Search - Stupid Teenagers Must Die on DVD

This flick belongs in any true horror fan's Halloween lineup

Craig Mcgee | Garnett, KS | 10/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In this parody/tribute to the greatest time in horror movie history - the 1980's - a group of stupid teens are getting together to host a seance in the house of the notorious Murder McGee, who butchered his entire family a few years back and buried them in the back yard. As I'm sure you can guess, things go from bad to worse faster than you can say "Where's the beef??" and in typical 80's horror movie fashion the deaths are bloody, the dialogue is cheesy, and beautiful women are taking off their clothes every chance they get. Good times...



No clique or 80's horror movie clichéd characterizations are left unrepresented here. In fact, no stone was left unturned at all - we have the cool hero, his innocent girlfriend, the Goth chick, the tough thug (think John Bender), the hot blonde who keeps losing her shirt, the shy dork in love with the hot blonde that keeps losing her shirt, a couple of gorgeous half-naked lesbians, and two big geeks.



As you can plainly see, the cast is pretty big. Usually, larger casts are where things can fall apart quickly, with one or two sour apples buggering up the whole barrel. Not in this case though. Not a single cast member left me disappointed. The acting was very well done. Everyone from the cool hero in his Thriller jacket played by Jovan Meredith to the grooovy Goth chick played by Renee Dorian to Geeks One & Two played by Cory Assink & Jonathan Brett - they all played it straight, brought their A-game, and knocked it out of the park. If you're a fan of Gary & Wyatt in Weird Science, you'll immediately fall in love with the geeks.



Director/co-writer Jeff C. Smith is a guy to watch for in the future, trust me on this. If this is what he can do with a low budget, there are nothing but good things ahead for him when he gets more money for future projects. The characters were dead on; the atmosphere was perfect; the laughs were huge; the blood flowed, and squirted, and sprayed beautifully - it was just like watching a horror movie from the 1980's. Call this one "THE BREAKFAST CLUB meets NIGHT OF THE DEMONS"!!!



The tag line says it all, and says it honestly - "EXCESSIVE VIOLENCE; GRATUITOUS NUDITY; ZERO BUDGET" - no false advertising here, folks! As fans of this genre, we have to look to the indies and support these hard-working folks who are busting their humps out there bringing us original tales, lest we forever get stuck in a world filled with big studio watered-down PG-13 'horror' or pointless remakes like The Hitcher. No, thank you - no more of that for me.



In closing, I honestly have to say that STUPID TEENAGERS MUST DIE! is by far one of the best indie flicks I've gotten the pleasure of watching this year. It's a bloody good time, and holds up on repeat viewings. From the dialogue to the characters to the wardrobe...even the closing love theme over the end credits (which if that doesn't bring back fits of laughter recalling mid-80's power ballads by REO Speedwagon - over-pronoucned R's on every word starting with the letter 'R' - then I'll eat my DVD right now)...bottom line is, if you're a fan of 80's horror or horror in general, no more hesitation - this flick deserves to be in your collection!!





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Nonexistant production values defeat promising idea.

Graves | Pennsylvania | 05/24/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"From its cover Stupid Teenagers Must Die looks like a comedy parody of 80's slasher flicks on a par with `scary movie.' It is not. What it is an homage to that golden age' of slasher flicks where the writing wonderfully captures the spirit of those films but who's production values are so amazingly non-existent that the film becomes all but unwatchable.



Any one who knows the schlock fests that were 1980's slasher flicks knows the set up. Kids, teens or collage age, out for some illicit fun go into a place they shouldn't, often with a `history' of death, where some guy is going to prank them to try and scare the kids and they start dying in gruesome ways that redecorate the set with gore. The kids are in situations where anyone with two functioning grey cells should know `get out NOW' but being stupid teens bent on proving Darwin right, they don't with predictable results.



That is the genre and to some extent the film. The writing seems to accurately recreate not just the lingo of the period but the interests and the fashion, clothes and hair. On paper, this COULD be fun, but unfortunately the delivery fails badly. These films had a low budget, seriously low, laughingly low but Stupid teenagers' takes this to a new low and it destroys the work.



The sound quality is not just poor but variable so you wonder `did they fix it?" only to have it go again. The mikes are too far from the actors too often resulting in you straining to hear what they say. Even worse are the visuals which have a grainy filter over them, I say that in the hope it was intentional, but it makes you want to yell "wipe off the lens."



Yes the 80's slasher flicks had low budgets and plot lines that sometimes bad you wonder what the writer/director had been drinking and when he'd share it with the audience, but they also understood that visuals were what they could bring to the table, if nothing else. In their delivery the makers of "Stupid Teenagers'" forgot this. The writing perfectly captures the mood of the early slasher flicks but the production values are so low as to make the 80's films it emulates look like Avatar by comparison. With lousy sound not helping this rapidly becomes unwatchable and unintelligible. Save your money, buy a reissue of a real 80's slasher flick.





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