All Cheerleaders Die

Lore & Background

The film opens with Mäddy Killian recording footage of her childhood friend Alexis as she prepares for cheerleading practice. Alexis dies after being thrown into the air and not caught. Mäddy later joins the cheerleading squad to take revenge on Terry, a football player who had dated Alexis. She seduces Tracy, causing conflict, and Terry causes an accident that kills all the cheerleaders. Leena, Mäddy's ex-girlfriend, revives them using Wicca magic and magic stones. The revived cheerleaders, now with body-swapped identities, attack a neighbor for blood and then hunt the football players at school. Their solidarity unravels when Mäddy's video diaries reveal her revenge motive. Terry kills the cheerleaders by cutting out their magic stones and swallowing them. He corners Mäddy and Leena in a graveyard, but dies after Mäddy attacks him and Leena's magic forces the stones out. Mäddy dies again but is revived by Leena's grief. The film ends with a bloody Alexis tearing out of Terry's corpse, and a title card indicates a sequel.

Reader's Guide

All Cheerleaders Die received mixed critical reception. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 48% approval rating based on 42 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9/10. The critical consensus states: 'All Cheerleaders Die sets out to subvert horror tropes, but ends up falling victim to many of the same trashy cliches it's trying to mock.' Metacritic gives a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating 'mixed or average' reviews. Fearnet gave a positive review, calling it 'a very smart and subversive satire about the way women are (very) often objectified in horror films.' In contrast, Reel Film panned the film for being overly bland and not fully utilizing its premise. The film had its world premiere on September 5, 2013, at the Toronto International Film Festival and a limited theatrical release in June 2014.

Did You Know?

• The film is a remake of McKee and Sivertson's 2001 low-budget amateur-shot found footage film of the same name.
• The film ends with a title card indicating it is part one in a series and that there will be a sequel.

From Amateur Footage to Festival Premiere

The 2013 film All Cheerleaders Die represents a full-circle moment for its two creators, Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson, who both wrote and directed the project. The story had first appeared in 2001 as a scrappy, low-budget found-footage short that the pair shot in an amateur style. Twelve years later, they returned to the same premise with a dramatically elevated production, recasting the central role of a cheerleader battling supernatural forces to Caitlin Stasey. The reimagined version retained its horror-comedy DNA while gaining the polish of a proper feature. Its journey to audiences followed a modest path: the world premiere took place on September 5, 2013, at the Toronto International Film Festival, and a limited theatrical run did not arrive until June 2014. For a film born from an indie experiment, the gap between the 2001 original and the 2013 remake illustrates how far McKee and Sivertson had traveled as filmmakers, even as the core conceit of a cheerleader's revenge spiraling into the supernatural remained intact.

A Revenge Plot That Spills Into the Supernatural

The narrative centers on Mäddy Killian, who first documents her friend Alexis's final cheerleading practice on video. Alexis is launched into the air and her teammates fail to catch her, killing her. When school restarts, Mäddy auditions for the squad using impressive acrobatic talent and is accepted. Her true motivation is vengeance against Terry, a star football player who had been Alexis's boyfriend. She manipulates Tracy into believing Terry cheated, seduces Tracy at a social gathering, and provokes Terry into a violent outburst that results in an accident killing every cheerleader. Leena, Mäddy's ex-girlfriend, then uses Wicca magic and enchanted stones to resurrect the dead girls. The revived cheerleaders, driven by hunger and rage, begin systematically killing the football players. Their fragile alliance shatters when Mäddy's diaries reveal she joined the team purely for revenge. Terry ultimately defeats the group by extracting and swallowing the magic stones from their bodies. In the final graveyard confrontation, Mäddy kills Terry, Leena's magic expels the stones, and Mäddy dies once more before Leena revives her through grief. The film closes with a bloody Alexis emerging from Terry's corpse and a title card announcing a sequel.

Satire, Objectification, and the Horror Genre

One of the film's most discussed dimensions is its self-aware commentary on how horror movies traditionally treat women. Fearnet's review captured this angle, noting that while the movie might attract young male audiences expecting evil succubi and lesbian romance, it is actually a pointed satire examining the way female characters are routinely reduced to objects of desire or victims in the genre. The cheerleading setting amplifies this critique, placing women in a context where their bodies are literally thrown into the air and caught—or not. The opening found-footage sequence, in which Mäddy records Alexis discussing the physical dangers of advanced stunts, sets up the film's awareness of its own spectacle. Yet the Rotten Tomatoes consensus acknowledged a tension: the film attempts to satirize horror conventions yet frequently stumbles into the same lowbrow tropes it set out to ridicule. This duality—ambitious thematic intent colliding with genre expectations—defines much of the film's identity and the debate surrounding it.

Critical Divide and the Promise of More

The reception to All Cheerleaders Die split along a clear line between those who appreciated its satirical ambitions and those who felt it underdelivered. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film sits at a 48 percent approval rating across 42 reviews, with an average score of 4.9 out of 10. Metacritic's weighted average of 45 out of 100, drawn from 12 critics, similarly lands in the mixed or average territory. Fearnet championed the film as a clever deconstruction of horror's treatment of women, while Reel Film criticized it as bland and underutilized, arguing the premise held more potential than the finished product delivered. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus encapsulated the divide: the film tries to mock horror clichés yet often succumbs to them. Despite the mixed critical picture, the movie ended on a deliberate forward-looking note. A title card after the final scene explicitly identifies the story as part one of a series and promises a sequel, leaving the bloody, screaming Alexis tearing free from Terry's corpse as an open wound for the franchise.