“Our love is God. Let’s go get a Slushie.”
Remember my coworker from day 3? When the new Mean Girls came out, I asked her if she’d seen the original. She said she hadn’t: she was a Heathers fan instead. And so another movie was added to my Halloween list.
(A black comedy/satire counts as a Halloween pick, right?)
I’ll say it – I don’t care for Mean Girls. I watched it a while back, didn’t find it funny, and never checked out the remake. I still might, who knows – I’ve developed a recent fascination with Renee Rapp. All this to say: knowing Heathers was “dark Mean Girls” didn’t leave me with a great amount of hope. And so I went into it curious but with low expectations.
And boom, I was blown right out of the water.
(Too soon?)
I went into this movie already a fan of Winona Ryder, but I didn’t expect to like Christian Slater as much as I did. His portrayal of teenage sociopath JD is absolutely legendary. The whole cast is fantastic, really!
It’s such fun to watch JD sliding down his dark spiral, dragging Veronica along until she finds the strength to pull away and fight back. The black comedy aspect carries the plot along beautifully, building up the audience’s suspense and dread alongside Veronica as we root for her to break free.
Oh, and the music! It’s so wonderfully atmospheric and draws you in almost as much as the actors alone.
Heather’s suicide theme shifted from satirical to harshly realistic at the halfway mark, but it made the ending all the more perfect. The true way to prevent teen suicide – reaching out and being a real friend! I haven’t grinned so much at a finale in a while.
I guess I have to check out the musical now, don’t I?
