Originally conceived and interpreted as the anti-thesis of all those classic 1980s high school films from the likes of John Hughes, Michael Lehmann’s 1989 black comic satire HEATHERS has taken on a more potent context in these post-Colombine reflections, when the American High School has gone through so many tragedies in recent years.
Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder, BEETLEJUICE, TV’s STRANGER THINGS) is the outsider inside of a clique of girls called Heather, known respectively as Chandler (Kim Walker), Duke (Shannen Doherty) and McNamara (Lisanne Falk) , who pride themselves on being the queens of the corridor and obviously destined to be likewise at the prom.
However, when newcomer rebel JD aka Jason Dean (Christian Slater, ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, THE NAME OF THE ROSE) arrives in town, he soon shows a tough side, firstly by scaring two bullying jocks, Kurt and Ram, in the lunchtime canteen by shooting a gun filled with blanks and then embarking on a relationship with Veronica.
After a keg-party in which Veronica embarrasses herself by throwing up on the shoes of Chandler, the bond is broken, but JD decides to help Veronica wreak a gentle revenge on Chandler by combining milk and orange juice. However, JD suggests drain cleaner and puts it in another cup. When Veronica picks up the wrong cup and hands it to Chandler, Chandler chokes and dies.
JD concocts a plan instead to make it look like a suicide and asks Veronica to fake Heather’s handwriting.. A scheme has been hatched – and JD has plans for other students in the school….
Written by Daniel Waters, who went on to wrote BATMAN RETURNS and DEMOLITION MAN amongst others, HEATHERS is a sharply observed, albeit dark tale of the reality of high-school psychology. It’s not designed to be a statement about the effects of suicide, merely to bring home the sad reality of what some teenagers go through.
Three decades on, it remains one of the cult classics of the 1980s