Which one is it? Comedy classic, cult classic, or failure?

The 1989 teen angst black comedy Heathers was a box-office failure bringing in just over $1 million. Of the 34 reviews counted on RottenTomatoes only two are negative giving it a 94% rating by all critics, but that swings down to a mere 67% if you give it the "Top Critics" peek, which includes Roger Ebert as one of the two negatives along with Jonathan Rosenbaum. A 67% rating at RT is still a "fresh" one, but just by a hair. So, based on box-office I would say this is a failure. Based on critical reaction I would say it's so-so. It was ranked #5 on Entertainment Weekly's 50 Best High School Movies in 2006, which tells me … Well, now I am not so sure. At least not yet. Let's look deeper.

Having never seen the movie I tossed it into the Netflix queue and finally sat down with my mom on this Mother’s Day and gave it a watch. Yeah, Heather rinsing her mouth out after just giving a blowjob is an odd scene to watch with your mother in the room, but I survived. We both did actually, and we both agreed this movie isn't all that good. However, that isn't the end of the story. The movie may not actually work, but there are definite reasons this film continues to be brought up whenever black comedies enter the conversation.

Screenwriter Daniel Waters won a 1990 Edgar Award for his Heathers screenplay, and it was well deserved. This is a masterful script. Too bad it got all fucked up by some of the most god-awful acting you will ever see on screen and some serious miscasting and storytelling screw ups.

Starring Christian Slater, Winona Ryder and Shannen Doherty this is amateur hour at the cinema, and it takes what was a fantastic script and turns it into a deadpan bore. There are still a few laughs. I won't lie. I laughed more than a couple times, but that is only because the lines are so good. Had the delivery been any better this would have been a film to relish.

Fantastic lines such as "Grow up Heather, bulimia's so '87" and "I say we just grow up, be adults and die" make this film. An exchange between Veronica (Winona Ryder) and her father when Veronica says, "All we want is to be treated like human beings, not to be experimented on like guinea pigs or patronized like bunny rabbits." To which her father replies, "I don't patronize bunny rabbits," had me rolling. This script is smart and if I met a girl that would use the following line (not literally) I may just have to marry her on sight:

Veronica, why are you pulling my dick?

That shit is priceless and like so many other great lines they arrive out of nowhere only to be ruined by the piss poor acting.

See that bloke below…

That's Christian Slater playing J.D. circa 1989 acting like he wants to be Jack Nicholson circa 1974. Too bad he fails miserably. His act comes off as an impersonation. His eyebrows look tweezed and he is drenched in makeup. On top of that, he was 20-years-old playing a high schooler. Yeah, that became common practice at the time as "Beverly Hills, 90210" debuted only a year later and made Doherty a household name, but I can scrutinize wherever I see fit, and this definitely fits.

Winona Ryder isn't too bad, but I'll be damned if she doesn't seem to be mimicking Joan Cusack every time she opens her mouth and curls that lip. Considering Cusack had recently been nominated for an Oscar following Working Girl it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that is what Ryder was doing. However, Ryder is the second best thing about this film, playing second fiddle to Doherty who probably gives the performance of her life. Too bad the existence of Slater and the rest of the cast drag this movie down, down, down into the doldrums.

Lisanne Falk and Kim Walker play the two other Heathers along with Ryder. Falk is a footnote in the film while Walker plays the headpiece of the Heathers clique just before she is murdered with the crime made to look like a suicide setting off the chain of events that make-up the rest of the film. Neither Walker nor Falk brought anything to the film and would have been much better served had they been replaced with actors that seemed to give a shit about the characters they were playing.

I am not sure if it was director Michael Lehmann's plan to have everyone seem so uninspired and dull, but that is how it ends up and it steals the vigor that would have otherwise made this film bounce from dirty trick to dirty trick. Don't get me wrong, this is a dark comedy and dead pan, wooden acting sometimes makes such films perfect, but in this case it was one of two things: 1) Not fitting, or 2) Performed by actors that couldn't pull it off.

Strangely enough, actually liking this movie isn't a prerequisite to realizing the influence it has had on the comedy genre. Everyone praising Judd Apatow as some sort of comedy messiah needs to take a step back and realize his films are nothing more than a bite off this original comedic romp. The writing is the reason Heathers remains in the mainstream and is constantly referenced and deserves a legitimate remake, not that this film hasn't been remade already…

Strangely enough, Daniel Waters' brother Mark actually directed an obvious remake of Heathers in 2004 with the Lindsay Lohan hit Mean Girls bringing in $86 million. Instead of being referred to as "The Heathers" the cool clique in that one was called "The Plastics". Instead of Winona Ryder being the newcomer to the group it was Lindsay Lohan. Mean Girls is nowhere near as raunchy as Heathers, but it certainly has its spirit and is far better in its execution. I guess we can give a lot of that credit to its screenwriter… Tina Fey (gotta love her).

It's difficult to be too hard on Heathers, after all, this is a 1989 film and at that time I have no doubt I would have LOVED it. Of course I was only 12-years-old and my mom would have never allowed it, which would have only made it that much better, but I think this is a film that is certainly a product of its time. It has the cheesy '80s tunes, the big hair and the exposed shoulders. I just don't think the film itself plays that well almost 20 years later even if the writing still holds up.

I also don't think the film establishes its goal soon enough. It begins as a snobbish black comedy-turned-revenge tale, but it becomes much more once it's all said and done… or does it? What this film actually is still confuses me.

A pair of proposed alternate endings would have been interesting to actually see. One involves Veronica killing J.D. at the end, strapping the bomb to herself and blowing herself away and then flashes forward to the high school prom where members of different cliques are seen dancing with one another and a line delivered by Veronica earlier in the film floats above on a banner, "WHAT A WASTE, OH THE HUMANITY". It would have been interesting.

Another one, mentioned on the commentary track, would have involved that final scene where we see Veronica speaking with Martha 'Dump Truck' Dunnstock in her wheelchair after a failed suicide attempt. Veronica asks Martha if she wants to come over and watch movies and have some popcorn, another nod to a "can't we all get along thread." After accepting the invitation Martha ends up pulling out a gun, shoving it in Veronica's mouth and pulling the trigger. Veronica falls to the ground bleeding and Martha says, "Fuck you Heather!" To which, of course, Veronica gurgles, "I'm not Heather." Martha then, in an ode to Strangelove, jumps out of her wheelchair and yells, "I can walk!" THAT ending I love!

There is, in fact, a lot to like about this movie. Pieces of it are great, but there is too much weighing it down for me to fall head over heels for it. I am sure it has its fans, and now after seeing it I realize why so many people reference it when discussing certain comedies. At least now I will know what they are talking about.

As for the question in the teaser I have to concede this is a cult-classic and while a monetary failure at the box-office it seems to have been an industry success considering how often it seeps back into the Hollywood bloodstream.

On a side note, one interesting, albeit sad, trivia fact about the film involves Kim Walker who played the lead Heather, Heather Chandler. Kim's Heather delivered the memorable line "Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?" Sadly, Kim passed away at the age of 33 0n March 6, 2001 of a brain tumor. It's funny how life has its evil ironies, and even though I spoke negatively on her acting I felt it was worth a mention especially when remembering a film many have a fondness for. It's always sad to learn of losing anyone at such a young age.

Kim's other notable performances came in 13 episodes of "The Outsiders" as Sherri 'Cherry' Valance and Say Anything as Sheila.

Related post categories: Cinematic Revival, Features : Christian Slater, Heathers, Kim Walker, Mean Girls, Shannen Doherty, Winona Ryder

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