Heathers quickly became one of my favorite films growing up. As the unpopular kid in my school, it gave me a safe and twisted way to explore the stupidity of bullying and popularity in school. And as a twisted goth who wore out his first copy of the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe by the time he was in fourth grade, it played right into my darker sensibilities. Heathers is about the odd girl out in the most popular clique in Westerburg High School. She's the Veronica in a group of Heathers, all named Heather. Veronica starts to pull away when her skill for copying handwriting is used to pull a prank on an unpopular girl, drawing the attention of dark and mysterious new student JD. JD brings out the best and worst in Veronica, resulting in the murder of a Heather covered up as a suicide.
Heathers is a brutal dark comedy satirizing the high school experience. If popularity and status are the main focus of the students and ultimately meaningless in the long run, what is the actual role of the public high school experience on the lives of students? If the cult of popularity becomes so strong that a living monster can be championed as a misunderstood genius because of a few quick lines on a suicide note, how is any student supposed to get a fair shot at climbing the social ladder before college? Or a job? Or as a parent or educator?
At all levels of society in this town, the rich and the powerful control the world. Even the underpaid teachers have powerful cliques that fight against the outsiders. And every single time the outsider gets a taste of power, they become just as corrupt as the popular people in the town.
It is by a small act of mercy from screenwriter Daniel Waters that Heathers is not a hopeless film. So much of what happens would be shocking if played straight. Waters never lets you forget that this is biting satire. The ridiculous teen lingo and absurdity of the action is clearly meant to illicit laughs instead of screams. The main difference between Heathers and an older work of social satire like Candide is permadeath. If someone dies in Heathers, they don't really get to come back. They might linger in memory or in dreams, but they never get to breathe again. They are otherwise linked by a brilliant attention to detail and a refusal to let any character be a wasted opportunity to comment on the central themes of the story.
Heathers is a weird film. Its pitch black humor will be entirely hit or miss and will probably stop you from laughing after the first act. Yet, for being such a dense satirical text, it is very easy to watch and quote, and lingers in the back of your mind. It's very.