Just watched a DVD of "Heathers", a film I very clearly remember seeing when it first came out. Had forgotten some aspects- the dreadful 80s sound and colour, Christian Slater's abysmal Jack Nicholson impersonation. But still feel the same amazement that the American media didn't grab hold of it 11 years later, in the wake of the Columbine shootings.

Given that it depicts a character in a black overcoat pulling a gun in a highschool canteen and shooting two jocks, it sure beats whatever Marilyn Manson might have been dribbling about in 1999. OK, slater's character actually fires blanks at the jocks, for which he is only suspended- maybe the whole idea seemed so absurd at the time that the writers could only imagine a response so trivial. Or maybe his being expelled/arrested might have just brought the narrative to a premature halt. Go figure. He then goes on to actually kill several fellow students, with Winona Ryder's unwitting conivance, disguising them as suicide. The film in general is fairly fucking absurd, but hey, it's allegory, dude.

Maybe the extremities of absurdity and the large swathes of pseudo-sociological guff that often comes out of the characters' mouths meant it was all too much for the shockjocks and rentaquotes to take in. Maybe they'd just forgotten it. But how on earth could such a loaded (literally) tale have been so overlooked ? In many ways it's a brave attempt to confront the very issues that would eventually contribute to Harris and Klebold doing their stuff.

The main thing I remmber while watching it aged 17 (same as the characters in it) was amazement at just how rich and overdressed they looked. They all had cars. Musselburgh grammar school looked kind of tawdry by comparison. And though i had my own issues with "popularity" (or lack of it) and adolescent notions re love, death, revenge et al, I was glad I wasn't in an environment where it was quite that stoked, plus with real guns lying around. Fuck only knows what it's like now in the wake of Columbine- if British schoolkids are lucky, they'll be at a stage where "Heathers" just looks like some very dated pre-pre-precursor to "Buffy", and not like everyday life.