Bad Kids Go to Hell

Bad Kids Go To Hell. (According to IMDB, it is “Based on the best selling indie comic book series/graphic novel of the same name.” If that adds anything.)

TL;DR: Just watch it. Unless cockroaches terrify you.

Slightly longer TL;DR: This may be the best bad movie ever. At least of 2012.

Full-blown OMGSTFU already review:

The movie kept coming up in Netflix “recommends” but the cover art and the description just left me blah. “Oh, hooray. <yawn> Another scary movie about teenagers possessed by demons during a visit to the local Pepperidge Farms store and now their nostrils glow before they kill someone.” Or: “Oh, hooray. <yawn> Another shaky-cam movie about teens trapped in a haunted house/mental asylum/forest.”

Well, that should teach me to prejudge things. (If I had a nickel for every time I said that!)

This is a comedy/mystery (maybe a bit of horror) somewhat along the lines of the Scary Movie franchise. Based upon some reviews, you’d think this movie sucked tailpipe. However, on its merits in that small sub-genre, it’s actually pretty subtle and pretty well done. Many reviews are “Oh, har. A horror version of Breakfast Club.” Those people fail at life. There’s also a lot of “this movie’s a mess” reviews. Because, I guess, people don’t pay attention because it’s all spelled out PRETTY FUCKING CLEARLY IN AMERICAN ENGLISH IF YOU WOULD PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE AND WATCH IT YOU FUCKING MORONS. It saddens me that a movie like Bad Kids Go To Hell is, apparently, too deep for a lot of people. I mean WTF Fred?

Don’t get me wrong. We’re not talking about some Ingmar Bergman-like reductive reflection on life and the misery one endures by silently plucking out one’s own pubic hairs on a remote island in Finland. It’s a comedy/mystery movie that, even if it weren’t supposed to make sense, still does make sense if you’re paying attention and graduated from 8th grade. There’s no deep message. No meaning of life will be found here. It’s called relaxing your goddamned anal sphincter, kicking back, and just enjoying it for what it is: a pretty well done B-movie.

Much like ice cubes on your nipples, the points are: (1) not every movie has to be a work of art that causes one to cut one’s self out of a sense of loss and existential angst; and (B) some people just don’t know how to have fun. Whew. That’s out of my system.

The movie is set at Crestview Academy (a ritzy school for rich kids), where a group of kids will be spending their 8-hour detention in the library. Turns out Crestview was built on land stolen from a Native American and it’s cursed! (Maybe.)

Our plucky kids (actually, high school seniors in the movie), locked in the library on their own with no internet (but they very specifically and clearly have “intranet”) and no cell phones and NO SMOKING!, decide to hold a seance. Stuff happens and death starts its march through the detained. I am compelled to point out that, since this school is an Academy, that that means school uniforms.

The movie does pluck a bit heavily upon the Breakfast Club theme (right down to Judd Nelson appearing). But there are subtle tips of the hat to quite a few other teenager movies from Breakfast Club to Carrie. Done pretty well. It’s enjoyable just for those little homages.

The young cast is quite competent – a pleasant surprise these days in terms of young actors. Everyone seems to be having a good time with it (which, IMHO, counts for a lot of the reason the movie is enjoyable).

There is some funny and very politically incorrect humor. This movie is not recommended if you’re having your vegan-heart liberal friends over for the weekly “tofu and wilted cardboard dinner with a piquant rosé from that charming winery in Argentina we visited last year”.

There is a bit of blood and gore. The soundtrack is actually pretty cool. And between it and the movie, I bought the soundtrack.  It’s kind of hard to describe kind of “happy goth” maybe? (The last time I bought a soundtrack was the one to Empire Records [without seeing the movie] and I still stab myself from time to time over that mistake.)

And, finally, the stripper scene. Yes, there is a stripper scene. A stripper scene that even I, a non-heteronormative red-blooded American man, found to be enjoyable. I was honestly sad when it was over.  The actress who does it (Amanda Alch, I believe) just has fun with it. Plus, the way it’s filmed is just a hoot. (Full disclosure: if a man had done that with the same level of appeal and talent, I’d feel the exact same way. It’s probably one of the funnest, most enjoyable stripping scenes in a movie that I’ve seen.)

This movie is so goodly bad that I may actually buy it, too.