“Good Taste Is Not a Democracy”: Slasher-Comedy ‘Detention’ Is Better Than Ever 10 Years Later

Matt Donato

Joseph Kahn‘s Detention deserves its own club when we talk about underappreciated, before-their-time strokes of brilliance. What an embarrassment of riches in a post-meta Scream world where so few imitators live up to Wes Craven’s redefinition of evolutionary slashers. Yes, initial reception led to negative aggregator scores for numerous reasons — too many subgenres smashed together, too much reliance on scattershot plotlines. The blood-soaked notebook poster doesn’t truthfully convey the more 80s John Hughes meets 90s Woodsboro but science fiction vibe. “Millennial Horror” in a time of updated classics and generational pushback. Odds stacked against Detention in 2012, but much like its mantra, the film has endured the meaninglessness of existence and awaits a fresh start.

Kahn’s instincts as a director — Torque, Detention, Bodied — are heavily influenced by his prolific music video career, responsible for such shoots as “X Gon’ Give It to Ya” (DMX), “Toxic” (Britney Spears), “Bad Blood” (Taylor Swift), and 100+ more credits. There’s an ultra-kinetic energy to the frenzy of cuts that keep his films rocketing forward with hyperdrive momentum, which becomes a deterrent for more traditional cinema enjoyers.

To say his faster-than-Flash storytelling style isn’t meant for everyone is an understatement, which is understandable for those who don’t have the stamina. Although, this complaint became an immediate crutch for middle-to-elder aged critics. They used buzzwords or phrases like “exhausting,” “tries too hard,” and “incoherent channel-hopping” — drowning out younger, smaller-fry reviewers who might have so passionately written the following: “There’s no doubt Detention was made with the social media generation in mind, and Kahn doesn’t care if you’re not on board.” It’s a very Rick and Morty template before viewers had the patience for Rick and Morty. The Cartoon Network comedy has since become a gif’ed-to-death juggernaut by today’s entertainment standards.

In 2012, the horror genre was ready to blast into the social media era of filmmaking (“Screenlife” wouldn’t find its inception until 2013, bridging the gap). Trends stuck to found footage (The Devil Inside, Chernobyl Diaries, V/H/S, Paranormal Activity 4), contemporary remakes (House at the End of the Street, Maniac), haunted house signatures (Sinister, The Pact), and sequels (Piranha 3DD, The Collection, Wrong Turn 5, Resident Evil: Retribution). Kahn’s 80s-meets-90s, time-traveling, Cinderhella-slaying, neon-pastel teenage wasteland fits none of these sectors and exists so confidently as an outlier — but still represents the outcast sitting alone in the cafeteria. Detention is an almost exclusively self-produced blast of sentimental slasher meta-satire that ends with its vibrant condemnation of toxic nostalgia mindsets. “Celebratory chaos energy” is a descriptor of choice, the same way user @VyceVictus compares another wonder-film of recent fame by making a point I’d like to piggyback:

 

Everything Everywhere All at Once and Detention are these kindred spirits that met wildly opposite responses. One sits at 41% with 44 total reviews after a Samuel Goldwyn Films rollout, the other Certified Fresh at 96% as A24’s latest highly-marketed blockbuster disruptor. Don’t get me wrong, both are brilliantly rebellious showcases of originality — but the decade between releases tells a bigger story. Internet culture has trained audiences to be more receptive to stories that might shuffle through gags like the Daniels multiverse montage of talking piñatas, subtitled rocks with googly eyes, and a floating everything bagel representing infinite everythingness. Detention rides this same wave of obscurity as characters confess their secret insect DNA, antenna-topped bears are abducted by aliens, and Patrick Swayze à la Road House guides a deadbeat senior through his parking lot brawl against another testosterone-high bully. There’s a conceptual madness to both movies, coincidentally crafted by creators well-known for their music videos (the Daniels boast equally impressive collaborations with artists like Passion Pit and Manchester Orchestra). Movies like Detention paved the way for movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once to be heralded as the sensational masterpieces they are, especially amidst competing cinematic universes that currently dominate mainstream movie culture (studio driven).

“It’s just high school. It’s not the end of the world.”

As noted by critics, countless slashers have approached the metaphor that American high schools are Hell. Detention does the same, but in a way that’s both sincerely cynical and hopefully romantic. Kahn dares centralize narrative references in the 90s between hipster muggers, generations that choose digital texting over face-to-face conversations, and Ralph Macchio references despite audience nostalgia still yearning for 80s adoration. Grizzly Lake High becomes his Woodsboro High, where someone is dismembering students under the guise of famous torture porn killer “Cinderhella” — a move right out of Scream 2 that firmly connects the two as more than meta commentaries on the horror genre. All that and Kahn still gives people their 80s callbacks from obvious The Breakfast Club structuring that adds another generational element to this bizarre club sandwich of 80s classroom dramedies, 90s horror revamps, and 00s techno-takeovers that require the deftest vision — or most insane ambitions.

The film’s opening sequence is enough to make Boomers exhale a sigh that’d last for the film’s duration. “I’m Taylor Fisher, and I’m a B.I.T.C.H.,” proudly states a teenage monster (Alison Woods) who makes an immediate Hoobastank joke (what, they’re good) and screams at her mother for cooking french toast when she’s just decided to begin a no-bread diet. It’s your quintessential monologue meant to set the tone for Grizzly Lake and the predictable characters who inhabit the soon-to-be-doomed town. Graphics overlay like watching an early YouTube vlog from another self-obsessed mean girl destined to be — well, before you can even question how long Taylor will survive, Cinderhella slices Taylor’s throat to a sprinkler of blood squirting all directions.

There’s so much personality crammed into a mere three minutes of Dominic Monaghan cameos, unearned teenage angst, and pop-fashion brightness — Kahn sprints out of the gate as a service to viewers. Either you’re enraptured in Taylor Fisher’s interrupted mono-blog or writing a note down that’ll eventually be in your negative review like, “There will be young moviegoers who proclaim this genius, and more stodgy audience members who find it torturous. If you’re not tweeting and texting a combined 50 times or more per day, you’re probably in the latter camp.”

I bring this quote up because in the same way how 2013’s Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous met similar pushback but aged like a fine wine — Bo Burnham’s MTV original where he’s the focus of a mockumentary about online-slash-viral fame well before we saw its full effects — Detention has matured so miraculously. The high school anxieties of never wanting the glory years to end are all evergreen, to the point where someone “Freaky Fridays” with their daughter to stay forever young. Still, Kahn’s meta-aversion to nostalgia dictating our lives predates so many disgusting displays of fandom gone gross(er). Ghostbusters (2016) sexists? Star Wars trolls? Horror remake haters? What we cherish as teenagers doesn’t have to define our eternities — shouldn’t anchor what comes after. Detention conveys themes now more poignant than ever in today’s social media climate, motifs Kahn bravely brought to screen before most others were willing.

“Sander saw no future for us because he lived in the past. So his experiment was to end time itself. But we now know the greatest experiment is not traveling through time or making bombs. The only way to change the past? Is to change the present.”

The surrealism of Detention boils down to Kahn’s screenplay with co-writer Mark Palermo. Stereotypical teen-comedy characters are trapped within a slasher film and show subtle awareness. Clapton Davis becomes a vessel for Kahn’s depiction of a keyboard critic, but also a voice of artistic expression that blocks out haters who can bitch their complaints on their endless-void Twitters. “Good taste is not a democracy,” Josh Hutcherson delivers as this epitome of unrivaled basketball warm-up gear coolness with all the fears of unknowns staring down his mirror-shaded slacker. Other characters fill their roles from the painted-doll goth chick Mimi (Tiffany Boone), brainiac engineer Toshiba (Jon Park), and guy in the background Toby T. (Marque Richardson) — which is the point of commentary in satires of this nature. The lopsided focus on Clapton, heartbreaker Ione (Spencer Locke), pining wallflower Riley (a standout Shanley Caswell), and her not-so-secret admirer Sander (A.D. Johnson) is intentional.

What endures after all these years — having converted crowds to Detention whenever possible — is the film’s evergreen spoofs of “that guy” or “that girl” characters that end up defying convention. Ione spouts marketable catchphrases and bubbles her way through the film with a sickening cheeriness that turns out to be a product of familial body-swapping. Mega Jock Billy Nolan (Parker Bagley) channels his angry football star routine from a place of shame over his extraterrestrial fly biology. Canadian Gord (Travis Fleetwood) is eventually revealed as an undercover alien to account for his lack of Canadian traits. Sander is so destructive as the stalkerish male obsessor who can’t handle rejection, he’d rather nuke Grizzly Lake in 1992 than deal with Riley’s crush on Clapton in the present. These outlandish character details would exist without justification in the films Kahn and Palermo honor; the writers choose absurd reasoning to show how ridiculous (and borderline dangerous) these stereotypes can become.

I’ll use Detention in the same sentence as Jennifer’s Body since Kahn and Palermo’s dialogue feels indebted to Diablo Cody’s slang lingo between Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried — and they were both unceremoniously shredded upon arrival. Jennifer’s Body lost even more points (at the time) for being a horror movie made for girls — Detention‘s comparable as a high school horror story that doesn’t shy away from modernization at the downfall of losing older demographics. Neither film pandered to the older male film critic population that dominated their period. Grizzly Lake feels lived-in, albeit glossily glamorized, but even more in touch with the tendencies of today’s eternally-connected youth. All the text-on-screen choices speaking through pop culture and bubblegum cynicism have become even more relatable. As I said, Detention will find its audience — and I think that’s possibly very soon once the TikTok generation catches wind.

Detention was never heaven-sent to win over the masses — Kahn is, no sarcasm, one of modern cinema’s champion voices as far as uniqueness goes. There’s this damn-the-man quality about Kahn’s catalog, especially considering he almost entirely financed Detention. Blessed are the drummers who march to their own beat, and how unfortunate that producers are so afraid to back one-in-a-million productions like Detention. All the body-splitting slasher gore that massacres Dane Cook, saucer-spinning spacecraft inserts, quickfire performances that wield blistering wits — love it or hate it, there’s nothing else like Riley’s fight against Hollywoodized coming-of-age stories.

I doubt Joseph Kahn loses sleep over Detention. He shouldn’t. I write this piece as an appreciator with a platform who hopes to convert a few more fans. There’s no gotcha angle here — Detention is this miraculous hodgepodge that is as sharp with its meta-commentary as Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon, Bride of Chucky, Cabin in the Woods, and other enduring titles on the heels of Scream. It’s also as genuinely comforting as The Final Girls or Spontaneous, given how Riley comes to terms with high school being four years that cannot be escaped but survived nonetheless. Kahn delivers his message in unconventional ways — hollow taxidermy time machines, library montages set to Backstreet Boys, bowling alley food fights — yet Detention never compromises its innovation. Maybe that’s not the legacy it’s thus far garnered, but there’s still plenty of time.

Like Riley says: “The only way to change the past? Change the present.” (By finally watching Detention.)

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