Netflix pick for 5/20/13 – ‘Heathers’

“Heathers” is a like a 1980s John Hughes movie but with the sentimentality replaced with black-as-outer space humor, setting it’s sights on one of the hot button issues of the time, teen suicide, along with general teen malaise, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and all the other things that makes being an alienated and misunderstood teenager in high school so memorable. It’s “The Breakfast Club,” except instead of a character talking about thinking about suicide and the others tell him how wrong that is, we get crazy suicide attempts and killings and cover ups. Ahhhh yes. Good times.

This is one of those movies that bit it hard at the box office, only to find a cult following down the road, and it is available now here on the Netflix Instant for you to check out. And featuring Christian Slater, Winona Ryder and Shannon Doherty actually in their late teens like their characters, this is a heckuva a cynical trip back to late 80s high school culture (and culture in general).

By the way, the below trailer is hysterically terrible, and is a possible indicator as to why the movie flopped. Trust me, the film is much better than this awkward piece of marketing makes it seem. But really though, how the hell else were they going to market a dark comedy about teenage suicide? Anyway, check out this piece of shit, and then watch the awesome movie (or just watch the awesome movie).