‘Who Is Killing the Cheerleaders’ Review: An intense chase to uncover the truth ends with a rather flat climax
Lifetime's suspense thriller titled 'Who Is Killing the Cheerleaders' treats viewers to the villainous side of cheerleading. Ella Cannon, who plays the character of Ellie in the film, returns after years to her school, as a teacher, where numerous murders took place, ten years back. But little did she know that history was just about to repeat itself.
When Ellie returns back to school after almost ten years, her horrifying past follows her. Ellie who used to be in the cheerleading team back in her college days got almost killed 10 years back, while other cheerleaders were found dead and one cheerleader's body was never found. Ellie joins the school as a cheerleader coach as no one in the city is ready to accept that position because of the horrifying past. Soon after she joins back, a series of mysterious events start as Ellie finds a pom-pom in her house which was not brought by her or by her mother and she loses her phone and starts having dreams about the night when everybody in her team got killed.
Ellie does not remember much about the night when the other cheerleaders were killed or when she was stabbed. She tries to recall what happened to her through her psychologist's help but fails to remember. The only bit she remembers from that murderous night was when one of the cheerleaders, Kat, was bleeding to death and was asking, "Why?" Even after trying, again and again, Ellie fails to remember anything. On the other hand, her cheerleading class starts, where only 4 students join because of the fear among the other students. After a few days, one of Ellie's cheerleader students was found unconscious and tied near the football court. After the incident, a terrified Ellie meets Jonathan (Austin Freeman ), who is also her mother's doctor and soon they start liking each other after they confessed that the two had a crush on each other back in college. Jonathan is also from the same school and also from Ellie's batch.
At several instances in the film, the makers made us believe that Ellie is the killer after which her psychologist suggests, that Ellie is suffering from the 'Survivors guilt' which is why she is having bad dreams. Survivors' guilt is a mental condition that occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic or tragic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt.
Soon another student of Ellie's goes missing and only to be found in the locker room basement and she doesn't remember anything. The same thing happens with the third cheerleader student, who went to meet her "boyfriend", a teacher from the school, but soon she gets kidnapped. All this while, Ellie keeps on losing and getting back her phone and in no time, she becomes the biggest suspect in the killings and kidnappings. Soon, in a mysterious turn of events, towards the end of the film, Ellie remembers everything that happened on the night of the murder and it dawns on her that Jonathan was actually the murderer.
Directed by Jeff Hare, the film comes with little glitches, as when Ellie's second cheerleader gets attacked, the crime scene's blood looks all fake and dry. When the third cheerleader gets abducted, the scene is very guessable. The camera work is nicely done with a combination of right long shots and close up angles.
Towards the end, when Jonathan confronts Ellie and tells her that he killed the cheerleaders, the confrontation part seemed way too dragged and long. Jonathan who surely looks like a 'chocolate boy' fails to deliver an image of a criminal in the film, even during the time when he is confessing his misdeeds and how he committed the murders after tying up Ellie with a chair via rope. Even though the movie will keep you guessing, who killed the cheerleader, you might find the reason and the admission of Jonathan's guilt very dull. Jonathan, who is a doctor, goes on scaring Ellie after killing all the cheerleaders, 10 years back, as according to him, he kept on asking them out but they never said yes, including Ellie. Also, the fact that Ellie's ropes loosen enough and eventually she unties herself just after the confession seemed a little unreal.