Growing up in the mid-90s, I bore witness to some very out-there films. One of the films that defined cinema for many of the women I grew up with was Bring It On. I have never gotten around to seeing the film; being a teen boy in a red town, I was more of a Fired Up! guy. I have long known of a horror installment in the Bring It On series, but had zero interest in ever checking it out. Knowing that Bring It On: Cheer or Die premiered on the SyFy Channel gave me the perfect excuse to finally watch it. Yikes.

What is Bring It On: Cheer or Die About?

Abby (Kerri Medders) is the head cheerleader for The Diablos. Abby and her team are barred from doing any interesting choreography due to an incident from 20 years ago, by Principal Simmons (Missi Pyle). The team decides to go behind Simmons’s back and do a 24-hour rehearsal-thon at the building that their high school used to be in. Once at the abandoned building, someone donning their high school mascot’s costume starts picking off the cheer squad one by one. Will anyone in the cheer squad make it to regionals (Glee joke!), or will this be their last pyramid?

It is at this point in my review, yes, even after watching the movie, that I’m realizing who one of the writers is. Cheer or Die is co-written by Rebekah McKendry and Dana Schwartz, which comes as a complete surprise. I respect the hell out of Dr. McKendry. Her knowledge of the genre, its tropes and cliches, extends beyond what nearly anyone else knows. And I absolutely loved All The Creatures Were Stirring. So the fact that this is a film written by her floors me.

Comparing Cheer or Die to Modern Teen Slashers

While I’m not expecting Hereditary or Don’t Look Now-like storytelling from the seventh film in the Bring It On franchise, I was hoping for a little more than what it ended up as. I’ve discussed time and time again how much I enjoyed Fear Street: Prom Queen. Its general straightforwardness is refreshing in a subgenre that was forced to become too smart for its own good. Cheer or Die is just as straightforward, but nowhere near as good. Prom Queen is a very competent film; it looks great and is entertaining. Cheer or Die is not. It is vapid and pointless, an extreme waste of 91 minutes.

A slasher film should have at least one memorable kill. Right? There is not a single memorable kill, let alone a memorable moment, in Cheer or Die. On top of that, how do you have a blood-free slasher flick? I think there is one singular blood spray that is on camera for less than two seconds. I understand that you have to toe the line between appealing to Bring It On fans and genre fans, but it gets to a point where that line is pointless when you make a nothing film like this.

Karen Lam’s Direction and Technical Missteps

Was this film used as a tax scheme? Karen Lam apparently directed this film, but I didn’t see a single bit of direction the entire time. The cast recited their lines directly from the script with not a single bit of care in the world. I spent the near entirety of the film’s runtime just staring at the screen, wondering how this film got greenlit in the first place. If this were Lam’s feature directorial debut, I would cut it a bit of slack. But this was award-winning Karen Lam’s fourth film. Which is crazy considering the film refuses to adhere to any implication of the 180-degree rule. Wherever they wanted to set the camera, they set it. Few films feel like first-take films, but Bring It On: Cheer or Die feels like a film that utilized every single first take that they got.

Avoid Bring It On: Cheer or Die 

My goal isn’t to take a film that someone put love and energy into and shit down its throat. But Cheer or Die barely deserves to be called a film. From its first bloodless death to its painfully obvious motive reveal, Cheer or Die fails at every single aspect. Hell, the killer(s) even say, “Story time,” when they tell the remaining cheer squad their motive. I expected more from the incredibly talented Dr. McKendry. All I can honestly say at this point is to avoid this film with every part of your being.

A24 never stopped pumping out banger horror movies. Let’s get that out of the way, straight away. Even its commercial and critical flops, like Opus or Y2K, still took a lot of really original swings, even if it hasn’t been a string of masterpieces like in their horror heyday of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Still, they may have made their scariest yet with Undertone, in a return to A24’s original MO of pure indie filmmaking.

A Single Location Horror Film Powered by Sound

Undertone is not a perfect movie, with an occasional off story beat, and the ending just missing the mark of perfection, but it is a tried-and-true testament to the power of storytelling. With essentially one active, on-screen actress and a single location, the film manages to create a sensory hellscape with immersive nightmare-inducing audio that has both story and scares derived entirely from a podcast. It is a sensory overload of pure terror, one that feels deeply sinister in its pitch-black story, one that demands to be seen in the darkest possible movie theater.

A24’s Undertone: A True Crime Podcast Turns Supernatural

The story is pretty straightforward…at least at first. It follows a true crime/horror podcast host (Nina Kiry), who lives by herself as she takes care of her dying, elderly, and borderline vegetative mother. Her co-host (Adam DiMarco, who is never fully seen) is sent a series of ten mysterious audio files from an unknown address, presumably sent for her to listen to on the show. As they begin to record their latest episode with live reactions to the files, reality slips further as she and her co-host fall into supernatural delirium. Strange noises, slipping time, and other haunted house trimmings all come out to play, each elevated by (as mentioned) horrific sound design and an even more horrific backstory.

Nursery Rhyme Origins and Deeply Disturbing Mythology

The story is about 95% airtight. Without getting too deep into spoilers, the origins of these files and their meaning are deeply fascinating, with some elements and angles involving the origins of nursery rhymes that are very, genuinely disturbing. There is one twist in particular that explores what one of the sounds truly means, which is highly upsetting once pieced together.

That being said, Undertone has some familiar tropes, and while the movie mostly touches upon certain unexplored mythology, certain scenes can feel a little too familiar to other recent demon movies like Shelby Oaks. The true meanings are a lot more creative, but it could have played around with its mythos to create a truly original villain.

Undertone’s Ambiguous Ending Demands a Rewatch

Similarly, the ending is almost perfect. There is a final twist about something the protagonist might have done that is a little confusing, and reframes the context of the film. It is highly interesting, however, and opens up several cans of worms of what this movie has to say about children, motherhood, and parenthood as a whole, as well as posing questions about the movie’s setting and timeline. It is always better to remain vague in horror, which this movie definitely does, but just a slight retweak of its final act could give the audience just the tiniest more understanding, without it going into full, mainstream territory. The film definitely requires a second watch, and in the best way possible.

A Groundbreaking Podcast Horror Experience

In a nutshell, the film’s methods of storytelling are groundbreaking. This movie is not a podcast, but all of its scares and stories are delivered to us like it is one. It feels like the birth of a new medium or style of movie, a perfect blend of audio and visual, with emphasis on the audio.

Additionally, with the story being literally told to us as if we’re listening to the characters’ podcast itself, it is a nightmare rabbit hole.