Review: Detention

An assortment of teens (including Josh Hutcherson) and the school principal (a miscast Dane Cook) have to band together to stay alive as a serial killer named Cinderhella starts slashing its way through the school. But things only get weirder from there, as even time travel works its way into the plot.

 

There were two things immediately apparent from this flick directed and co-written by “Torque” director Joseph Kahn; 1) It’s the most aggressively obnoxious film of its year, and 2) The film has no idea how incredibly unfunny and unlikeable it is. At times it seemingly wants to be the “Zombieland” of slasher movies, but the problem is that “Scream” already did it. Four times. Two of those times were actually good. This is like if “Juno” wrote a slasher film that wasn’t called “Jennifer’s Body”. I hated “Juno” so much on a cellular level that it’s one of the few major films I’ve yet to watch in its entirety. I just don’t think I can do it, and yet...I sat all the way through this turd. Imagine an entire film full of characters who speak like “Juno” and you’ll have some idea of what a personal Hell this was for me. And sadly, they never, ever seem to shut up. Oh how I wished they’d shut up. Why wouldn’t they shut up? I’m sorry, but no teenager in 2011 knows who the fuck Bronson Pinchot is. In fact, when I graduated from high school in 1997, I’m pretty sure I was the only one who would’ve known.

 

Sadly, it only gets worse. Someone remarks ‘A rave? What is this, 1996?’ after having already made a Hoobastank reference themselves. And making reference to your ‘mid 90s pop references’ doesn’t make you cool, it makes you a tool. I love in-jokes and cultural references (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” was one of my favourite films of the last 5 years) and I’m sure plenty of people have a frame of reference beyond their years, but from my experience, that’s not so much the case with the current generation. Besides, it’s too much to have an entire film full of such people. It’s like “Dawson’s Creek” except everyone is Dawson. I might’ve even contemplated suicide at one point. It’s that bad. “Southland Tales” bad. The saturation of references and in-jokes is insanely overbearing, and any good parody (like “Scream” for instance) must first work as a serious entry in the genre it is parodying, or at least be really, really damn funny. This film is 0-2 I’m afraid, and so ‘meta’ that it’s completely incoherent. These people are under the impression that they have made a funny, cool, and clever film. These people are gravely mistaken.

 

This film has the worst opening credits design I’ve seen in years. How am I expected to read it if I have no idea where the credits are gonna be and when they disappear almost immediately? I quickly learned that the film itself is similarly afflicted with ADHD and maybe dyslexia. Some might suggest that this is an intentional attempt at mirroring the ADHD/gamer mentality of Gen Y, but really, that’s just a lame excuse. The film is crap, no matter what it’s attempting, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s an unintentional mess.

 

Having a horror villain that sounds like a heavy metal band (Cinderhella? He looks cool, but that name is awful) is bad enough, but then the film seems to turn into a “Donnie Darko” rip-off time-travel movie, and cocks that up too. The structure is maddeningly incoherent, matched in its awfulness only by the wretchedly over-the-top performances (Shanley Caswell and Alison Woods are especially bad). None of this section of the film connects in any coherent way to the slasher parody plot. How on Earth did this get green-lit? I mean, it takes more than 45 minutes to even get to the detention, and then for some messed-up reason we find ourselves watching a shitty body-swap comedy. I’m all for a screenwriter letting their imagination run wild, but dude, you’ve gotta rein it in to create something ultimately coherent for your audience. This one goes in a million different directions, very few of which seem to connect with one another (What was that “Fly”-esque subplot about?). Either that, or Kahn and co-writer Mark Palermo watched “Donnie Darko” without understanding a lick of it. Considering this is the same film where someone claims to have adopted Steven Seagal’s fighting style...except it looks nothing like Aikido, I guess nobody here is a genius-level intellect. Meanwhile, the Cinderhella movie-within-a-movie idea is horribly plagiaristic of “Scream” (or is it “Scary Movie”?). And why on Earth would likeable poker pro Daniel Negreanu produce this film and lower himself to have a cameo in it?

 

There’s a nice severed arm, and an hilarious decapitation near the end, but even if this film was wall-to-wall gore, it’d still be a putrid mess. Yes, I know what I just typed. Here’s a film from 2011 that’s worse than “Your Highness”, amazing as it may seem, but it’s true. This film is a complete and total mess, and everyone involved seriously needs to lay off the Red Bull.

 

Rating: D-