What the hell can I say to introduce a movie that starts out like this?

A twirling baton wiping credits across the screen, revealed to be thrown by a skeleton with a sporty, close-cut perm...a skeleton that shoots laser beams out of its eyes that congeal into the title "The Majorettes."

Yes, I said laser beams. No, I am not kidding.

Thus begins one of the single most peculiar movies I have ever seen. Marking the reunion of John Russo and Bill Hinzman (their last collaboration was George Romero’s There’s Always Vanilla, and some little movie called Night of the Living Dead), the peculiarity of The Majorettes cannot be expressed in mere words, wild gestures, or even primitive grunts: it simply needs to be seen to be understood.

So after our school-spirit skeleton (and her laser beam eyes) fades out, we’re introduced to the targets of the next 90 minutes of misogyny: the high school majorette team. After a ridiculous dance routine (and some unnecessary nudity in the locker room! Hot dog!) we see one of the majorettes, Nicole, out on a date with camera dork Tommy. Unfortunately, their awkward session of heavy petting is interrupted by a camo-clad psychopath with a Bowie knife, who then dunks Nicole’s corpse in an odd parody of Baptist ritual (the scene is actually cut in with shots of the town priest baptizing a little girl, which proved to be pretty creepy). The town is in hysterics over the death of the two teens, and it only gets worse as the killer continues to slice and dice the majorettes one by one.

Not content with making a mere slasher film, the movie decides to suddenly abandon the masked killer plot about halfway through to follow a separate subplot involving a dope-dealing gang led by the insidious Mace Johnson.

Yes, I said Mace Johnson. Again, I am not kidding. To add fuel to the silliness fire, Mace looks like a young, extra dorky Colin Farrell in a two-tone denim suit. Would you buy your drugs from this guy? Oh well, at least he doesn‘t have laser beam eyes.

Back to the story, Mace’s gang is a bunch of nogoodniks ripped right out of SEGMQ (Stereotypical Eighties Gang Members Quarterly), who, instead of working at the soup kitchen or adopting a highway, live in a trailer (with the AC/DC logo spray painted on the side, and is that supposed to be a swastika?) and peddle narcotics. These guys are at the center of The Majorettes second film-within-a-film, the weird exploitation-revenge-action film. Thus, we get our fill of exploding vans, exploding cars, exploding trailers, exploding squibs...well, there’s a lot of exploding going on. Mix that in with a mentally handicapped peeping tom janitor, a little old lady who sits in a wheelchair completely silent throughout her scenes, and a police detective who bears an unsettling resemblance to John Holmes, and you’ve got one hell of a movie to sit through.

The most astonishing part of The Majorettes is how thoroughly enjoyable it is. Despite the fact that its poorly written, amateurishly acted, and almost incomprehensible in its ass-backwards timing, I was never once bored. I sat through the movie with a smile on my face the entire time. This definitely fits in the category of "so bad it’s good" cinema. However, I will give kudos to Bill Hinzman for his visually interesting direction (he’s a cinematographer, after all), and can almost forgive him for the NOTLD 30th Anniversary Edition debacle. Almost.

Shriek Show does an average job on presentation of The Majorettes. Picture quality is okay, but the large amounts of print damage mar the experience. Colors are decently bold (some of the reds really pop), and the picture is pretty sharp. Audio fares a little worse, with pops and hisses happening at fairly regular intervals (was the soundtrack mastered on a flexidisc?). However, one can only expect so much given the low-budget nature of the film, and I doubt that a better print was available for this forgotten flick. Extras include a nice beefy featurette loaded with fun anecdotes (John Russo liquoring up the majorettes so that they won’t be so nervous? Go John!), trailers, and a still gallery. Not mind-blowing, but a nice line-up.

I have but three words to close off this review with, and I think they speak volumes: laser beam eyes.

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