Being a big fan of Winona Ryder’s, I was excited to watch “Heathers” because I knew it to be a cult classic that she starred in with bad boy Christian Slater. I can definitely see why the film is such a cult class being completely different than any other typical 80’s high school movie. The plot was insane with many twists and surprises that never made you bored or able to predict what was going to happen next. I think that dark comedies are a hard genre to make because it’s hard to make things like teenage suicide and murder, which is the case in this movie, as amusing as they did. A lot of the credit not only goes to the script but the great cast especially of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater who had strong chemistry together as a modern (for the 80’s) day and more messed up version of Bonnie and Clyde. Ryder’s character of Veronica was interesting because she wasn’t the typical popular mean girl but had more of a heart, brain and an edge than most. Slater’s character of J.D. was a great leading man role because throughout the movie, you know you shouldn’t be rooting for this psychotic homicidal high school boy yet at the same time you can’t help but find his crazy-ness exciting and see how devilishly charming he is. The Heathers themselves were also great and even more conniving and bitchy than our “Mean Girls’ we have today yet I didn’t expect any less knowing that the ultimate queen bitch Shannon Doherty was going to be playing a Heather. This movie to me was definitely 80’s with the life altering high school drama, big hair, obsession with material things and money and the message about teenager’s lives being hell in high school until they rise up and do something to shake up the norms. Yet, I really like the Heathers because Veronica and J.D. rebelled in a more twisted way than most while still keeping the audience on their side, at least with Veronica. Even the ending, with J.D. being blown to pieces and Veronica taking back running the school, from another mean Heather, was really well done because it wrapped it up sort of happily but still kept the dark and shocking aspects of the film going right up to the end. Even though this film was made in 1989 it can definitely hold up in time and be a classic because everyone feels the rebellion or that angst in their life at one time and Heathers presents it in an exhilarating and unusual way.
1 comment:
You catch the moral conundrum of the film quite well.
We don't like Heather 1 and are happy she is dead, but at the same time should we be applauding the murderous JD and his plans.
The film really makes us think about our own bloodlust.
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