Heathers
Hey, Do You Remember...?
Christopher Schrader
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2018
⏱️ 99 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There really isn't another film quite like Heathers. Sure, it gets referenced a lot when describing other teen movies, but the comparisons are largely superficial. There's an unmatched darkness swirling beneath the confectionery exterior of this that makes it hilarious and horrifying in equal measure.
As we learned during our discussion, the first viewing can be a pretty jarring experience that takes some time to process. It was controversial when it was released thirty years ago, it became even more controversial as time went on, and now it's time for the HDYR gang to unpack Heathers and see what all the fuss is about.
Topics include: how any expectations are immediately dashed by the opening moments, why this is more Carrie than Clueless, the recent stage and TV adaptations, alternate casting choices for the roles of Veronica and J.D., whether or not one of the original endings has a little bit more bite, how real life events changed the way we feel about certain aspects of all of this, and much much more!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, do you remember Heather's? |
| 0:07.0 | Hello and welcome to Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up. |
| 0:32.3 | I'm Chris. |
| 0:33.0 | I'm Donna. |
| 0:33.7 | And I'm Carlos. |
| 0:34.3 | And today we're revisiting Heather's. |
| 0:52.9 | Thank you. And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Heather's. To label the 1988-Beltieth-eight-film Heather's a Pitch Black Comedy would be underselling it. |
| 0:59.0 | Although it's understandably referenced when describing movies like Mean Girls or Jawbreaker, |
| 1:03.8 | this one has an unmatched darkness and sardonic bite to it. |
| 1:07.5 | So while the quips and quotes naturally bubble up to the surface, |
| 1:10.1 | there's a wickedly |
| 1:11.1 | brilliant mean streak underneath all of that, which separates it from the numerous titles that |
| 1:15.1 | imitated or were influenced by it. I think Heather's honestly has a lot more in common with something |
| 1:20.3 | like Carrie than it does clueless, because this is not good, clean fun. Heather's is a provocateur |
| 1:26.5 | packaged in the skin of a John Hughes romp, |
| 1:29.1 | a chocolate bunny filled with Drano instead of cream. And for screenwriter Daniel Waters, this film |
| 1:34.3 | would set the template for a career that would largely be built around using mainstream aesthetics |
| 1:38.9 | as sort of a Trojan horse for more subversive ideas. And for Waters, that strategy goes all the way back to his |
| 1:45.2 | high school years, where he had a column in the school paper called Troubled Waters, where he created |
| 1:50.0 | fictional stories about his real-life classmates and their activities. And instead of putting a |
| 1:54.6 | target on his back, this actually made him incredibly popular. Adoration aside, there was still a |
| 2:00.2 | viciousness to the teenage experience |
... |
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