Cheerleader 2016

Alison, a driven cheerleader, is haunted by vivid nightmares about an impending showdown at the upcoming competition as she arrives at Camp Hurrah to train with her teammates. She shares a cabin with the camp’s mascot, Buttons, a character who is often ridiculed by the other cheerleaders and by Miss Tipton, the stern head coach who keeps a tight grip on the routine and the camp’s image. The energy around the camp is tense and competitive, and Alison watches as her boyfriend Brent flirts with a blonde teammate named Suzy, setting off a quiet undercurrent of jealousy and distrust among the squad.

The group heads to the river to sunbathe, a moment of carefree camaraderie that is quickly undercut by the perception of surveillance and whispers. Tim, a member of Alison’s team, keeps a watchful eye on the girls, while Sheriff Poucher also observes the grounds—though he is interrupted by Pop, the camp’s handyman, whose presence seems to hint at hidden trouble beneath the surface of Camp Hurrah. The surface gloss of the cheer world masks a dangerous mix of secrets, pranks, and fragile egos that will soon collide.

The next morning, a shock hits the camp: Suzy is found in Alison’s cabin with her wrists slit, a suicide that shockingly becomes a focal point of the investigation. The following day, Alison ventures into the walk-in refrigerator in search of a drink and discovers Suzy’s body stored on a shelf. When the police are called, Miss Tipton makes a choice to protect her job by delaying reporting the death until after the program’s events, a decision that Sheriff Poucher accepts in exchange for a private moment of intimacy between the two—an arrangement that is captured on Tim’s camera. The fallout from this decision erupts the next day when the sex tape is broadcast to the camp instead of the intended footage of cheer routines, complicating loyalties and exposing weaknesses.

Meanwhile, Brent’s interest in Pam grows, stirring jealousy and fear in Alison. Alison experiences a nightmare in which she witnesses herself cheering alongside a chorus of mascots while Brent engages with Pam, a vision that gnaws at her sense of control. The day after, Pam and Brent vanish into the woods to be alone, but their encounter dissolves into a heated argument, and Brent leaves Pam behind in the trees. That night, Alison dreams again of killing Pam, a nightmare that she cannot fully shake off as the real world presses in with growing dread.

On the day of the competition, Pam has disappeared and is not found. Cory, the mascot, performs in the team’s dance routine, but the judges award the prize to another squad, and a chain of misfortune unfolds when Tim’s onstage slip dislodges Pop and injures him, prompting Pop to murmur a fatal wish that foreshadows violence. During the Camp Queen contest, Theresa grows increasingly anxious about Pam’s absence and sets off to find her, with Cory and Brent following separate paths into the woods in search of answers. Miss Tipton loses herself in the search as the mood turns to panic. Theresa discovers Pam’s body in the woods and is chased by a van, meeting a brutal end when she is crushed against a tree.

The competition continues in a troubled haze as Bonnie defeats Alison in the battle for the Queen title. Tim, meanwhile, beds a cheerleader from another team and returns with a bloody hand, having found Theresa’s corpse. Brent proclaims to the gathered crowd that there is a killer on the loose, sending the cheerleaders scrambling to their cars. Miss Tipton, drunken and disoriented, staggers into the woods to hunt for Pam and is quickly killed. In the chaos, Alison, Cory, Bonnie, Tim, and Brent attempt to flee in a vehicle that has been tampered with, rendering it undrivable.

Gunshots crack through the trees as the four split to run in different directions. Alison heads back toward the van, followed by Brent, Bonnie, and Cory, who insists someone attacked her in the woods. Brent retrieves Timmy’s video camera in the brush, and the group watches Timmy’s brutal murder on tape. They improvise a booby trap using a bear trap in the shed, but the trap instead takes the life of Sheriff Poucher. They encounter Pop again, who is armed with a shotgun; Cory accuses Pop of being the killer and shoots him with a revolver.

Back at the camp, Cory and Bonnie hurry to call the police, leaving Brent alone with Alison. Brent attempts to force himself on Alison, but she resists, and Cory stumbles in with concerns about Bonnie’s whereabouts. As the group spirals deeper into fear, Cory arms a revolver at Alison and orders her to shoot Brent, who stands over Bonnie’s corpse. Alison fires, killing Brent, and the police arrive to find a distraught Alison being led away. Cory, dressed in a cheerleading uniform, watches with a triumphant, unsettling calm as dawn breaks over the camp, leaving the truth murky and the future uncertain. In the ambulance, Alison insists she only killed Brent, but the detective reveals that Cory has been shaping the narrative to pin all the murders on Alison. As she is carried away, the film closes on Cory’s chilling, ambiguous smile, a reminder that in the world of competitive cheer and camp rivalries, the line between loyalty and manipulation can be dangerously thin.