Review of Heathers (1989) by Ryan H — 07 Mar 2012

What a twisted film. This had to be an influence for World's Greatest Dad and Mean Girls. Actually, Mean Girls seems to shamelessly take from this film a bit too much in the idea and story, and not as well.

Anywho, the storyline to Heathers was a bit different than I expected. They put us right into the middle of the group of Heathers, and Winona Ryder plays Victoria, a girl who has been trying to become part of this clique.

The problem is, Victoria kinda hates them, or at least she hates the main Heather (sound a bit familiar?). One night she writes about how much she hates her and wants her dead, then the next morning goes to prank her by making something that was cause her to vomit.

With the new tough guy JD, it turns into something more. They kill her. This movie could have stopped here and made the rest of the film about two kids who hate people in the school and decide to kill them all and make it look like a suicide.

No. Heathers is much smarter than that. The people of the school begin to talk about how much they loved Heather and how great of a person she was. They even kill two football players and make it look like they were gay.

The father doesn't denounce his son; instead he embraces that he has a gay son he's proud of. This scene is hilarious because it just makes Victoria mad that everyone keeps loving the people who kill themselves, and the fact that the football player hated gay people, so this is an ultimate payback.

It's filled with dark humor like this. And JD is absolutely crazy. Victoria has a heart. She doesn't actually kill anybody; it all happens because of JD. She didn't want Heather to drink the poison.

She thought the bullets wouldn't kill the guys. And she saves the other Heather. She just seems to be wrapped up in the situation that JD has created. At the same time, she hates the fact that everyone changes their minds about the person as soon as they die.

This reminded me of World's Greatest Dad when the school talked about how heroic the son was. Same message done in a slightly different way. I loved how JD never really changes, but instead we see him more for who he truly is.

If we go back into the beginning of the film we would see he was that way all along. The film is written really well. Heathers is a dark comedy that has held up really well. Great for an aching for a true dark side.