 | |
List Price: $9.98 | | Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Salesrank: 7856
Released: September 25, 2001 |
| Our Price: $3.92 |
| Used Price: $2.30 |
|
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
Welcome to Westerburg High, where Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) is beginning to tire of her membership in the powerful yet cruel clique of 'Heathers' When Veronica falls for the mysterious new kid Jason Dean (Christian Slater), their dislike for the Heathers quickly escalates into a savage cycle of murder, suicide and Slushies. Now that her teenage angst has a body count, are Veronica and JD headed for the prom...or hell?
Shannen Doherty co-stars in one of the greatest black comedies of all time, newly remastered and better than ever! What's your damage? This is HEATHERS like you've never seen or heard it before!
Includes a 4 Page Collector's Booklet
Description of Heathers (THX Version):
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
Heathers (THX Version) Reviews:
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.
----------------
Heather McNamara: It's your turn Heather.
Heather Chandler: No, Heather, it's Heather's turn. Heather?
Heather Duke: Sorry Heather.
========================
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.
--------------
Veronica Sawyer: Great pate, mom, but I gotta motor if I wanna be ready for that party tonight.
====================
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.
-------------------
J.D.: Seven schools in seven states and the only thing different is my locker combination.
========================
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.
--------------------
Veronica Sawyer: How very.
======================
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.
---------------------
J.D.: [lying on the ground with Veronica under his jacket] Mmm. I thank you. That was my first game of strip croquet.
===========================
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.
----------------
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.
=============================
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)
--------------------
J.D.: I knew that loose was too noose... uh... noose too loose...
===========================
loved it!!
2009-06-28 - never saw the movie before I bought it..but it was a good deal so I bought it...watch it...annnnd loved it...I highly recommend it. But, if you are looking for the mean girls kind of movie that this is rumored to be like...then this isn't for you..but I think it is better
Now This is A High School Movie!
2009-06-19 - Heathers is quite prossibly the only (okay, not likely, but I haven't had the chance to see a few other contenders such as Election and Dazed and Confused) high school movie that's good, for various reasons. First, it's hilarious, and while the plot deals with high school (something that's pretty mundane and can be done as an actual person), it's plot is anything but. After all, how many homicidial kids that Heathers, despite it's obviously outdated fashion senses (well, the movie still is kind of 80's in fashion), is also pretty relevant today in a sense (though I feel that cliques have softned up and are not as stereotypical today). Besides, I don't think these are the kinds of thigns I never see in High School either. Of course, that's because I basically ignore most people and talk to the people necessary.
Heathers starts with a mean joke played on some hapless fat chick, one of the most often ridiculed kind of classmate you probably know. It's mean, but it's darkly hilarious, and maybe even I take some pleasure in seeing it. The Heathers are depicted beautifully as these nasty, mean clique of three girls, who are determined to be a tryniccal force of girls who rule the school and put nearly every other school pupil to shame. It's a bitter movie, as most of the characters are not portrayed in a good way, not even Veronica's boyfriend. Very few are portrayed as good, and even Veronica herself isn't some amped up good person either.
Suffice to say, once Heather meets the outsider to help her get away from the clique she hates, she'll realize that It turns into a pretty biting yet darkly hilarious look into teen suicide as well, and the final confrotation also is eirre. You're going to have to watch the rest to know what happens at the end.
For what's it's worth, the film-making aspect of it is good, basically because this isn't a heavily-stylized visual feast. But there is style within, and not just the 80's clothing. Dramatic camera shots and lighting are used to great effect in this movie, and the soundtrack enchances that, more so than your average movie (give or take explanation, but I think you should just listen to it). The acting itself is good, it does the job well; Christian Slater is disctinctive amongst the rest of the classmates, and has his own style of speak and dress, which makes him all the more of the "outsider". Winona Ryder and the rest of the Heathers are all rather pretty, though the Heathers of course are just pretty on the outside, obviously. All the characters are still a bit stereotypical in these days, although, as someone who pretty much goes through school, I haven't had much of a clue, but even the jocks I have talked to aren't as brain dead as the two jocks. Though I think that may be the point, considering there is elements of satire in this movie.
Plenty of other movies, such as Mean Girls, have made an attempt to ape this movie or have similar plot lines, but movies like that don't portray the kind of popular douchebags as well as this movie does. And I'll bet that none of those movies are "...a cynic's chocolate binge!" (back of the box). Reccomended.
B-
