I don’t know who these people are at Control Track Productions are, but if their only other production, Back Slash, is half as fun as Cheerleader Ninjas is, well, then I guess I’d give it a two-star rating… heh.

If you’re a fan of Troma movies (the Toxic Avenger series, Tromeo & Juliet, the Class of Nuke ‘Em High series, Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, etc.) because of their dick & fart humor, nekkid flailing boobies, and no-budget charm, you’re in for a treat. If you’re a fan of Troma movies because of their liberal use of chunky green “toxic waste”, melting flesh and mutant monster special effects, and social commentary on the pollution of the planet, you should probably look elsewhere. If you’re a detractor of Troma movies for the reasons previously listed, go rent a romantic comedy or big budget action movie or a sprawling artistic period piece or another carbon-copy serial slasher flick, because there is nothing for you here.

“Based on a true story that I completely made up”, the cheerleaders at Happy Valley High have become the object of spankitude for a cheerleader themed adult website. The local nerd clan (who of course dress in Star Trek uniforms and think they’re on the starship Enterprise at all hours of the day) have been posting videos of the girls’ workout sessions on their site, which catches the attention of the local watchdog group, “The Catholic Mothers with Too Much Time on Their Hands”, who are launching a strike against gay porn on the internet (when they’re not dampening their drawers over it) by, uhm, targeting the cheerleaders and passing around nude photos of Sean Connery… this is where the mass confusion starts.

Because they’re the evil puppet master types who prefer to hide behind the curtain and pull the strings of others more suited for mayhem, the CMWTMTOTH enlist the aid of local limp-wristed parochial school teacher Stephen and his class of weapons wielding reform school girls to take out the cheerleaders and somehow make the world safe from convenient home access to sexual acts that no normal person would or could otherwise be a part of. Stephen’s more than happy to oblige the old bats in their vendetta, carrying a personal hatred for the Happy Valley Hamsters cheerleaders for rejecting him during cheer tryouts the year before, so it’s time for the reform schoolers to bash in some bubbly blond heads!

Though completely outmatched, the cheerleaders survive their first confrontation with the weapon swinging hussies in a pubescent tug fantasy brought to life through the magic of low budget moviedom thanks to their newest member Jane; an exchange student from the rolling incest hills and podunkary of Kentucky who knows her way around a bo staff (and the genitalia of every male member of her family). In need of preparation for their inevitable rematch with the Catholic school brawlers, our ditzy dames seek out the very geeks who have been exploiting their short skirts and smiley face panties for internet profit so they can hook the girls up with some martial arts training. The girls become students of the local beard-o kung-fu teacher and quickly indoctrinate themselves in the deadly arts. Meanwhile, the very same geeks have are being courted by the no-good Catholic girls who want to use the boys’ William Shatner obsessed nerd powers to acquire a computer program for the mysterious Mr. X (a black dude who wears a hat and shirt with a big white ‘X’ painted on them) so he can turn every website on the internet into a hypno-disc recruiting ground and making every web surfer into his ZOMBIE SLAVES OF THE INTERNET!

Yeah, if this sounds needlessly complicated, there’s a whole lotta other crap like a pointless lesbian principal character and a typical “nerd infatuated with the head cheerleader” love story that I’m leaving out for the sake of saving a little bit of sanity and trying not to make this review too damn wordy. Blah.

If you take out all of the contrived story stuff that no one really came into a movie called Cheerleader Ninjas to be exposed to anyway, the rest of movie is pretty much dominated by goofy nerd hacking stuff on the one side and cat fights and fart jokes on the other… and by that, I mean that the girls literally start hitting each other with stuffed cats and many a fart is ripped in the name of gross out fun. Eventually the Catholic schoolgirls, evil gay stereotype Stephen, Mister X and the CMW… uhm, TMT… OT… H(?) are all defeated, the internet is restored to it’s former “glory” (which doesn’t explain why this website’s still around…), head cheerleader Angela is revealed to be a computer nerd herself so her budding romance with lead geek Maverick is okay, and I’m free to get on with this review. Hooray!

Cheerleader Ninjas, excusing its complete lack of a budget and the bad overdubbing (used to make up for an obvious lack of even half-way decent audio recording equipment) throughout, only really bothered me with its muddled attempt at storytelling. I’m assuming that writer/director Kevin Campbell’s original idea couldn’t fill 90 minutes, so he tried to stuff some more twists and bullshit in there to pad the script a little. It’s hard to take a concept as simple to execute as cheerleader ninjas and turn it into a full feature with actual plot points and some kind of characterization. Speaking of characters, I think Campbell wanted to pack as many of his friends into the movie as possible, which would explain why there are so many fucking people that I’m trying to keep track of! Between the three or four different cliques and the people that show up and disappear from the story entirely for long periods of time, it feels like Campbell would meet somebody in a bar, tell them about his movie and they in turn wanted a part so he’d go back and slip them into the script somewhere.

Beyond the cluttered story and cast, there’s so much to love here! I’m a sucker for a funny movie and Cheerleader Ninjas knew how to make me laugh. The jokes are almost non-stop (which would explain why all of the non-gag writing was so half-assed) and got some kind of reaction out of me probably 90% of the time, whether it be an actual laugh or a good spirited groan. Meatloaf told us that 2-out-of-3 ain’t bad, but when it’s 90-out-of-100, that’s not just “ain’t bad”, that’s pretty damn good. My 4-out-of-5 rating is based solely on the humor. The acting was high school drama class (of which I expected no more), the girls weren’t very attractive, the tits being tossed around weren’t special at all (with the exception of not being made of plastic anyway), the fight choreography was expectedly weak, and the direction and technical work is about as basic as you can get. It’s less a movie and more one long string of puns, punchlines, sight gags, pratfalls and the occasional breaking down of “the fourth wall” between girl-on-girl fight scenes and gratuitous titty shots. The movie’s got everything, including a gang fight between the cheerleaders and a posse of costumed mascots, and a model building smashing giant robot fight finale complete with dildo swordfight and projectile puppy piss! It’s obscene, it’s nonsensical, it’s pointless fun and, if it were about 20 minutes shorter, it’d be perfect.

As far as I can tell, Mr. Campbell is still with Control Track and working on two new features: one about a sorority of lesbian vampires and the other about a sorority of serial killer chicks… whichever makes it out of the gate first, it looks like it’s gonna be a sorority horror comedy. Troma could definitely use a transfusion of some new blood and if they’re looking, I hope that Campbell is one of the people they’re scouting. Then again, who’s to say the man wouldn’t be better off on his own as this point? Either way, I’m now looking forward to seeing Back Slash, so let’s keep our eyes to the future! To infinity… and the mall!