Review of Thoroughbreds (2018) by Kace C — 08 Jul 2018

When I was a teenager, I went to see a film called Heathers. The eighties were filled with great films set in high school. Heathers was different. It was dark & cynical and the character J.D. was subversive in a way that no John Hughes character could ever be. At the time, it was a shock and I loved it.

Thirty years later, Heathers has become the norm for the high school movie genre. It's the standard, and few meet that standard. Thoroughbreds gets close. It's not as mesmerizing nor as memorable, but it hits the dark and cynical marks like few teen films can. If Heathers was the way we look at high school, Thoroughbreds is how we fail to look at high schoolers.

At some point, the characters from Heathers became less shocking because America began to embrace their inner sociopath. In an era of daily school shootings, Heathers gives us an uneasy feeling. In the end, Thoroughbreds succeeds by making the audience feel for two characters who are unable to do so themselves. For a generation that witnessed their parents act as if evil doesn't exist when confronted with desire, the results are diabolical. This is Hobbesian human nature at its worst. This is 50 years of a world given to us by the "Me generation.".

When Veronica Sawyer took out the Heathers thirty years ago, she became the very thing she hoped to extinguish. For Amanda and Lily, the main characters in Thoroughbreds, there is no risk in becoming what they hate. Unlike the good intentions of Veronica Sawyer, they replicate with no concern for a greater good. Thoroughbreds is about vanity, guilt and malice...and in the end it's those who instilled those values into them who pay the ultimate price.