CW: Genre Research: Heathers, 1988

Heathers

Michael Lehmann, 1988 (Rom-Com, 15)

Produced by: New World Pictures

Distributed by: New World Pictures

Budget: $3M

Box Office: $1M

Trailer, Wikipedia

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Synopsis:

This rom-com explores dark elements, such as murder and teen suicide. Set in a high school, it follows the activities of  Veronica Sawyer, her boyfriend Jason 'J.D.' Dean, and their association with the popular clique of heathers. 

The Ident

Idents & Titles: 

Titles

There is just one ident, for New World Pictures, that doesn't appear to be edited in any way to fit the genre. Using an audio bridge, it transitions into the titles, written with a serif, bold font that is white with a pink shadow and are on black.

Opening Scene: 

Opening Shot

The opening shot is of the red scrunchie being used to tie up Heather Chandler's (HC's) hair, this introduces the scrunchie as being a key plot element throughout the movie.

Crushing the flowers

Matching clothes and croquet

The music playing is Que Sera, Sera. Somewhat ironically as in the opening the heathers clique crush flowers, wich could be connoting the crushing of dreams. This is the start of the dark themes throughout the movie.

Hitting Veronica

Comedic elements are introduced through them playing croquet, with balls and hammers of matching colours with their outfits, as Heather McNamara (HM) says to HC 'It's your turn Heather' to which she replys 'No Heather it's Heather's turn' meaning Heather Duke (HD). The darkness of this movie is further emphasised when the camera reveals that they were hitting Veronica, who was buried up to her neck in the ground, with the croquet balls.

Staring across the lunch hall

There is also a voice over for the transition of this scene to the next.

Romantic elements are introduced with J.D. looking across the cafeteria ate Veronica as they eat, the two then share eye contact, with veronica being so distracted she walks into a person as they are sitting eating

Walking into a chair

I decided the opening ended at 10:43, when the cafeteria scene ended, as all foreseeable plot setups had ended and main characters had been introduced.