The Horror Show
Detention
by Joseph Kahn
Have you ever watched a movie where so much happens that it becomes too difficult to follow? You know, the type of movie where text pops up on the screen the whole time and the plot is broken apart with random cut-a-way, for example: Zombieland and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I attribute movies like these to youth ADD culture. ADD culture films have to be fast paced to maintain the attention span of today’s youths. So we have contemporary culture to blame for the mess that was Detention.
I really haven’t the faintest as to what even happened in this movie so I’ll do my best to summarize this atrocity.
Taylor is the most popular girl in school, little known fact: she’s a bitch. No fears though because she is the first victim of the fictional-horror-film-slasher-come-to-life, Cinderhella. We then meet our heroine, Riley. She hates hipsters, is vegan, hate’s the 90’s, and is incredibly cynical. She also has a crush on her closest friend Clapton, who is dating the second most popular girl in school, Ione. Ione and Riley were best friends, until Ione started dating Clapton even though she encouraged Riley to go for it. Billy wants to beat-up Clapton because he used to date Ione. Riley attempts suicide and is then spared when Cinderhella intervenes trying to kill her but ironically saves her life. The cops arrive to inform the students that Taylor has been murdered. Riley attempts to tell her story but no one believes her. At the football game, Billy starts to vomit a corrosive liquid and then starts sticking to things. Riley witnesses these events and he confides in her that he’s part fly. Then, something about him touching a meteor, burning his hand, and wearing a TV over it. Billy, however, at a party is slain by Cinderhella. At the same party, Riley, due to unfortunate circumstances, accidentally flashes her breast on camera, which is then uploaded to the Internet. The principal watches the video, knowing that Billy was murdered at the same party, sentences everyone to detention who was in the video. He believes one of those kids to be the murderer and intends to keep the kids there till the murderer is revealed. Then, something about the end of the world in 1992, a time traveling bear, mind swapping, and aliens. There you have it Detention!
I think the main problem with this movie was that it’s too in your face. We get it, the 90's were kind of stupid and people shouldn’t focus on living in the past. However, 1992 isn’t one of those long lost ages people fondly remember. It really wasn’t all that long ago but I agree people shouldn’t live in the past. However, the 90’s and those obsessed with the decade, aren’t the babbling idiots they are portrayed to be. I also developed the feeling that the Director, Joseph Kahn, probably hates vegans. Riley is portrayed as a vegan but frequently goes back and forth on her conviction. He even attributes, in this movie, that vegans will potentially lead to the end of the world. I understand that movies are a platform for film creators to project their philosophies to audiences but it can go too far. Straight-up bashing people for no reason is unacceptable, sure people may like life decisions you may disagree with but it’s not your life and not your problem.
The next big issue is that the whole plot is a huuuuuuge mess. The movie often cuts away to irrelevant back-stories about characters that make things even more confusing. The whole plot would’ve gone unchanged if Billy weren’t a fly. Why did it need to be in there at all? I thought maybe there would be a cool climatic fight scene between Cinderhella and the human fly, but no. Cinderhella’s motive for killing, while petty, is still a reason. However, it’s never elaborated on why the killer chose to dress as Cinderhella. It didn’t really make sense why the real killer needed to take on the persona of a fictional one. The killer could have just been Cinderhella instead of a character just dressing as Cinderhella and would have made more sense. Then, to further add to the confusing mess, the plot relies heavily on time travel as a plot device. Some characters are revealed to be their own parents. The movie attempts to be self aware at one point and features movieception, a movie within a movie within a movie. With all this crap going on how are the viewers supposed to understand any of it? Maybe Kahn was trying to actually make this movie unwatchable.
I also feel like the movie tries really hard to be Zombieland. I know that it wasn’t the first movie to break the fourth wall and feature text on the screen but it certainly mastered it. At times Detention will add text on the screen to reinforce certain points but here’s a little hint, white text doesn’t read on a white background! If you want to apply text make use of contrast for legibility. Zombieland also beautifully designed its text to be a graphic designer’s wet dream and I agree it was beautifully designed. Besides the opening credits, the text in Detention felt more like subtitles from the 70's haphazardly laid across the screen. I would’ve hired who ever they paid to create the opening credit sequence to handle all the text throughout the rest of the movie, because that particular scene was brilliant.
Believe it or not I don’t think there is anything wrong with youth ADD culture. This movie just takes it to the nth degree and it becomes a murky mess. On the other hand, the acting wasn’t terrible. While I didn’t recognize most of the actors I felt they delivered fairly well with the exception of Dane Cook. I don’t know if it’s biased because I hate him or because he really is a terrible actor but I did not like him in this movie. I just felt like he was trying way too hard to be a dick. In the final few moments of the movie when he’s a decent human his performance actually improved. Maybe it’s his nature or maybe he was over compensating but he didn’t play the cynical asshole well. I know that Detention is marketed as a horror comedy but honestly I didn’t laugh once this whole movie. I really didn’t find it funny. It also relied too heavily on physical comedy and toilet humor. Neither of which I find very funny. So if you were expecting a good chuckle I would pass on this movie because, like Dane Cook’s stand-up routines, this is a one-liner.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
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