The Pom Pom Murders, which features an enjoyably eccentric group of suspects.  Is the murderer the pervy janitor or the intense coach or the strange owners?  Is Audrey going to be able to solve the case or is she going to end up the latest victim?  Is she going to become the newest star cheerleader or is she going to finally listen to her mother and go to law school?

You’ll have to watch the film to find out!  This is a fun movie.  If you’re into Lifetime movies, you’ll be doing some cheering yourself.