Writer: Matthew Spradlin, Barry Wernick
Director: Matthew Spradlin
Daddy’s money can’t save them now
I started watching Bad Kids Go To Hell expecting to laugh at rich, obnoxious jerks getting killed off in various ways. Whilst (most of) the kids were suitably unpleasant, I didn’t laugh much.
The setup for the film is a group of students at an expensive private school serving Saturday detention. They will spend eight hours locked in the new school library – which was built on Apache land and has a reputation for being haunted.
After some initial bickering, the kids decide to hold a seance. Soon after this, the deaths begin. The main story is also interspersed with flashbacks to school life, and these are where most of the comedy is found. There are also clues to the main plot, which is developed slowly.
There’s a definite tension between the current events and the flashbacks. Apart from the over the top characters, most of the story in the library is played fairly straight. Remove the flashbacks and you’d have a rather tedious teen slasher. Take out the library and the flashbacks would give you a reasonably funny high school movie. The two don’t work well together.
There is actually a story that ties everything together. Unfortunately this story is 50% obvious and 50% unbelievable.
Bad Kids Go To Hell is one of those films that falls into the trap of being funny but not funny enough. It’s almost as if the comedy was added late in the day when they realised how silly the actual story was. The result is mildly enjoyable but no more than that.