Heathers

Heathers is a 1989 American teen/dark comedy film written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann. It stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in the lead roles. The film portrays four teenage girls—three of whom are named Heather—in a clique at an Ohio high school.

Plot
Veronica (Winona Ryder) is part of the most popular clique at her high school, but she disapproves of the other girls' cruel behavior. When Veronica and her new boyfriend, J.D. (Christian Slater), confront clique leader Heather Chandler (Kim Walker) and accidentally poison her, they make it appear a suicide. Soon Veronica realizes that J.D. is intentionally killing students he does not like. She races to stop J.D. while also clashing with the clique's new leader, Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty).

Why It's Meant To Be Ours

 * 1) It's a great satire on teen life back in the '80s. As it captures the general life of teenagers in high school at the time (excluding the plot of a serial killer infiltrating the school and posing as the protagonist's boyfriend). It's also an amazing deconstruction of the Teen School movie trend (that was really blowing up in popularity in the 1980s, when this movie came out) by having a dark and bleak yet comedic story about crime and murder rather than simply general teen shenanigans.
 * 2) Great performances all around: Winona Ryder and Christian Slater are memorable in the lead roles, and the Heathers are great antagonists to their plot.
 * 3) A well written and famous script by Daniel Waters. The dialogue (as will be discussed in further detail in WIR# 8) is so witty and clever that almost every quote in the movie is impossible to forget and the story (as was previously talked about in the first point) is no short of amazing.
 * 4) Hilarious, yet shocking moments, especially the opening scene where J.D fires blanks at Kirk and Ram.
 * 5) Christian Slater also manages to steal the spotlight from Winona Ryder with his line delivery and attitude.
 * 6) It's basically the 80's version of Mean Girls (but with darker themes and more mature elements than the 2000s movie) and the precursor to Fight Club.
 * 7) The characters are all likable, memorable and complex. They also have a shockingly large amount of moral ambiguity to them.
 * 8) * Veronica Sawyer, the protagonist, is a cynical and antisocial teenage girl who has a sharp tongue in spite of being one of the most down-to-Earth characters in the movie. While she continuously maintains he belief that killings are morally wrong, she was involved in all of the ones that J.D. planned. But this doesn't stop her from trying to ultimately stop J.D in the end when he decides to blow up the high school.
 * 9) * Jason "J.D." Dean is a dark parody of the misunderstood rebellious loner trope commonly found in teen dramas. Because instead of being a kind-hearted and caring person behind that tough facade because of a traumatic past, he's happens to be so enveloped in said past that he's driven to believe that murder will be the solution to all of his problems (including the mass slaughter of an entire high school).
 * 10) * Heather Chandler was rather ruthless, cruel, and self-centered leader of the Heathers group with a deep spite and resentment towards Heather Duke. In spite of her usually showing almost no concern for the well-being of anyone around her as long as she's on top and keeps her image, she has an insecure side that only shows when no one else is present.
 * 11) * Heather Duke is a Heather that was, at first glance, a shy and insecure girl due to her suffering from bulimia. She's also fiercely loyal and submissive towards Heather Chandler to the point where the latter is able to literally marionette her words and body. Whether this is a result of the two's dynamic or Duke's fear of Chandler however, is never specified.
 * 12) * Heather McNamara, easily the nicest of the Heathers, is a rather friendly and upbeat individual, but shows a clear preference for Heather Chandler over Duke. But near the end if where she confesses to Veronica that she actually suffers from depression and a severe lack of willpower of independence.
 * 13) Great jokes about suicide that are done right and aren't just there to be pure shock value or tasteless humor. This movie also manages to be one of the few pieces of media to pull of jokes or humor about suicide or murder well and not make it tasteless.
 * 14) Similar to Mean Girls (and film that was already mentioned to share many similarities with this one in WIR# 6), the film is jam-packed with unforgettable and memorable quotes, that, no matter how short they can be or how little they may play in terms of the story of the film, still manage to be wither hilarious, emotional, deliciously evil, ominous, or more complex than they may appear at first glance. Such as (but certainly not limited to):
 * 15) * "Well f*ck me gently with a chainsaw"
 * 16) * "Lick it up baby, lick it up"
 * 17) * "She's My Best Friend. God, I Hate Her."
 * 18) * "The Extreme Always Seems To Make An Impression."
 * 19) * "Greetings & Salutations."
 * 20) * "Yeah, I Just Got Back."
 * 21) * "No, Heather, It’s Heather’s Turn. Heather?"
 * 22) * "Our love is God. Let’s go get a slushie."
 * 23) * "Veronica, why are you pulling my dick?"
 * 24) * "What’s your damage, Heather?"
 * 25) * "Now I know you understood everything."
 * 26) * "If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn’t be a human being. You’d be a game-show host."
 * 27) * "Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling."
 * 28) A wonderful plot twist and ending.
 * 29) * The former of which is the revelation J.D.'s plan to blow up the school after Veronica leaves him following her vow not to take part in any more murders.
 * 30) * The latter of which has J.D. committing suicide in the boiler room after being confronted by Veronica during his plan to blow up the school. Afterwards, Veronica confronts Heather Duke, takes the latter's red scrunchie, and declares herself as the new leader of the Heathers. It ends with Veronica inviting Martha to spend prom night watching movies together, as Duke watches on.
 * 31) It's success lead to it getting a musical adaptation in 2010. Which, in spite of it taking much of the moral ambiguity of the characters away and pushing most of the blame for the events of the film onto J.D., still has an amazing soundtrack mainly consisting of extended throwaway (but still no short of memorable, as previously discussed) lines from the movie which it actually manages to make into amazing full-length songs (i.e., Candy Store, Our Love Is God, Meant To Be Yours, Dead Girl Walking, Seventeen, Beautiful, Freeze Your Brain, etc.), on top of the fact that it also arguably improves on certain aspects of the film (which is already incredible). As it tightens the script, makes the story more emotionally-driven and clever and fleshes out some of the more underdeveloped characters (all depending on your view).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) A few of the characters can come off as redundant depending on your view.
 * 2) Many of the scenes lack driving emotional (a problem that, along with the previous one, are mostly fixed in the musical).
 * 3) Some, or yet, many scenes from the musicals are either removed or make some changes.

Reception
Although a box office failure, the film recieved critical acclaim from both critics and audiences alike, and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. It has since gained popularity as a cult film and is regarded as one of the greatest coming-of-age films of all time.The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 94% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Dark, cynical, and subversive, Heathers gently applies a chainsaw to the conventions of the high school movie – changing the game for teen comedies to follow." At the website Metacritic, the film earned a rating of 73/100 based on 19 reviews by mainstream critics.

Trivia

 * Based on this film, a mordern day reboot of the same name premiered on October 25, 2018, in the United States on Paramount Network. It was also adapted into a rock musical with music, lyrics and book by Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy.