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.[9]
At Westerburg High School, in the fictional Sherwood, Ohio, Veronica Sawyer becomes 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, where she refuses to have sex with one member, unlike Chandler, who is coerced into performing oral sex. When Veronica drunkenly vomits on Chandler, Chandler vows to destroy Veronica's reputation in retaliation. Later, J.D. shows up at Veronica's house, and they have sex after J.D. breaks in through Veronica's bedroom window. They express to each other their mutual hatred of Chandler's tyranny.
The next morning, Veronica and J.D. break into Chandler's house, planning revenge by using a fake hangover cure to make Chandler vomit. J.D. pours drain cleaner into one of the mugs, but Veronica dismisses him, thinking he is making a mean joke. She mixes orange juice and milk together. Veronica accidentally brings the wrong mug to Chandler's room. J.D. notices this but dismisses it when Veronica does not hear J.D. He serves Chandler the drain cleaner, killing her. Veronica panics, and 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 worshipped in death than in life. Duke uses the attention surrounding Chandler's death to gain popularity by going to many different news stations, as, after Chandler's death, Duke feels the need to be the clique's new leader.
McNamara 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. Disturbed by J.D.'s behavior, Veronica 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. He then gives her a red scrunchie that Chandler wore, symbolizing her power over the school. 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, and McNamara is bullied. McNamara attempts suicide by overdosing in the girls' bathroom, but Veronica intervenes.
Veronica returns home, and her parents say that J.D. stopped by to tell them 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 make it look like a mass suicide.
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. She shoots him, and during his fall the switchblade in his hand cuts the wires to the detonator. 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 from the explosion. She approaches Duke, takes the red scrunchie, and asserts that Duke is no longer in charge. Veronica invites Martha to spend prom night watching movies together.
Daniel Waters began writing the screenplay in spring of 1986, while he was working at a video store.[15] He wanted the film to be directed by Stanley Kubrick,[16] 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, who he met through a mutual friend.[17] 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.[18]
Some reviewers have discussed similarities between Heathers and Massacre at Central High, a low-budget 1976 film.[19][20] 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".[21]
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.[18] Winona Ryder, who was 16 at the time of filming and badly wanted the part, begged Waters to cast her as Veronica, even offering to work for free.[22] Waters at first did not think Ryder was pretty enough, and Ryder herself commented that "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."[18]
Ryder's agent was so opposed to her pursuing the role that she got down on her hands and knees to beg Ryder not to take it, warning her that it would ruin her career.[18][23] Eventually, she was given the role. Brad Pitt read for the role of J.D. but was rejected.[24][25] Christian Slater reports throwing a "big tantrum" and tossing his script in the trash after assuming he'd bombed his audition.[18] He was signed to play J.D. shortly after Ryder was cast, stating later that he channeled Jack Nicholson in the film.[26]
Heather Graham, then 17, was offered the part of Heather Chandler but turned it down due to her parents' disapproval of the film.[18] Kim Walker, who was dating Slater at the time, 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.[18] 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. Doherty 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 Doherty refused, so they compromised on her having red hair.[18]
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.[18] 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."[18] 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.[18][31]
Soundtrack
The film uses two versions of the song "Que Sera, Sera", the first by singer Syd Straw and another over the end credits by Sly and the Family Stone.[32] On the film's DVD commentary, Di Novi mentions that the filmmakers wanted to use the original Doris Day version of the song, but Day would not lend her name to any project using profanity.
The song "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)" by the fictional band Big Fun was written and produced for the film by musician Don Dixon, and performed by the ad hoc group "Big Fun", which consisted of Dixon, Mitch Easter, Angie Carlson, and Marti Jones.[33] The song is included on Dixon's 1992 greatest hits album (If) I'm a Ham, Well You're a Sausage.[34]
The film's electronic score was composed and performed by David Newman, and a soundtrack CD was subsequently released.[35]
Release
Box office
Heathers was screened at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 1989,[2] and was released to the U.S. public in March 1989, at which time New World Pictures was going bankrupt.[18] The film was considered a flop when it was released, earning $177,247 in its opening weekend and ultimately grossing $1.1 million in the United States over five weeks.[36][37][6]
Home media
New World Video released Heathers on VHS and LaserDisc in 1989.[38] It developed a cult following after being unsuccessful at the box office.[18] It was released again on LaserDisc in September 1996, as a widescreen edition digitally transferred from Trans Atlantic Entertainment's interpositive print under the supervision of cinematographer Francis Kenny. The sound was mastered from the magnetic sound elements. The film was released on DVD in March 1999, in a barebones edition.[39]
In 2001, a multi-region special edition THX-certified DVD was released from Anchor Bay Entertainment in Dolby Digital 5.1.[39] The DVD contained an audio commentary with director Michael Lehmann, producer Denise Di Novi and writer Daniel Waters, as well as a 30-minute documentary titled Swatch Dogs and Diet Cokeheads, featuring interviews with Ryder, Slater, Doherty, Falk, Lehmann, Waters, Di Novi, director of photography Francis Kenny, and editor Norman Hollyn.[40] The DVD was released in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, and achieved high sales. Each release included a different front cover featuring Veronica, J.D., Chandler, Duke, and McNamara.[40]
The Anchor Bay DVD was also released in a "Limited Edition Tin Set" of 15,000 copies.[16] The Tin Set included a theatrical trailer, screenplay excerpt, original ending, biographies, 10-page full-color fold-out with photos and liner notes, an 8-inch "Heathers Rules!" ruler, and a 48-page full-color yearbook style booklet with rare photos.[41] The film was then re-released on Blu-ray by Image Entertainment in 2011 as a barebones edition, two years after Anchor Bay.[39]
In July 2008, a new 20th anniversary special edition DVD set was released by Anchor Bay to coincide with the DVD of writer Waters' new film Sex and Death 101.[39] The DVD features a new documentary, Return to Westerburg High.[39] In November 2008, Anchor Bay released a Blu-ray with all the special features from the 20th anniversary DVD and a soundtrack in Dolby TrueHD 5.1.[42]
In June 2018, Arrow Films reported that Heathers would be re-released on August 8, 2018, in cinemas and on September 10 on Blu-ray, in a new 4K restoration.[43][44] In November 2019, Image Entertainment released a 30th Anniversary steelbook edition on Blu-ray.[45] This release did not utilize Arrow Films' 4K restoration and featured new and previous special features.
Critical reception
Initial reviews
Writing in April 1989 for The Washington Post, journalist Desson Thomson wrote that it "may be the nastiest, cruelest fun you can have without actually having to study law or gird leather products. If movies were food, Heathers would be a cynic's chocolate binge."[46]Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4 and wrote that Heathers "is a morbid comedy about peer pressure in high school, about teenage suicide and about the deadliness of cliques that not only exclude but also maim and kill." While conceding its ability to provoke thought and shock, Ebert questioned how the mixed sensibility as a dark murder comedy and "cynical morality play" led to difficulty in understanding its point of view, while remarking that, "Adulthood could be defined as the process of learning to be shocked by things that do not shock teenagers, but that is not a notion that has occurred to Lehmann."[47]
Retrospective responses
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of 57 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Dark, cynical, and subversive, Heathers gently applies a chainsaw to the conventions of the high school movie—changing the game for teen comedies to follow."[48]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[49]
Academics have likened Heathers to other films popular during the 1980s and early 1990s which characterized domestic youth narratives as part and parcel of the "culture war".[50][51]
Teen film scholar Timothy Shary posits Heathers as influential for the subsequent satirical engagement with the trope of popularity: "Heathers turns the otherwise serious high school business of popularity into a farce, and that is exactly what films of the ’90s continued to do with the roles of popular female school characters. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Clueless (1995), Jawbreaker, and Election (both 1999) all feature popular school girls who are at once dedicated to maintaining their accepted image but who struggle (or fail) to recognize the contradictions and ironies of their position.The films thereby become parodies of popularity, although only Clueless and Election offer the same wide social scope as Heathers."[52]
Waters created a specific set of slang and style of speech for the film, wanting to ensure that the language in the film would have "timeless" quality instead of just reflecting teen slang at the time.[53] As of 2014[update], the film was among the most cited in the Oxford English Dictionary.[54]
Related projects
Possible film sequel
On June 2, 2009, Entertainment Weekly reported that Ryder had claimed that there would be a sequel to the film, titled Heathers 2, with Slater coming back "as a kind of Obi-Wan character".[55] However, Lehmann denied development of a sequel, saying, "Winona's been talking about this for years—she brings it up every once in a while and Dan Waters and I will joke about it, but as far as I know there's no script and no plans to do the sequel."[56] In 2024, Daniel Waters revealed that he had concocted a story for the sequel where Veronica becomes a page for a presidential candidate named Heather, who would have been played by Meryl Streep. The film would have ended with Veronica assassinating her and getting away with it.[57]
In 2010, Heathers was adapted into a stage musical directed by Andy Fickman.[58] Fickman also worked on the musical Reefer Madness,[58] a parody of the anti-cannabis movie of the same name which was turned into a feature film. Heathers: The Musical, which opens with a number depicting Veronica's acceptance into the Heathers' clique, received several readings in workshops in Los Angeles and a three-show concert presentation at Joe's Pub in New York City on September 13–14, 2010. The cast of the Joe's Pub concert included Annaleigh Ashford as Veronica, Jenna Leigh Green as Heather Chandler, and Jeremy Jordan as J.D.
An Off West End production of Heathers, directed by Andy Fickman, played at the Other Palace in London with performances between June 19 and August 4, 2018. Its cast included Carrie Hope Fletcher as Veronica Sawyer, Jodie Steele as Heather Chandler, Jamie Muscato as J.D., T'Shan Williams as Heather Duke, and Sophie Isaacs as Heather McNamara. It transferred to the West End in September 2018, playing in Theatre Royal Haymarket, London. A high school production of the musical is the focus of the "Chapter Fifty-One: Big Fun" episode of Riverdale.[62]
In 2021, Heathers returned for a limited run at the Haymarket with Christina Bennington playing Veronica Sawyer and Jordan Luke Gage as J.D. The three Heathers were played by Jodie Steele (Heather Chandler), Bobbi Little (Heather Duke), and Frances Mayli McCann (Heather McNamara). It then went on to play at The Other Palace until 3 September 2023.
In March 2016, TV Land ordered a pilot script for an anthology dark comedy series, set in the present day, with a very different Veronica Sawyer dealing with a very different but equally vicious group of Heathers. The series was written by Jason Micallef and Tom Rosenberg, and Gary Lucchesi was the executive producer[63] In January 2017, the Heathers TV show was ordered to Series at TV Land.[64]Shannen Doherty, the movie's Heather Duke, makes a cameo appearance in the pilot.[65]
^Kane, Joe (2000). The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope: The Ultimate Guide to the Latest, Greatest, and Weirdest Genre Videos. New York: Three Rivers Press. p. 524. ISBN9780812931495. We probably would have liked [Heathers] even better if we hadn't seen much the same story before as 1976's Massacre at Central High... Heathers replaces Massacre's fascistic male clique with a femme one but otherwise clones the earlier flick pretty closely.
^Siegel, Scott; Siegel, Barbara (1997). The Winona Ryder Scrapbook. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group. pp. 51–52. ISBN9780806518831. Heathers... spoofed the 1976 schlock horror classic Massacre at Central High... about a new student at a Southern California high school who doesn't like how other students are terrorized by a gang, so he decides to off the gang members one by one in gruesome fashion.
^Bowie, John Ross (2011). Heathers. Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press. p. 14. ISBN978-1593764579. I [Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters] had most definitely not seen [Massacre at Central High], but I do remember reading about it in the beloved book Cult Movies by Danny Peary... so I guess it was rattling around somewhere in my subconscious.[permanent dead link] [Peary's review of Massacre at Central High appears in his Cult Movies 2.]
^Swatch Dogs and Diet Coke Heads. 2001. Blue Underground (presents) and Anchor Bay Entertainment (in association with). Video (extra on 2001 limited edition Heathers DVD).
^"Heathers (1989) AFI Catalog". Retrieved August 13, 2023. According to 14 Sep 1988 DV production charts, principal photography began in Jul 1988.
^Hubbard, Christine Karen Reeves (December 1996). "The Teen Lifestyle Film". Rebellion and Reconciliation: Social Psychology, Genre, and the Teen Film, 1980–1989 (Ph.D. thesis). Denton, Texas: University of North Texas. p. 23. Document No. 9714032 – via ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
^Oxford Dictionaries (December 5, 2014). "This Word Is Toast: Slang From Cult Films". Slate Magazine. Heathers is a brilliantly quotable cult film, but did you know it is also one of the most frequently cited films in the OED...
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