Heathers
Dear diary, life in Sherwood, Ohio has become an ongoing parade of cruelty, a socio-economic microcosm of origins humble and privileged and the inevitable destinies out of which nobody will emerge unscathed, the cafeteria of Westerburg High School run by Heather Chandler, her blonde curls tied back by a scrunchie in her trademark red, Heather Duke, lost in Moby Dick, and Heather McNamara, the bulimic cheerleader who seems to have lost her cheer.
Recently accepted into the trio of the Heathers, the most powerful clique in the school, is Veronica Sawyer, wanting to sit at the top table with all the admiration and influence it brings but finding that she is trapped with monsters she has little in common with and forced to abandon the real friends she has known her whole life, wishing to escape but realising to turn her back on Heather Chandler would be to present a target for the knife.
Into this situation comes transfer student Jason Dean, a wild card who deals in firearms and explosives, his father a demolition expert who has moved with JD from state to state leaving rubble in his wake, refusing to accept the hierarchy of Westerburg as enforced by the Heathers and football stars Ram Sweeney and Kurt Kelly, Veronica seeing in him someone who understands her need to push against the system, though she just doesn’t realise how far out of the lines he likes to colour.
Already a rising star thanks to Beetlejuice while still only in her teens, Heathers was the film which Winona Ryder’s agent famously begged her not to take; Ryder wisely accepted the role of Veronica Sawyer, cynical chronicler of the shifting power struggles of high school and her own part in them, the hand of fate armed with drain cleaner and a handgun, playing opposite Pump Up the Volume’s Christian Slater as JD, an unstable psychopath but sure to liven any flagging party with his antics.
Written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehman, ostensibly the biggest star of the film was Beverly Hills 90210’s Shannen Doherty as quietly ambitious Heather Duke, with Kim Walker and Lisanne Falk completing the titular trio as Heathers Chandler and McNamara, the supporting cast including Beetlejuice’s Glenn Shadix as Father Ripper who presides over the numerous funerals as the Westerburg herd is culled.
A vicious satire of anxious teenagers struggling with daily cruelty, parents indifferent and indulgent and teachers oblivious of what is happening in the hallways or perhaps too cowed to intervene, Heathers slips between styles and tones as smoothly as Veronica switches her high school and evening wardrobes, opening as a teen comedy but lit and shot as a horror in the first party scene where Veronica is offered as a sacrifice to secure status, while David Newman’s synth heavy score adds mystery and sympathy to the atmosphere.
With murder covered up with fake suicide notes celebrated in English class, lonely Eskimo Heather Duke immediately takes advantage, taking Red Heather’s vacated prime position and adopting cruelty as policy while Veronica wants to wash herself clean of what has happened, moving instead towards kindness, empathy and responsibility, but ultimately she has to take matters into her own hands and end what she has begun, facing the seemingly indestructible JD on his own dangerous ground.
A caustic and unforgiving film which was never going to sell to the mainstream or be embraced by conservative programmers with their eyes on the bottom line of the tally sheet, Heathers instead found an underground audience who understood first hand the pain and disillusionment it expressed about the relentless battleground of high school; there is a quote which says “Nirvana were the band who told America how unhappy it’s children were,” but the Heathers already knew.
Heathers is available on Limited Edition 4K UHD and the Arrow platform now
