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Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critics What's this?

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Generally favorable reviews- based on 20 Ratings

  • Starring: Christian Slater, Winona Ryder
  • Summary: A razor sharp black comedy about high school politics centers on Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) who joins an exclusive clique of popular girls named Heather (Walker, Doherty, Falk) and plays along with her new boyfriend J.D. (Slater) in a series of pranks which turn into a series of murders made to look like suicides. Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 19
  2. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. It's shockingly funny - you don't sit there deciding to laugh. Your own laughter catches you by surprise. [14 Apr 1989]
  2. 100
    This is an amazing black satire filled with vicious biting words that snap like firecrackers.
  3. Reviewed by: Emma Cochrane
    80
    Michael Lehmann’s feature debut introduced the world to Christian Slater at his Jack Nicholson, subversive best and gave Winona Ryder a career-high role.
  4. The flamboyantly filmed story makes some telling points about adolescent life. But despite its oh-so-cynical mannerisms, it falls all over itself to flatter an allegedly self-absorbed and self-pitying teen audience. [7 April 1989]

See all 19 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 9
  3. Negative: 2 out of 9
  1. j30
    8
    Here's an 80's gem that's very entertaining and has some great quotes. It 's almost a guilty pleasure of mine that's hard to ignore. I can't really recommend this to anyone that is easily offended. Expand
  2. The movie starts simple enough, a bunch of high school girls in the cafeteria playing horrible pranks on innocent girls, just for laughs. However, it takes a quick dark turn, someone pulls a gun out and shoots two guys (luckily blanks) and quickly someone else gets killed. When it started off I thought maybe this was all in the head of the heroine, but boy am I wrong. As the movie progresses it becomes darker, but it retains it humor even in the more gruesome scenes. It becomes a movie about how society has one general leader and no matter how many times you kill this leader a new one grows in its place like a hydra. The film takes about the seriousness of suicide and pokes fun at how people react to it. It is a bold movie and the payoffs are well worth it. The film becomes a satire for our society in a high school setting.

    In the beginning I was a little disturbed when the movie took its dark turn, but when I caught on to what it was about, I was enjoying it very much. The director does a great job of creating the tension, but not forgetting the humor. The script is incredibly smart and it never feels as though as the movie is preachy or talking down to its audience. While it loses what its trying to in the middle and right before the climax, it rounds itself up fairly well near the end. I was creeped out by the movie towards the end and well after it was over.

    The characters are all lively and they poke fun at figures n society. From hippies, to rebels, to people who think they are better than everyone, to the average man, â
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  3. first saw Heatherâ
  4. Thsi movie was a whinny complaint about how everybody is mean, and then a dramatization of angry people doing stupid things. I do not want to see this over dramatic 80's dribble ever again. It was not smart it was people with a good head on their shoulders throwing it away because they are incompetent. Expand

See all 9 User Reviews

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