Detention(2012) Film Review

 

Rating: 0 Stars Out Of 4, Thumbs Down.

Rated R For Bloody Violence, Crude And Sexual Content, Nudity, Language, Some Teen Drinking And Drug Use.

20 Uses of the F-word.

1hr 33min/93min.

Principal Verge: "I get it. Listening to your loud music, tripping out to Fraggle Rock. But the question is: What does the future hold for Clapton Davis?"

Never before has a film made me want to shut it off after the first line is uttered. The film opens with a character lying in bed, looking up at the camera and stating, proudly I might add, "Hi, My name is Taylor Fisher, and I'm a bitch." At least she's being honest with herself. Some girls aren't like that. She then goes on at a ridiculous length about how, you the viewer, can survive Grizzly Lake High School. She is then promptly murdered in her bedroom by a person wearing a mask in the guise of a character named Cinderhella, a horror movie villain in this films world.

We then go on to the horribly written characters at said high school. Clapton(Josh Hutcherson) and Riley(Shanely Caswell) who seem to be the main focus of the film, which is a bad choice on the film's part. Clapton is portrayed as the popular kid, but not everyone in the school likes him, which, in hindsight, doesn't make sense. Riley is the "adorable outcast" and everyone at the school hates her, except for Clapton. They try to figure out who the person is killing the people of their high school.

The film tries to be a cross between a John Hughes teen flick from the 80's/90's and 1996's Scream, but fails so miserably. At times, you forget that their even is a killer because of the vast amounts of horrendous dialogue and mindless subplots stuffed into 93 minutes. There's a subplot where a bully was bitten by a fly in childhood, and has the mannerisms of doing so(vomiting acid, growing wings). This is never touched upon again for the rest of the film.

The film has some of the worst performances I have seen in a film. Josh Hutcherson wants to be the cool kid but just stands around quite awkwardly. Shanely Caswell wants to be the outcast that comes out on top, but just gives the same monotonus performance throughout the entire film. And what, pray tell, is Dane Cook doing here? Just provides nothing to the plot and prolongs the film even longer.

The films plot also gets quite complicated to the point of incomprehensible, including a time travel element that comes in and, you guessed it, makes absolutley no sense. This has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. The performers are slumming it, the writing is plain awful, and the killer that pops up every once in a while is completely unnessascary and is really questioning. Well, look on the bright side, the next review will be on a great movie instead of trash like this.