Heathers

Micheal Lehmann, USA, 1988, 102 minutes

I used to dream of Christian Slater knocking on my bedroom window for a session of strip croquet, followed by some acrobatic canoodling on a neighbour's swing set. This film also left me with a life long passion for Corn Nuts and an ironic love of the Slushy. I am, in fact, eating Corn Nuts as I write this review. This movie is the queen of the American high school black comedies. Its many knock-offs include Cruel Intentions, Jawbreaker, Mean Girls, Saved , even television series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars owe their tone of socially critical humour to Heathers. It's weird though because back in 1988, no one seemed to blow up their school or deliberately and elaborately murder their classmates quite so much as they do now. You have to just enjoy it for what it is, among other things: Christian Slater when he was still tasty, before he went all D-list celebrity, Winona Ryder before shoplifting and Shannon Doherty waay before 90210 but clearly sharpening her bitch claws in prepartion for the role that made her a legend. Loaded with immortal lines that would make Madonna proud such as "Veronica, why are you pulling my dick?", "If you want to fuck with the eagles, you better learn to fly" and "Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, who do I look like, Mother Theresa?"

Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) has somehow wound up in the hottest clique at Westerburg High, the 'heathers' of the title: Heather Chandler, Heather McNamara and Heather Duke (Doherty), a colour coded triumverate of teenage bitchdom. Their queen bee, Heather Chandler rules over her minions with the kind of authority second only to Satan or Anna Wintour, editor in chief of American Vogue. Veronica, miserable but socially ambitious, sticks it out with the "swatch dogs and Diet coke heads" in order to survive. Enter Jason Dean, aka JD (Slater) a gun-toting, homicidal loner no girl can resist. When Veronica finally confesses her frustration with the heathers after a particularly vomit-stained party, JD immediately proposes revenge. The next morning, Veronica and JD traipse over the heather's house where they decide to serve her a morning purgative: Veronica suggests milk, orange juice and phlegm, but JD prefers Drano. Heather #1's death sparks a series of similarly ritualistic killings, as Veronica remarks "my teen angst now has a body count". This is the ultimate film for everyone who survived high school society.

Review by Sarah Artt
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2006

Westerberg High is unfortunately full of these people, most noticeably the three Heathers (Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk and Kim Walker). Joining the unholy trinity is Veronica (the delightful Winona Ryder), a would-be-Heather, practising her put-downs and pre-yuppie scum etiquette. Fortunately J.D. (Christian Slater) intervenes and decides that Veronica's path of destiny is not head of school Heatherdom, but instead a life of crime. The crime in question is murder cunningly disguised as suicide and thus suicide becomes a trend in Westerberg High, a trend apparently started by the three Heathers. Unfortunately, as Ryder and Slater find, killing one monster only creates another.

Slater is the perfect anti-hero in his best Jack Nicholson mafioso impression and Ryder fits the misjudged, mistreated heroine role superbly. Even the Heathers are perfect in their own crazy way as they all seem natural to the ice-queen, naturally loathsome role.

This film is the perfect antidote to Hollywood teen life: imagine `Beverly Hills 90210' where everyone was allowed to be as bitchy as they like, and even engage in random violence (Doherty seems to have carried on from here). This is what Heathers is all about, satisfaction. Satisfaction as the birchy pre-teen queen cops all she deserves, satisfaction as the school jocks are set up to be their ultimate shame - homosexuals. Heathers pulls no punches as it satisfies every teen annoyance ever. Anyone ever bullied, picked on, or just normal will grin from ear to ear but anyone with yuppy pretensions, paté fetishes and snobbish tendencies watch out; they're coming to get you.

"A film of startling originality and verve" - Virgin

Review by Andrew Hesketh
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97