The Cheerleaders (1973)

The Cheerleaders is a time capsule of ’70s drive-in cinema: shameless, breezy, and oddly sunny about its own bad taste, playing like a raunchy teen comedy that knows exactly what kind of midnight audience it’s courting. Paul Glickler keeps the pace light and the vibe mischievous, letting the film’s “school spirit” premise gallop forward with a wink, while the cast sells the silliness with a surprisingly sweet, unpretentious charm for something so blatantly sexploitation. If you’re curious about the era’s softcore comedies—where the jokes are broad, the skin is plentiful, and the whole thing feels like a naughty postcard from another America—this one delivers precisely that. It’s absolutely not for everyone, though: the nudity and sex are constant, and there’s a sexual-assault moment that can be upsetting, so it’s best approached with clear eyes and the right tolerance for the genre’s uglier edges.

The Cheerleaders is trying to be a raunchy, anything-goes teen sex comedy where “school spirit” is basically an excuse for nonstop hookups and crude jokes, and it doesn’t pretend to be deeper than that. The problem is that a lot of it plays less like cheeky satire and more like sleaze, with dated attitudes toward consent and a sexual assault element that’s handled in a way many viewers will find upsetting rather than funny. If you’re looking for clever comedy, likable characters, or anything resembling modern sensibilities, this will likely feel grimy and repetitive. The only real redeeming quality is that it’s a time-capsule of early-’70s exploitation filmmaking, so it may work for genre completists who know exactly what they’re signing up for.