In celebration of Hallowe'en, we decided it was time to catch up on our reviews, and watch something "scary" for a special Hallowe'en issue of MT Sentiments. Like every other genre of classic film, I wasn't allowed to watch scary movies. So, like 95% of the movies we watch and review on our blog, I had never seen this classic which was an important part of my childhood and young adulthood. I simply never had the experience in the moment. For films like this one, you just can't re-live it once you are past your teenage years. I think I would have thought this film was a lot more clever if I was a 15 year-old virgin. Ah well.
The one thing I kept going back to while watching this movie was how old the actors are who play the teenage roles. When you ARE a teenager, you don't find it strange, because you want so badly to have the maturity of those people. The kids who are actually 16 are playing 12 year olds. There is no way they could handle the range necessary to be an angsty youth. Angsty youth have no idea what life after high school is like, so there is no way they can ever be convincing in these roles. You need the wisdom in order to recreate the experience. Remember, teen movies are always about re-presentation, they are never about the original experience.
This statement is an excellent segue into the most interesting feature of this film. Its self-reflexive discussion of the genre of the teen slasher provides another level of experience onto the conventional story it is telling. Its awareness of its own limitations is parodic and charming at times, even if it is a bit over the top.
I made jokes to T throughout like this is so meta. And the movie is deconstructing itself. It is so pomo. While I was making fun of the convention of being aware of the conventions of a genre, I am sure that as a teenager I would have been really impressed by this. This is the time in our lives when we first really start to see the broader patterns that reappear in various cultural phenomena. We know enough about genre that we can anticipate action and talk about the predictability of a story in a way that is a mix of disdain and superiority which is unique to the high school moment. It is important to feel better than the entertainment you are mindlessly consuming. You have to be too cool for your own life.
Overall, I thought this movie was really fun. It helped get me back into a moment when the "millennium" was an ominous event looming in the horizon. It helped me remember what a horror movie the whole high school experience really is. Perhaps the various hacking and slashing is closer to the truth than we like to imagine. Everything feels like the end of the world or the end of your life, even when nothing is going on that you will remember in six weeks, or even six days.
It was fun to re-live the up-and-coming actors of the mid-90s. Though I really didn't see most of Friends until it had already ended, and only ever saw the last episode of Party of Five, I was immediately presented with these two women who would occupy so many people's tv sets for a good five to ten years. It was a very nostalgic experience for someone who is not very violent and doesn't really enjoy watching violence on tv.
I don't think this movie is supposed to be scary. It is too self-aware of its conventions to be overly outrageous in its portrayal of the various murders. Instead, it is just silly. The killers are in a Hallowe'en costume and talk on cell phones. They get stuck in garage door openers, and string up principals on the football field. It is just supposed to be over-the-top. It doesn't actually need to keep you awake at night.
I'm glad I watched this, but now I am safely ready for bed. Stuffed with mini-chocolate bars and a late night dinner of chicken wings, all in all it has been a pretty good Hallowe'en. We even stuck a carrot in a pumpkin to make a witch nose for our Jack o'lantern. Hope everyone did something fun and didn't get up to too much trouble.
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