Review of Heathers (1989) by Jerry L — 18 Sep 2012

The quintessential dark high school comedy of the 80's. New World Pictures is long gone, but 'Heathers' continues to endure as a cult classic for a lot of good reasons, namely a super-smart script and a young Winona Ryder opposite an equally young Christian Slater, both at the peak of their acting careers.

'Heathers' is a movie about social status and position in high school and the destructive power of popular cliques. Chances are, you've rarely heard high school girls talk this raunchy in another movie ( notable exception: American Beauty ). The dialogue between the three Heathers and Veronica ( Ryder ) is as vulgar as it is ruthless and very few of the terms used here survived 80's pop culture.

The main premise of the film seems to be the use of homicide to smash the social pecking order of jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, stoners and unattractive 'losers'. Christian Slater's character, Jason Dean ( similar to James Dean in name and spirit ) is a classic nihilist who jumps at the opportunity to help his new girlfriend Veronica avoid becoming a victim of vicious social retribution at the hands of the lead Heather, who acts as dictator over the entire school. This romance ends up with a body count as the lovestruck couple orchestrates the murders of popular kids and then stages them as suicides. Being the teenagers that they are, the couples' actions begin to produce chaos and the dark subject matter manages to produce both laughs and important social commentary at the same time.

'Heathers' continues to be my favorite black comedy, it was released around the same time as the tv sitcom 'Married with Children' which together marked a cynical period in pop culture where teens like myself were given a skeptical view of social norms and lectured ad nauseum about something called 'peer pressure'. 'Heathers' presents a dark, unvarnished view of high school that ( unfortunately ) most of us can identify with, this probably explains why the movie continues to endure.