If I had to sum up Detention in a nice, neat little snippet, it would be this. It's Scream meets Heathers on Mescaline. It's completely fearless in how off the wall bonkers it is. It has a wicked sense of humor, style to spare and more than a few surprises for willing audience members. To put it more succinctly, this movie is destined for genuine cult movie status. Besides, I can't hate a movie that has a character ripping on the director Joseph Kahn's last film, Torque.
On the surface, the film follows the standard slasher film formula with a bunch of high school students targeted by a deranged serial killer, in this case, one that takes the visage of popular horror villain Cinderhella. However, the charm of this film is the way it gleefully jumps from genre to genre at any given moment, creating a film that while technically falling into the horror genre also co-exists in any other one simultaneously, with a gleefully candy coated and carefree sense of humor
The main characters are Riley Jones (played by Shanley Caswell) and Clapton Davis (played by Josh Hutcherson), two friends hopelessly clueless about the fact they're completely into each other. Riley, in addition to being perpetually unlucky, is finding herself stalked by the killer, but Clapton is the only who at least kinda sorta believes her.
As their fellow students keep dropping dead, the remaining students are sentenced to Saturday detention by their Principal (played by Dane Cook), as they are his main suspects for who the killer is. Of course, it turns out the real killer is among them, leaving Riley to figure out who the killer is and save the day. It is also worth noting that this is only a fraction of all the plot strands in this film. It also folds in nice nods to such genre films as Creepshow, The Fly, and Freaky Friday among others I hesitate to mention as I don't want spoil the surprises. It also gets in some nice digs at "torture porn" flicks like Saw, with it's film within a film, "Cinderhella II."
While on the surface, Detention may seem like another in a long line of slasher flicks nothing could be further from the truth. Chugging along at a breakneck pace that most certainly rewards repeat viewings, it repeatedly throws curve balls at the audience when they think they have the movie figured out. The movies that have always impressed me the most are the ones that surprised me, which is certainly something this one did several times over. If this review has you at all intrigued, this delectable, delirious treat is now available on Netflix for viewing at your convenience.
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