I’m a bit of a Halloween nut, mainly because I’m a huge fan of horror movies. So, to celebrate my favourite month of the year, I decided to start a horror movie column exclusively for the month of October. Each week until Halloween, I will pick a horror subgenre and list three related flicks.
This week’s subgenre is one that I sort of just made up, called teenybopper horror. Think Mean Girls meets Pretty Little Liars.
Caution: SPOILER ALERTS
Heathers (1988)
This cult classic is about a teen duo that goes on a killing spree. Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) becomes accepted when the most popular girls in school, known as the Heathers, allow Veronica to hangout with them. The Heathers include Heather Chandler (Kim Walker), Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty), and Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk). The plot kicks off when Veronica vows to seek revenge on the Heathers’ leader, Heather Chandler, and teams up with J.D. (Christian Slater) to do so. The stunt goes completely wrong, and Veronica and J.D. end up murdering Heather Chandler. The plot then unravels as Heather and J.D. cover up the murder, and continue to wreak havoc amongst the school. Heathers combines typical high school drama with murder and revenge, heightening the true horrors of high school.
Jawbreaker (1999)
Jawbreaker completely failed when it was first released, both in the box office and in reviews. However, at some point along the way the film became a classic in its own subgenre. Highly inspired by Heathers, the four most popular girls in school, known as the “Flawless Four”, become involved in a murder. Courtney (Rose McGowan), Marcie (Julie Benz), and Julie (Rebecca Gayheart) decide to kidnap their friend, Liz (Charlotte Ayanna) on her 17th birthday as a prank. Courtney, Marcie, and Julie cover up in disguises and kidnap Liz from her bedroom, using a jawbreaker candy as a gag and taping her mouth with duct tape. They lock Liz in their trunk to take her out for her birthday, and when they open the trunk the girls discover that Liz choked to death on the jawbreaker. The girls decide to cover up the death, and as the film plays out, the hidden murder begins to bring out the worst in each girl, causing emotional torment. The characters in Jawbreaker are a lot closer in style to the main characters in Mean Girls—they are cruel and ruthless in a comedic way, lacking the seriousness of Heathers. The film also plays up the classic nerdy-girl-turns-popular plot, similar to that of Clueless.
The Craft (1996)
New girl Sarah Bailey (Robin Tunney) with a broken past becomes involved with a group of girls, Bonnie (Neve Campbell), Nancy (Fairuza Balk), and Rochelle (Rachel True), who are known as the witches by the rest of the school. The girls believe that Sarah will complete their coven. Unlike Heathers and Jawbreaker, the main characters are not the most popular girls in school—in fact, they are the complete opposite. However, the girls use their powers to manipulate their peers, including casting a love spell on the most popular guy in school. I grouped this movie into the teenybopper horror subgenre because it is a film of teen angst, revenge, and high school mixed in with dark magic, making for a rollercoaster of high school drama.