Cheerleader Nightmare (2018 TV Movie) User Reviews

Predictable

[phd_travel · 4/10 · 25 August 2018]

Who killed a popular cheerleader? A drone provides some clues.

The ending is a tad predictable and the killer is a cliche killer.

The main actress is much hotter than anyone on the cheerleading squad.

OK but not one of the more gripping Lifetime movies.

Crime, about

[NijazBaBs · 5/10 · 10 May 2019]

This is similar to those typical movies about Psychopath Obsession, but this time it is criminal instead of psychopath. While psycho is more likely to go to hospital, criminal to prison. There is some lack of interest, quality. story...but idea is good. Teens, Love, Rejection, Criminals, Fear, Family... Worth watching because it tells us about reality and motivates us to be more aware of relationships, society. Shows us what is it like to be abused, threatened, and live in suspicion. Good for people looking into insight of typical teen abused life.

Who Killed Leah Dumont?

[lavatch · 5/10 · 7 July 2020]

A tragedy occurs at Cleveland High School when head cheerleader Leah Dumont is murdered. She met her maker after being pushed down a flight of stairs. The question is: Who Dunnit????

This extremely slow-paced film never developed much suspense. The characters in the community put their heads together to try to figure who is the killer. One pair of thinking heads is the head of the football program, Coach Parke,r and the head coach of the cheerleaders, Coach White. But all they do is think aloud about the behavior of their greasy football players and catty cheerleaders. I was at least waiting for some romantic sparks to fly between the two coaches, but that never happened.

A better team of detectives is Sophie White, the daughter the cheerleading coach, and her nerdy friend Mikey, whose drone has captured images of a party that might reveal clues about the death of Miss Dumont. The last person to see her alive was Ryan Dell, ol' number 87 on the football team and the beau of Sophie.

The photos from the drone reveal that Ryan was kissing Leah. Then, the couple disappeared into the house. Ryan has an unsavory background with his father doing hard time in prison for robbery. Ryan himself came under the long arm of the law for committing vandalism. But Coach Parker swears that Ryan is a good kid who has reformed and deserves a second chance, especially due to his football talents.

The film is unsuccessful in developing a clear bonding between Sophie and her single-parent mom, Paula. The mother wants to instill in her daughter the values of cooperation, teamwork, and leadership apparent in the discipline of the cheerleading squad. But Sophie is a rebel who resists the efforts of her mother. Sophie wants to be her own person and has no interest in superficial organizations like cheerleading. The plot was really strained when Sophie was "grounded" and her cell phone confiscated for no justified reason.

This was a subpar film due to the lack of imagination in the narrative that included plot holes. It was never made clear who slammed Sophie into a locker, bloodying her nose. Was it the backbiting Reeva, who moved into the head cheerleader spot after Leah's death? It was also strange that the police were not deeply involved in the case. It was all up to the members of the community to muddle their way through in solving the deep, dark mystery of Cleveland High.

Louder background music is not always better

[jpwiggins · 3/10 · 17 June 2019]

Decent enough movie, but I could not make out 20% of the whispering due to very loud background music drowning them out. I could hear them, but not well enough to make out the words.

Unprofessionell and boring movie

[CarfelMA · 3/10 · 25 August 2018]

This movies is quite disappointing. The actresses/actors are more saying their lines than actually acting. The dialogues are lame and so unnatural. The scenes dont appear like a story happening, more like too obviously scripted in a non professional lacking entertaining way. It's really boring and forgettable

Teenage Melodrama...

[vnssyndrome89 · 5/10 · 24 August 2023]

CHEERLEADER NIGHTMARE (TV Movie 2018)

BASIC PLOT: Sophie (Taylor Murphy) was having a great senior year in high school, but now, everything is falling apart. Leah Dumont (Mia Stallard), the high school's head cheerleader, has just been murdered. Thanks to drone footage, Sophie has just figured out her boyfriend, Tyler (Jeremy Shada), was cheating with Leah. Tyler begs Sophie not to tell the police. He's a kid who's from the wrong side of the tracks, and without football, he'd have no future. But after someone breaks into her best friend, Mikey's (Johnny Visotcky) house, and steals the drone, after knocking him out, Sophie begins to wonder about those around her. Could it be Reeva (Raleigh Cain), Leah's main rival for the head cheerleading position, or does Tyler have something more to hide?

WHAT WORKS: *The background music in this movie, by 'Fear Zero', 'North Shore', 'Cry Harder,' 'Coastlines' and my favorite, 'Laura Reznek', gives the movie depth. Fear Zero', 'North Shore', and 'Cry Harder,' give the movie the teenaged feel it needs. 'Laura Reznek', gives the ending sentimentality and closure. Real music always helps a movie, and this one is no different. It fills in the hollow areas, with an emotionality only music can bring.

*For people who understand the art form melodrama, Jeremy Shada's performance of Tyler is right on the money. It's over-the-top, cheesy goodness, just as it should be. For those who don't understand this art form, his acting might seem overdone, even comical. In reality, his rendition of Tyler is melodramatic perfection.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *Nolan Rudi is the cinematographer, and Danny J. Boyle is the director. They make some distracting shooting choices in this movie. There's a scene where Sophie and Paula are on the couch talking. There's never a pull back shot of them both, it's just intense close-up, after intense close-up. We, as humans, need body language to read situations. If you deprive us of this, it blinds one of our senses. There are several shots with items in the way, a lightbulb, a swing, etc. It's very distracting.

*It's not really believable the new head cheerleader, Reeva (Raleigh Cain), would attack, or order an attack, on the daughter of the cheerleading coach. She just became head cheerleader, after the last one died. Attacking the coach's daughter seems like a sure fire way to lose your new job.

*Other reviewers have stated there's no bond between Sophie (daughter) and Paula (Melissa Ponzio), (mother). I think people feel no attachment between the two, because they obviously aren't related. Sophie looks like a young Lady Gaga, and Paula is a woman of color.

*Leah Dumont (Mia Stallard), the head cheerleader who dies, looks five years older than all the rest of the kids. I think it's because she's too skinny; that can age you.

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *This type of movie isn't for everyone. I would only recommend this movie to people who like teenage melodramas, or teenage thrillers. There are better ones out there, but this isn't terrible.

CLOSING NOTES: *This is a Made-For-TV movie, please keep that in mind before you watch\rate it. TV movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.

*I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews. Hope I helped you out.

A Lifetime diamond in the rough

[mgconlan-1 · 8/10 · 3 August 2018]

I watched a Lifetime "premiere" movie that was actually surprisingly good. It was released under the title "Cheerleader Nightmare" but imdb lists it as "Teen Drone Stalker" and gives "Cheerleader Killer" as an alternate title, and it's so new that though imdb lists a director (Danny J. Boyle, not to be confused with the Danny Boyle who made "Trainspotting" and "Slumdog Millionaire") they don't credit any writers and they list the cast members but don't identify them with their roles. The leading characters are Sophie White (Taylor Murphy), a high-school girl with long blonde hair and a disinterest in participating in the Cleveland High School cheerleading squad even though her mom Paula (Melissa Ponzio) is the school's cheerleading coach. (One of the interesting things about this movie is that it makes being a cheerleader seem like almost as hard work as being a football player; the teams exercise similarly.) Instead she's pursuing photography, and her mom is saying that's fine but she really needs an avocation that will teach her how to participate in a team rather than something she can do on her own. About the only acquaintances she's made in her high school are her boyfriend, football team captain Tyler (Johnny Visotcky, who's tall, rail-thin and has an oddly angular face reminiscent of the young John Carradine; he's O.K.-looking but really isn't physically credible as a football player); and Mikey (Jeremy Shada), her partner in the school's AV lab where they have access to a red helicopter-like drone that can take photos of people around the campus and essentially spy on them. The moment we see Jeremy Shada, with his boyishly cute appearance, we immediately conclude that he'd be a far better match for Sophie than Tyler - especially since we also see Leah, head of the school's cheerleading squad, making a play for Tyler with lines like, "The head cheerleader is supposed to go out with the captain of the football team - it's like a law of nature!" We also learn that Tyler's father is in prison for armed robbery and that he himself has a couple of minor infractions on his record, but he's trying to put all that behind him and help the school win football games so he can get a scholarship and go to college.

Things heat up when Leah mysteriously disappears after a wild party; later her body is found in the woods surrounding the community (the name of the school may be "Cleveland High" but the locale is a typical affluent suburban bedroom community, not a major city, and the long shots representing the houses are some of the most preposterously obvious model work ever passed off in a movie - as if the director had his 12-year-old son build them out of balsa wood) and the film basically becomes a whodunit. Sophie insists that Tyler couldn't have done it because ... well, even though he has a police record and he's the son of a criminal, she's in love with him and she trusts him. Instead, against the opposition of her mother who thinks that this will put her at risk, Sophie teams up with Mikey to investigate the crime herself (interestingly, no official police officers are ever seen in the film, though we hear a siren indicating their presence at the end). "Cheerleader Nightmare" is actually one of Lifetime's best recent movies; not only does director Boyle have a flair for suspense but the writers, whoever they are, have created genuinely interesting and conflicted characters who act, for good or ill, from recognizable human motives. They've also created a credible whodunit whose ending is logical and believable. It's a quite chilling movie and one that keeps the viewer's interest, and it's also quite ably acted - especially by Taylor Murphy and Johnny Visotcky. "Cheerleader Nightmare" is a quite capable piece of work and one of those diamonds in the rough that keep people like me watching Lifetime movies! It's also an interesting exploration of just how much modern technology has made everyone's - especially everyone who's a teenager in a relatively affluent community, and therefore comfortable with and having full access to the technology - life an open book; you can't have a clandestine affair anymore with all the security cameras and that darned drone (which practically becomes its own character in the film) spying on you all the time.

Great movie.

[breezykersey · 10/10 · 12 August 2020]

Great movie! I enjoyed watching. Kept me entertained.

Oh no, the DRONES...!

[cecilbeltwayblog · 24 October 2020]

Luckily LMN directors already seem to rely HEAVILY on drone cams to film their movies.. and so now they've purposefully commemorated this technology in a semi-snoozey cheerleader /whodunit story! lol (but seriously- a good quality drone cam can run well over $1000.. so how's this HS kid affording multiples??)

Sorry to admit that of all the LMN cheer movies, this is one of my LEAST favorites. I blindly accept every cheer-version Nancy Drew story they give us.. but this one for some reason barely holds my attention. the cast isn't the greatest compared to many others from Lifetime network, but the plot isn't great to begin with. the acting and overall production is a B-/C+ for me. And the required mean-girl cheerleader in this one is JUST MEAN, with virtually no likeable redeeming qualities (shameful, bc i normally like that actress and her performance is one of the film's strengths)

It's got a couple of well-played scenes but virtually ZERO cheer scenes.. still, if you (like me) insist on watching ALL things even remotely cheer, tack this one towards the BOTTOM of your watch list :)