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List Price: $24.98 | | Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Salesrank: 73209
Released: March 30, 1999 |
| Our Price: $49.97 |
| Used Price: $4.34 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This dark comedy from 1989 was a good showcase for Winona Ryder, playing a high school girl brought into a clique of bitchy classmates (all named Heather), and Christian Slater, doing his early Jack Nicholson thing. While Ryder's character mulls over the consequences of giving up one set of friends for another, her association with a new boy (Slater) in school turns out to have deadly consequences. Director Michael Lehmann turned this unusual film into something more than another teen-death flick. There is real wit and sharp satire afoot, and the very fusion of horror and comedy is provocative in itself. Heathers remains a kind of benchmark in contemporary cinema for bringing surreal intelligence into Hollywood films. --Tom Keogh
Description of Heathers:
This dark comedy from 1989 was a good showcase for Winona Ryder, playing a high school girl brought into a clique of bitchy classmates (all named Heather), and Christian Slater, doing his early Jack Nicholson thing. While Ryder's character mulls over the consequences of giving up one set of friends for another, her association with a new boy (Slater) in school turns out to have deadly consequences. Director Michael Lehmann turned this unusual film into something more than another teen-death flick. There is real wit and sharp satire afoot, and the very fusion of horror and comedy is provocative in itself. Heathers remains a kind of benchmark in contemporary cinema for bringing surreal intelligence into Hollywood films. --Tom Keogh
Stills from Heathers (Click for larger image)
Beyond Heathers
Heathers [Blu-ray]
| 
Heathers - Limited Edition Box Set | 
Heathers (THX Version) |
Heathers Reviews:
Overrated 
2009-12-21 - I finally caved to the hype and watched "Veronicas" on a slow Sunday night. Wow - I was amazed at how perfectly it failed to live up to every expectation. Smart, well-read people told me that this film is smart; it is typical dopey teen stoner talk smart - "Donnie Darko" smart. The dialog is haltingly false. The hero's motives are beyond unbelievable. Even if the movie had been brilliantly edited (it wasn't) the pacing would still suffer from a poorly constructed story.... I'm sorry - constructed is too strong a word...
The story doesn't cohere because the screenwriter didn't know anything about storytelling. The comedy didn't function for me because the story flatlines after the first staged suicide, with an intolerably long wind down to the third act, which is just the last few minutes of the film. Imagine that there was a third Coen brother - one who was kicked in the head by a horse as a child - that is who made this movie.
"Veronicas" is posited as a dark, thoughtful satire, but its cultural background is lost on me these decades later. Apparently "HEY GUISE TEEN SUICIDE!!!!" was hot topic in 1989, and the mere mention made people feel all weighty and thinky.
I suspect that this movie is so hyped because hip, influential people reviewed it favorably. Maybe the movie is worth preserving as a historical curiosity because, even considering advances in technology, this level of irony is probably not possible to achieve today.
On the positive side, I will recommend a few movies that were doubtless influenced by this inexplicably revered standard:
Mean Girls: a much lighter movie written by SNL's Tina Fey. It looks at the same phenomena in high school society. Unlike "Veronicas", it is a has just a tinge of darkness and is written to well adjusted teens. And most unlike "Veronicas" it actually is funny.
World's Greatest Dad: written and directed by "Bobcat" Goldthwait. It manages all the challenges that "Veronicas" took on and succeeds in every category. It is relentlessly dark, viciously satirical, and painfully hilarious.
Heathers 
2009-12-07 - I suppose at one time a movie like this one would be considered funny. However, since 9-11, Columbine, and suicide bombers, this movie really loses any appeal it may have had. Christian Slater appears as a wannabe Jack Nicholson/James Dean character who seems to have it in for his peers. He tricks Veronica into killing her fellow students. At first it seems like it was just a scare gag gone wrong, but soon we learn that this kid really is not content until he kills as many classmates as possible.
As a parent of a high schooler, I found this quite disturbing and realy not that good of a movie. Some of the performances were decent, but the whole storyline was troublesome to me. I think there is too much emphasis on death in the teenagers world and this film only heightens that emphasis.
Funny, Scary and Mirorrs. 
2009-10-27 - I loved this movie. It has the comedy that every movie needs so that it isn't too dry. I mean like those lines that just give you a chuckle can make a big difference. Winona's does a superb acting job in this movie, so wonderful that it almost doesn't seem like acting in some parts. I did find parts of the movie rather scary, they really play with your mind. This movie really makes you think about what is important, like popularity and having the "right" friends. And just like in real life, you find characters doing things that you know they never would do and you find that maybe being popular and pretty isn't so important. I recommend this to any movie lover, particularly those who dig older movies and are in high school.
Heathers 
2009-09-11 - I've loved this movie since I first saw it on video in 1989. Mine wore out years ago. Captures in satirical, hilarious perfection the contrasts between high school cliques. Christian Slater's take on Jack Nicholson is priceless. Shannen Doherty's bitchy character established her FOREVER as THE bitchy character. Winona Ryder's self-conscious angst is perfect. The DVD is crisp and the sound is great and the catch-phrases are funnier than ever! It may be a "cult" movie but we are a big cult!
Great pate, mom, but I gotta motor if I wanna be ready for that party tonight
2009-07-07 - From the opening shot of Heathers we already know that the Heathers are worthy of our deepest hatred. The way they stomp on the flowers when playing croquet, you just know that they are royally spoiled, and they have not a care for any other living creature beside themselves.
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Heather McNamara: It's your turn Heather.
Heather Chandler: No, Heather, it's Heather's turn. Heather?
Heather Duke: Sorry Heather.
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Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) is the only non-Heather in the Heathers clique, and she is still being hazed by the full-fledged members. It's brutal in High School. They make her forge notes for pranks on the misfit kids. She reluctantly goes along -- for now.
At home Veronica is the trendy teen with a perky quirky vocabulary of the latest slang.
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Veronica Sawyer: Great pate, mom, but I gotta motor if I wanna be ready for that party tonight.
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Then she meets a stranger. J.D. (Christian Slater) is a dark and brooding teenager dressed in black. He must have been trying to play the entire role using his Jack Nicholson impression voice. His continual brooding is occasionally supplanted by a mischievous grin.
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J.D.: Seven schools in seven states and the only thing different is my locker combination.
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Veronica is impressed, but a bit taken aback. J.D. it seems was also acutely aware of the cruelty of the Heathers, as was she. This strange realization created a bond between them that was beginning to grow. J.D. constantly challenged Veronica's involvement with the Heathers. The more he did, the more their own bonds of affection grew.
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Veronica Sawyer: How very.
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Christian Slater and Winona Ryder are both very young, reckless, and beautiful here. It is worth watching the film just to see them. Winona is astonishingly beautiful, and Slater carries his half of the film with panache.
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J.D.: [lying on the ground with Veronica under his jacket] Mmm. I thank you. That was my first game of strip croquet.
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The film is a black comedy, and the only problem is that it takes as its subject school shootings, bombings, and violence, and in a post-Columbine world, such subjects are never as funny as they seemed in those halcyon days before Columbine.
Bad break for Heathers. If only it hadn't been so prescient about events yet to come. It could have been a cult film, yeah, it is a cult film, but it could have been a cult film with a much larger cult.
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Heather Chandler: I brought you to a Remington party and what's my thanks? It's on a hallway carpet. I got paid in puke.
Veronica Sawyer: Lick it up, baby. Lick. It. Up.
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Sex and Death 101 (2007) .... Winona Ryder was Death Nell / Gillian De Raisx (#101) (written by Daniel Waters)
A Scanner Darkly (2006) .... Winona Ryder was Donna Hawthorne
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) (uncredited) .... Winona Ryder was Psychologist
... aka Le livre de Jérémie (France)
Masked and Anonymous (2003) .... Christian Slater was Crew Guy #1
Girl, Interrupted (1999) .... Winona Ryder was Susanna Kaysen
... aka Durchgeknallt (Germany)
The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996) .... Directed by Michael Lehmann
Reality Bites (1994) .... Winona Ryder was Lelaina Pierce
Hudson Hawk (1991) .... Directed by Michael Lehmann (screenplay by Daniel Waters)
Edward Scissorhands (Widescreen Anniversary Edition) (1990) .... Winona Ryder was Kim
Pump up the Volume (1990) .... Christian Slater was Mark Hunter (Hard Harry)
... aka Plein volume (Canada: French title)
... aka Y a-t-il une vie après le lycée? (Canada: French title)
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J.D.: I knew that loose was too noose... uh... noose too loose...
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