Main cast: Cameron Deane Stewart (Matt Clark), Augie Duke (Veronica Harmon), Ali Faulkner (Tricia Wilkes), Roger Edwards (Craig Cook), Marc Donato (Tarek Ahmed), Amanda Alch (Megan McDurst), Ben Browder (Max), Chanel Ryan (Miss Gleason), Judd Nelson (Headmaster Nash), Jeffrey Schmidt (Dr Day), and Eloise DeJoria (Governor Wilkes)
Director: Matthew Spradlin
Bad Kids Go to Hell is like The Breakfast Club meets Scream – eight kids in detention get killed one by one – except we take away the fun factor, good gore, scares, and everything else that make a slasher film palatable.
Yes, here we have the edgy kid from the poorer part of town, Matt Clark, who manages to negotiate and reduce his expulsion from the elite Crestview Academy into an eight-hour detention, and it is during detention that he ends up with Goth girl Veronica, the spiteful and ambitious overachiever Megan McDurst, the jock Roger, the popular girl Tricia, and the token minority dude Tarek. The others are all spoiled, unlikable, and self-absorbed to ridiculous degrees, while Max is no prize either – he is annoyingly edgy and defiant in a way that is pretentious rather than cute.
I can only wonder what this movie is trying to do. For a while, it is all about obnoxious kids who speak like they are trying way too hard to be caricatures from some Joss Whedon sideshow, and I would have volunteered cheerfully to be the killer that will do them all in. Once the killing starts, they are paced so far apart that I am still bombarded with annoying antics from stupid obnoxious kids, pointless flashbacks linking these vacuous brats in ways that I can barely bring myself to care about, and annoying scenes of these things posing in slow motion to creaky techno soundtrack like they are auditioning for some Asylum-tier parody of The Matrix or something.
What is this movie about? Is it an edgy comedy? Much of the comedy misses the mark completely because the movie is too concerned about making the kids as “cool” and “edgy” as possible. Mind you, the whole thing is only “edgy” in the sense that Matthew Spradlin and another co-screenwriter learned the concept of edginess from consuming too many Joss Whedon shows and John Green books, while never interacting with a real life high school kid at all. Is it a horror movie? The kills are boring and unimaginative, and spaced too far apart to generate any build up or tension. Not to mention, these obnoxious twats dying is a good thing… oh wait, the villain turns out to be equally contrived and fake-edgy, so whatever, eff this movie.
Seriously, this movie is a joyless, fun-free, no-suspense-allowed zone that should be quarantined away from people who are looking for a good slasher flick. It has a great concept, but it is ruined by people who seem to have no clue how to make a movie. Oh, and what happened to Ben Browder? I thought he was hot… obviously I must have been mistaken.
