Joseph Kahn's horror satire Detention (2011) must be one of the most unabashedly weird, warped and garish films of this decade, maybe even of this whole century. Think The Breakfast Club meets Back to the Future meets Scream with a hipster motif applied to all, and you're getting close.
Driving the story are cynical, sarcastic loner scream queen Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) and Clapton Davis (Josh Hutcherson who also executive produced the movie), the most popular but dumbest kid at Grizzly Lake High. The day after the release of movie-within-a-movie Cinderhella II: Beauty Scream, the title villain comes to life in Grizzly Lake and goes after the school's student body. Unfortunately for Riley and Clapton, they're stuck in detention under their bitter principal Karl Verge's (Dane Cook) watch. Now they must find a way of getting out, stopping Cinderhella, and saving the world, with their fellow detainees: narcissistic Sander (Aaron David Johnson), airheaded cheerleader Ione (Spencer Locke) naive Toshiba (Jonathan "Dumbfoundead" Park), surly, heavily made-up Mimi (Tiffany Boone) Canadian Gord (Travis Fleetwood), and the very enigmatic Elliot Fink (Walter Perez).
Driving the story are cynical, sarcastic loner scream queen Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) and Clapton Davis (Josh Hutcherson who also executive produced the movie), the most popular but dumbest kid at Grizzly Lake High. The day after the release of movie-within-a-movie Cinderhella II: Beauty Scream, the title villain comes to life in Grizzly Lake and goes after the school's student body. Unfortunately for Riley and Clapton, they're stuck in detention under their bitter principal Karl Verge's (Dane Cook) watch. Now they must find a way of getting out, stopping Cinderhella, and saving the world, with their fellow detainees: narcissistic Sander (Aaron David Johnson), airheaded cheerleader Ione (Spencer Locke) naive Toshiba (Jonathan "Dumbfoundead" Park), surly, heavily made-up Mimi (Tiffany Boone) Canadian Gord (Travis Fleetwood), and the very enigmatic Elliot Fink (Walter Perez).
God know what former music video director Kahn and co-writer Mark Palermo were on when they wrote the screenplay for Detention (and Kahn is a reformed addict, which is the subject of one of its hilariously snide in-jokes), but the end result was well worth it. Besides the cinematic and cultural influences I've just mentioned, Detention also has a very whimsical, Dadaist vibe throughout that just feels so genuine and charming. Kahn and Palermo clearly revere all the films this homages, and even while serving up a very clever time travel narrative and satire of high school life, they've still filled it with very familiar, lifelike teenage characters.
The performances are also very natural. Caswell has great comic timing and conveys Riley's fury at the world quite relatably. Hutcherson may be best known as Peeta Mallark but this is his best role for me, and if you think he's not that versatile, just wait 'til you see him copy Patrick Swayze's Dirty Dancing routine to surprisingly enjoyable cover of MMMBop. And Cook is at his grumpy best.
Overall, it is so bizarrely plotted and broad in its influences that it should be truly unwatchable, but because Kahn clearly doesn't care if people hate his work, it is instead euphorically entertaining, and thoroughly cohesive narratively and visually (but mind you, I'm a certified nutcase). This kind of Detention is well worth landing in.
Oh, and did I mention another of the characters is a football quarterback with fly blood?
The performances are also very natural. Caswell has great comic timing and conveys Riley's fury at the world quite relatably. Hutcherson may be best known as Peeta Mallark but this is his best role for me, and if you think he's not that versatile, just wait 'til you see him copy Patrick Swayze's Dirty Dancing routine to surprisingly enjoyable cover of MMMBop. And Cook is at his grumpy best.
Overall, it is so bizarrely plotted and broad in its influences that it should be truly unwatchable, but because Kahn clearly doesn't care if people hate his work, it is instead euphorically entertaining, and thoroughly cohesive narratively and visually (but mind you, I'm a certified nutcase). This kind of Detention is well worth landing in.
Oh, and did I mention another of the characters is a football quarterback with fly blood?
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