Heathers

March 31, 1989 0 By Fans
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Still of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in HeathersStill of Christian Slater in HeathersStill of Winona Ryder, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk and Kim Walker in HeathersStill of Winona Ryder and Michael Lehmann in HeathersStill of Winona Ryder in HeathersStill of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in Heathers

Plot

A girl who half-heartedly tries to be part of the "in crowd" of her school meets a rebel who teaches her a more devious way to play social politics.

Release Year: 1988

Rating: 7.3/10 (30,073 voted)

Critic's Score: 73/100

Director:
Michael Lehmann

Stars: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty

Storyline
Veronica mingles with Heather I, II and III to be as popular as them, even though she hates them. She hates them enough to wish they were dead, though she would never want to be their cause of death. When she starts dating Jason Dean, however, she finds herself involved in the murders of most of her enemies, covered up as suicides.

Cast:

Winona Ryder

Veronica


Christian Slater

J.D.


Shannen Doherty

Heather (Duke)


Lisanne Falk

Heather (McNamara)


Kim Walker

Heather (Chandler)


Penelope Milford

Pauline Fleming


Glenn Shadix

Father Ripper


Lance Fenton

Kurt Kelly


Patrick Labyorteaux

Ram


Jeremy Applegate

Peter Dawson


Jon Matthews

Rodney


Carrie Lynn

Martha Dunnstock aka Dumptruck


Phill Lewis

Dennis


Renée Estevez

Betty Finn

(as Reneé Estevez)


John Zarchen

Country Club Keith

Taglines:
Best friends, social trends and occasional murder.

Release Date: 31 March 1989

Filming Locations: Church of the Angels – 1100 Avenue 64, Pasadena, California, USA



Box Office Details

Budget: $3,000,000

(estimated)

Opening Weekend: $177,247
(USA)
(2 April 1989)
(35 Screens)

Gross: $1,108,462
(USA)
(30 April 1989)



Technical Specs

Runtime:



Did You Know?

Trivia:

Drew Barrymore auditioned for a role in the film.

Goofs:

Continuity:
When the students are praying at Heather's open casket, her head gets higher and lower between the shots, and her hair changes positions.

Quotes:

Veronica Sawyer:
You know what I want?
[shoots J.D]

Veronica Sawyer:
Cool guys like you out of my life.



User Review

Best teen comedy ever.

Rating: 10/10


Daniel Waters wrote one of the best satires ever in "Heathers", a dark
comedy that ranks right up there with "Dr. Strangelove" and "Network".
Certainly it's the best teen comedy ever made. Why? Because in spite of
its highly stylized depiction of teenagers, it caught the truest
essence of what high school is actually like in America. Not only that,
it trashed the entire genre and– in a feat of sheer genius– even the
*reaction* to the genre by outside observers (namely parents). Terry
Southern could have done no better.

"Westerburg high school self-destructed not *because* of society but
because Westerburg High School *was* society" was restated, to
near-universal praise, by Michael Moore in "Bowling For Columbine", but
Waters said it before him, said it better, and frankly he's got a lot
more credibility ("Hudson Hawk" notwithstanding). The cast is
brilliant, even if, strangely, some of them don't seem to get what the
whole movie was about. You half expect that most of the cast and crew,
like the kids who sign a petition to bring Big Fun to the school for a
gig, made a movie they didn't know they were making. But the key
figures nailed it– Ryder and Slater were never better.

"Heathers" is one of the best films of the Eighties– put the lid on
the Eighties, as it were. It has suffered criminal neglect, probably
because it may have required an "indie auteur" to really knock the
cinematic elements out of the park. The direction is competent but
unspectacular. Still, the star is the writing, and Waters deserved an
Oscar for this script. Unsentimental, vicious, and above all
hilariously funny, he drove a stake through the heart of those
oh-so-precious John Hughes films and, at the same time, set the stage
for Kevin Williamson and all the rest. He did it with a perfect ear for
dialogue combined with a Swiftian vision of social structures, and did
it all as an argument *against* ironic detachment, for which this film
and its messages needs to be revisited now more than ever. Simply
incredible.