Bloodmoon (1990)

For the first three-quarters of this ugly, lamentably plotted slasher, no one in the movie even knows for sure that anything is wrong: two or three high schoolers disappear but their absences are shrugged off as runaways, which means a long plod for audiences who must endure woefully scripted school dances, waterhole picnics, and the like waiting for the characters to catch up with what the opening scene established - that someone is killing students with a barbed wire garotte in the nearby woods - and when the killer is finally revealed, the plot, the town's collective obliviousness, and the ignorance of one townsperson in particular (given the celestial and historical circumstances of the crimes) ceases to make any sense at all.

★☆☆☆☆ 

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The Faculty (1998)

When one student says suspiciously of another, "We don't know what she is - gay, lesbian, or alien," and when problems at school are solved by snorting a home-laboratory-manufactured drug and waving a gun around, you start getting nervous about the messages in director Robert Rodriguez's sci-fi horror set in a high school and apparently based on Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers, but a surprisingly star-studded cast (Usher, Jon Stewart, Selma Hayek, and others) distracts from this irksomeness and lets other aspects of the movie pay effective tribute to the B-grade horror scifi movies of the 50s.

★★☆☆☆

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School's Out (L'Heure de la Sortie) (2018)

One of my favouite movies topics, high school, such a rich subject to plumb for comedy (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion) or romance (Love, Simon), horror (Veronica, Donnie Darko), or social satire (Heathers, Clueless, Donnie Darko) is here used as the setting for a chilling thriller about a substitute teacher (the handsome Laurent Lafitte) who steps in to teach a class of precociously intelligent  children after their usual teacher throws himself out of a window, and while it is pretty easy to see where the movie is going long before it gets there and while it doesn't quite nail its point, the movie's overarching themes encompassing so many current world issues makes it rivetting, thoughtful stuff.

★★★★☆

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Booksmart (2019)

Reaching the end of their final year and realising they've concentrated so hard on study they've missed out on everything else, a high-achieving pair of high school students decide to catch up on some fun and on the eve of their graduation resolve to be brave, declare their Love, Simon crushes and finally make a good Romy and Michele impression on their peers...but first they have to get to their White Castle: Nick the school jock's house party.

★★★☆☆

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Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Buffy was interesting because her demon-slaying was analogous to the trials and tribulations of high school - and she lost more sleep over the latter than the former - but this horror comedy, obviously geared at Buffy audiences with its combination of demon-slaying, indie rock soundtrack, and high school drama, is a less sensible, less compelling concoction about two female students: one who has meaningful, consensual sex with her boyfriend, and one who honeytraps horny males and feeds on their dead bodies; the fact the latter, played by Megan Fox, was kidnapped and slaughtered by a four-strong gang of males is treated as a trivial detail - the important thing, apparently, is there is a right way to use your body, and Jennifer is an evil slut who deserves death, ok?

★☆☆☆☆

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Eighth Grade (2018)

You don't have to be a thirteen year-old girl to understand the slump of Kayla's shoulders as she slouches her way through the horribly uncomfortable yet hilarious and deeply affecting "Eighth Grade", a comedy drama populated with, one, teachers dead inside and resigned to their inability to relate to their charges; two, phone-addicted early-teens who merely grunt at those who try to engage with them; three, boys interested only in sex, not decency; and a zillion other familiar, mortifying eighth grade things that threaten to snuff out poor Kayla's positivity once and for all.

★★★★★

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Love, Simon (2018)

If you don't have time to watch Love, Simon, a high school comedy drama about a student's largely trouble-free coming-out to his only beautiful, articulate and supportive family members and friends, a scroll through the United Colours of Benetton website will suffice, but if you do have time, it is a manufactured, sanitised, suicide-free, family violence-free, largely schoolyard bullying-free and a wonderfully - perhaps not impossibly - feel-good hoot.

★★★★☆

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School of Rock (2003)

The nuns are students, the convent is a private elementary school, the criminal masquerading as a sister is a loafer masquerading unqualified as a teacher and, also just like Sister Act, rules are broken, music unites, the no-hoper discovers a purpose, his charges discover their inner rock gods, and it is all thanks to Jack Black's genuine, unabashed, and infectious enthusiasm for rock and roll that this movie, despite its well-trodden plot and issues here and there with gender stereotyping, is a feelgood classic.

★★★★★

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Dangerous Minds (1995)

I love movies about high school - comedies (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Jump Street), dramas (Donnie Darko, To Sir With Love) - but the naievity displayed here by Michelle Pfeiffer's LouAnne Johnson, an ex-marine English teacher who applies a likely saviour complex to the task of educating a classroom of underprivileged American students, choosing to visit their homes, choosing to take them on dates, choosing to loan them money and choosing to invite them into her home for sleepovers - actions breezily dismissed as "choosing to care" and leading to immediate unlikely transformative outcomes - earns this a fail grade as a high school experience.

★☆☆☆☆

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Monsieur Lazhar (2011)

Monsieur Lazhar is an Algerian refugee who lands himself a teaching position in a Montreal classroom after the previous teacher commits suicide, in this movie about boundaries - classroom boundaries, professional boundaries, national boundaries - and the duty of care teachers have for students and that nations have for refugees.

For 24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention services call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit www.lifeline.org.au

★★★★☆

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Old School (2003)

Before Bad Neighbours was funny enough to warrant a sequel, there was this similarly themed but dreadfully unfunny Will Ferrell movie about middle-aged men who form a fraternity to avoid eviction - do not expect a sequel.

☆☆☆☆☆

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Heathers (1988)

Long before Scream Queens, 90s cult classic Heathers was making light of murderous teenage angst; today, the movie is still a riot and the satire as black as pitch in light of so many real trenchcoated Jason Deans wreaking havoc on the jocks, geeks, emos, loners and 'Heathers' of their US high schools.

★★★★☆

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Carrie (1976)

The original 1976 film version of Stephen King's Carrie is a not especially enjoyable American gothic horror story about an alienated student bullied into the sort of destructive behaviour that these days happens in American high schools with guns, not telekinesis.

★★☆☆☆

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Disturbing Behaviour (1998)

The Stepford College Jocks is a not very thrilling nor mysterious mystery thriller set in an American high school where the disturbing behaviour of some of the students turns out to be caused not by puberty, peer pressure or substance abuse but something else much less interesting.

★☆☆☆☆

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Donnie Darko (2001)

Mesmerising high school drama about how completely messed up a kid can become trying to deal with the inauthentic characters and lives and world around him.

★★★★★

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Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997)

Everyone will be able to relate to this funny, inane comedy about two women who, driven by insecurity, concoct a ridiculous story to try to impress fellow attendees at their high school reunion.

★★★☆☆

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