Cheer Squad Secrets (2020 Lifetime)
Cast: Margaret Anne Florence, Anita Brown, Karis Cameron
Director: David Langlois
Written by: Nick Barzini
Listen to the Lifetime Uncorked Podcast here!
Watch & Stream the movie here! #Ad
Please buy me a coffee (or glass of 🍷 ) Support Lifetime Uncorked by leaving a $3 tip.
Synopsis (via Lifetime)
A mother helps her daughter become captain of the cheerleading squad only to discover that someone is giving the daughter steroids and will do anything, including murder, to cover it up.
Thoughts
The movie begins with a woman in danger. Her hands are strung up in a woman’s locker room shower. She screams for her daughter as any proper Lifetime Mother would.
Flashback a few weeks, and we meet the woman, her name is Kelly, and is married to a hunky husband named Scott. Their daughter, Amelie, is working hard to become captain of the squad. The new coach used to be a PROFESSIONAL cheerleader.
Amelie is carts her friends around in her car to school. Lisa is high-strung, Tanya and Ethan argue in the back seat. The tryouts are intense, and Coach Nina is even more intense. Coach Nina gives Tanya some pills (that are most likely steroids.) Coach Nina is a pusher. Ethan steals her drugs to make him better. He overdoses and gets into a fender bender, causing him to go into a roid rage and have a fatal heart attack.
Coach Nina drinks a big old glass of wine and looks at pictures of cheerleading on her iPad. Then she caresses a framed photo of her younger self. Flashback to young Coach Nina, she is forced to take steroids by her coach. They also had an inappropriate relationship.
Ethan’s death affects everyone at school, everyone except Coach Nina. (She doesn’t even know his name and refuses to cancel practice. Kelly talks to Coach Nina, who doesn’t back down. Amelie is embarrassed by her mother and asks her to leave.
Detectives interview Coach Nina and she claims to know nothing. Then she buys more pills from a drug dealer and stabs him to death.
Amelie is next on Coach Nina’s drug-pushing list. Amelie is resistant but is left with the option to take the pills. Amelie and Kelly invite Coach Nina over for dinner. Coach Nina overshares about a miscarriage. She says how every girl on the squad is like a daughter in her eyes.
The steroids start making Amelie incredibly hungry. She overtrains and focuses less on classes and more on body masses. (Ugh, I hate myself for writing that last sentence. Oh, well!) Amelie and Tanya get into a physical fight. Since they are both on steroids, Amelie breaks Tanya’s arm. Wow! Kelly witnesses the altercation and has concerns about Coach Nina. Against her better judgment, she lets Amelie stay on the squad.
Kelly finds the pills in Amelie’s backpack. She freaks out and shows her coworker the pill. The coworker takes the pill and pretends they are antihistamine. She knows they are steroids and confronts Amelie about the drugs. Amelie promises to stop taking them.
Amelie doesn’t stop. She is cruel to her mother, calling her jealous and old after Kelly removes her from the squad. Coach Nina hears about Amelie’s parents coming to the principal and complaining. (Because she is sleeping with him.)
Coach Nina breaks into the family’s house to swap out Amelie’s pills with stronger ones. Then she steals Kelly’s national championship ring. (Kelly was a cheerleader back in the day.) Kelly comes home and almost catches Coach Nina in the house. Kelly’s coworker DOES see her and is choked out and thrown into the pool to make it look like a drowning. Then Coach Nina sees her younger self in the mirror and cries.
Kelly finds her coworker in the pool and jumps in to try and save her. It is too late.
Coach Nina loses her job due to parent’s complaints to the board. Flashback to Nina stalking her coach at home and him giving her the brush off because he is married. She injures herself because she is pregnant with his baby. When he still turns her down, she runs him over with her car. Coach Nina feels like she is entitled to a national championship and wears Kelly’s ring.
Amelie is kidnapped and tied up. Kelly looks for her daughter and finds Coach Nina has tied her up. Then Coach Nina ties up Kelly and says her villain monologue. The mother and daughter escape and run through the halls of the school. Coach Nina almost syringes Kelly and chokes her while screaming “die”. Amelie hits the coach in he face with a car door and takes the ring off Coach Nina’s finger. The police show up and take her away. She pleads guilty and put on probation. Kelly becomes the cheerleader coach.
Side Note
Minority Report: Lisa, Tanya, Detective, Drug Dealer, Barista, NEW Principal, manicurist,
Don’t forget to listen to the Lifetime Uncorked Podcast available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!
Donate to keep the blog and podcast going 😊
Overall rating
🔪🔪🔪🔪 (4 Knives)
🍷🍷🍷 (3 glasses of wine required.)
*Photo Credit: © 2020 Lifetime
I 100% recommend this movie for anyone who has a spoon nearby and prepared to gouge their own eyes out with!! Never seen anything like it, it was so ironic and deep ngl!!! #camp