Heathers
Heathers is a 1989 American teen satirical black comedy crime film written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann, in both of their respective film debuts. The film stars Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker, and Penelope Milford. The plot revolves around four teenage girls—three of whom are named Heather—in a clique at an Ohio high school, one of whose lives is disrupted by the arrival of a misanthrope intent on murdering the popular students and staging their deaths as suicides.
Waters wrote Heathers as a spec script and originally wanted Stanley Kubrick to direct the film, out of admiration for Kubrick's own black comedy film Dr. Strangelove. Waters intended the film to contrast the optimistic teen movies of the era, particularly those written by John Hughes, by presenting a cynical depiction of high school imbued with dark satire.
Filmed in Los Angeles in July of 1988, Heathers premiered in Milan, Italy, in the fall of 1988 before making its way to the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 1989, then New World Pictures theatrically released the film in the United States on March 31, 1989. It went on to win the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and for his screenplay, Waters received the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. It has since become popular and is regarded in polls as one of the greatest coming-of-age films of all time. Heathers has since been adapted into a musical and a television reboot.
Plot
At Westerburg High School, in the fictional Sherwood, Ohio, Veronica Sawyer is part of a popular-but-feared clique that includes three wealthy and beautiful girls with the same first name: Heather Duke, Heather McNamara, and the ruthless queen bee, Heather Chandler. Tired of the clique abusing its power, Veronica longs for her old life with her kinder but less popular friends. She becomes fascinated with new student Jason "J.D." Dean after he pulls out a gun and fires blanks to scare football-player bullies, Kurt and Ram. Outsider J.D., whose mother committed suicide, has a strained relationship with his explosives-obsessed demolition mogul father.Veronica goes with Chandler to a frat party at Remington University, where she refuses to have sex with one member, unlike Chandler, who is coerced into performing fellatio. When Veronica drunkenly vomits in front of Chandler, Chandler vows to destroy Veronica's reputation in retaliation. Later, J.D. breaks into Veronica's house through her bedroom window, and they have sex, expressing to each other their mutual hatred of Chandler's tyranny after.
The next morning, Veronica and J.D. break into Chandler's house, planning revenge by using a fake hangover cure to make Chandler vomit. Veronica mixes orange juice and milk into a mug, but J.D. swaps it out with a mug of drain cleaner that an unknowing Veronica serves Chandler, which kills her. Veronica is horrified by the accident, but J.D. urges her to forge a dramatic suicide note in Chandler's handwriting. The community regards Chandler's apparent suicide as a tragic decision made by a troubled teenager, making her even more respected in death than in life. Duke uses the attention surrounding Chandler's death to gain popularity by going to many different news stations, feeling the need to be the clique's new leader.
McNamara later convinces Veronica to go with her, Kurt, and Ram on a double date. J.D. finds the four teens that evening in a field, and Veronica leaves with him as Kurt passes out, while Ram rapes McNamara. The boys spread a false rumor about Veronica performing oral sex on them, ruining her reputation. J.D. proposes that he and Veronica lure the boys into the woods, shoot them with tranquilizers, and humiliate them by staging the scene to look like they were lovers participating in a suicide pact.
In the forest, J.D. shoots Ram, but Veronica's shot misses Kurt, who runs away. J.D. chases Kurt back toward Veronica, who, realizing that the bullets are in fact lethal, fatally shoots him in a panic. At their funeral, the boys are made into martyrs to homophobia. Realizing that J.D. is intentionally murdering students he dislikes, Veronica is horrified and breaks up with him.
J.D. blackmails Duke into getting every student to sign a petition that, unbeknownst to her, is intended to act as a mass suicide note. Martha, an overweight girl who is a frequent target of bullying, attempts to kill herself by walking into traffic. She survives but is badly injured and mocked by her peers who believe she was attempting to copy the popular kids. McNamara calls a radio show to discuss her depression. Duke tells the entire school about the radio call, leading to McNamara being bullied. McNamara attempts suicide by overdosing in the girls' bathroom, but Veronica intervenes.
Veronica returns home, where her parents inform her that J.D. stopped by, proclaiming that he is worried she will attempt suicide. Realizing that J.D. plans to kill her, she fakes her own suicide by hanging. J.D. finds her and, assuming she is dead, gives a monologue revealing his plan to blow up the school pep rally and frame it as a suicide pact.
J.D. plants dynamite in the gymnasium equipped with remote detonators. He proceeds to the school's boiler room to place dynamite with a countdown detonator. Veronica confronts J.D. in the boiler room and shoots him, resulting in him accidentally cutting the wires to the detonator with his switchblade. Veronica goes outside, and J.D. follows her with a bomb strapped to his chest. He offers a personal eulogy and detonates the bomb, killing himself. As students and faculty rush to see what happened, Veronica walks back inside, disheveled and covered in soot from the explosion. She confronts and condemns Duke, then invites Martha to spend prom night watching movies together.
Cast
Production
Development
Daniel Waters began writing the screenplay in spring of 1986, while he was working at a video store. He wanted the film to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, not only out of admiration for him, but also from a perception that "Kubrick was the only person that could get away with a three-hour film". The cafeteria scene near the start of Heathers was written as a homage to the barracks scene which opens Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. After a number of failed attempts to get the script to Kubrick, Waters approached director Michael Lehmann, whom he met through a mutual friend. Lehmann agreed to helm the film with producer Denise Di Novi.In the original version of the script, J.D. successfully blows up Westerburg High, and the final scene features a surreal prom gathering of all the students in heaven. Executives at New World Pictures agreed to finance the film, but they disliked the dark ending and insisted that it be changed.
Some reviewers have discussed similarities between Heathers and Massacre at Central High, a low-budget 1976 film. Daniel Waters has stated that he had not seen Massacre at Central High at the time he wrote Heathers but that he had read a review of it in a Danny Peary book about cult movies and that the earlier film may have been "rattling around somewhere in my subconscious".
Casting
Many actors and actresses turned down the project because of its dark subject matter. Early choices for Veronica were Justine Bateman and Jennifer Connelly. Winona Ryder, who was 15 at the time and turned 16 during filming, had begged Waters to cast her as Veronica and wanted the part so badly that she offered to work for free. Waters initially did not think she was "pretty enough" and later said that his first reaction was, "The girl from Lucas? She's just not attractive!" Ryder herself commented in 2014, "At the time, I didn't look that different from my character in Beetlejuice. I was very pale. I had blue-black dyed hair. I went to Macy's at the Beverly Center and had them do a makeover on me."Ryder's agent was opposed to her taking the role and believed that it would ruin Ryder's career, even getting down on her hands and knees to beg Ryder not to take it. She was eventually given the role and later parted ways with her agent. Brad Pitt read for the role of J.D. but was unsuccessful. Christian Slater reported throwing a "big tantrum" and tossing his script in the trash after assuming he had botched his audition. He was cast as J.D. shortly after Ryder joined the film, later stating that he channeled Jack Nicholson in the film.
Heather Graham, then 17, was offered the part of Heather Chandler but turned it down due to her parents' disapproval of the film. Kim Walker, who was dating Slater, was offered the role instead. Lisanne Falk, 23 years old at the time, lied and said she was in her late teens during the audition. It was only after she was cast that she revealed her true age. 17-year-old Shannen Doherty wanted the role of Veronica, but Ryder had been cast, so the producers asked her to audition for Heather Chandler. She was more interested in playing Heather Duke and ended up giving an "amazing" reading as Duke, which secured her the part. The producers wanted her to dye her hair blonde to match the other "Heathers", but she refused, so they compromised on her having red hair.
Filming
took place over 33 days beginning in July 1988, on a budget of $3 million. Although set in Ohio, filming was done entirely in Los Angeles. "Westerburg High School" is an amalgamation of Corvallis High School, now Bridges Academy, in Studio City, Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, and John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica. The gymnasium scenes were shot at Verdugo Hills High, and the climactic scene on the stairs was filmed outside John Adams Middle School. The funeral scenes were filmed at Church of the Angels in Pasadena, California, a location also used in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Just Married.Michael Lehmann has called Doherty "a bit of a handful" on set, in part because she objected to the swearing in the script and refused to say some of the more explicit lines. Falk stated that Doherty "didn't have much of a sense of humor, and she took herself a little seriously", and Di Novi said: "I don't think Shannen really got what Heathers was. And that worked for us. She made that character real." When the cast first viewed the film, Doherty ran out crying because she realized the film was a dark comedy and not the drama she was expecting.