By: Julia Marchese

Heathers literally determined my entire high school career. I went to a performing arts high school and was bussed in from across town, which meant I began school without knowing a soul. On the second day of school, some girls from across the room started quoting Heathers and I joined in (“you were a bluebird, you were a brownie, you were a girl scout cookie…”). Immediately, the girls brightened and cried, “You know Heathers?! Come sit with us!” These girls would become my very best friends in high school.

I’d like to think that this establishes the power of this film — that it is badass enough that people assume that if you like this movie, you must be badass too. It is a film that blew people away in 1988 and continues to do so today. A black comedy starring actual teenagers that pokes fun at suicide — I think it’s a miracle it was able to get made in the ’80s and could never ever be made today.

The film stars Winona Ryder as Veronica, a brain stuck in the body of a game show hostess (if I may borrow from Say Anything) who has managed to weasel herself into the most powerful clique in school, the Heathers. But Veronica is already seeing the error of her superficial desires and wants out. Rescue comes in the form of JD (Christian Slater), the mysterious bad boy new to Westerberg high. Before you can say “Swatch Dog and Diet Coke Heads,” she is accidentally responsible for the death of her best friend Heather, and conspires to pass it off as a suicide, which the school and media eat up. The film is blacker than black and goes further than any high school comedy did or ever will. Ryder still triumphs that Heathers is and forever will be the best film she has ever done, and refers to it simply as “great literature.”

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the film, and so a collector’s edition DVD has been released. In addition to the film, there is a disc full of interviews with the cast and crew, and a running commentary with writer Daniel Waters, director Michael Lehmann, and producer Denise Di Novi. The commentary is a little dry and is repetitive to a lot of what is covered in the interviews. The interviews are great, and the cast obviously has such fond affection for the film, which is why I was puzzled as to why none of them show up on the commentary. Winona Ryder says she would do anything they asked her to (even Heathers 2!) yet she is nowhere to be found on the commentary. I don’t think it is necessary to have cast on the DVD, but on one where they seem so willing, their absence is odd.

I cannot say enough good things about the film. If you’ve seen it, you love it, and if you haven’t, you are certainly missing out.

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