Truly Dreadful Film

Better Late Then Never

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

BAD REPUTATION is nothing more than a shot-on-video copy of CARRIE, made without an ounce of that film's style or direction. Instead this is badness through and through, limited in execution from beginning to end due to budgetary constraints. It's your usual story of high school angst and violence with a little bit of murder added to the mix; it's generally very poor and the almost entire lack of content makes it a chore to watch.

For no good reason, the school's popular hunky guy and the gang of popular girls decide to make the life of the school's nerdy virgin girl a living hell. She just minds her own business reading books. Can't have that. Her mother is barely meeting ends meet but is also one of those only-in-the-movies parent who treats her daughter as if she's a slut for no reason whatsoever and wants to keep her sheltered.The guy invites the girl to a party at his place. She goes, he forces himself onto her. Then the gang of girls grab her, duct-tape her to a tree, drawing "slut" on her face, the usual stuff. At school, they ridicule her non-stop. She seeks help from a counselor who doesn't take her seriously. Eventually she has no choice but take action and take revenge.That's all there is to this movie. It's a low budget movie, it has a good occasionally smart script but there just isn't much to see. Angelique Hennessy does a great job and the movie improves several notches once we get into revenge mode. Unfortunately, the low budget, and the poor visuals didn't help the movie one bit.

and then takes a bad turn. This is a "high-school revenge movie" that more or less follows the template established by "Carrie" and "Christine," although without the supernatural business. Still, the idea is the same: a harmless nerdy wallflower gets used and abused by the popular kids, turns the tables and wreaks vengeance on her persecutors, and then becomes so power-mad that she destroys herself. The idea has been used so many times that its become almost mythic, and a number of movies know how to use it. In the first half of the movie, writer-director Hemphill (despite the obvious limitations with acting talent) gets it mostly right: he makes you identify with sweet Michelle, the Henry Miller-reading outcast who gets raped and humiliated at a party and so badly slandered at school that even the guidance counselor hits her up. Hemphill doesn't exploit her rape the way a lot of movies in the 1970s and 1980s might have, with a lot of boob and butt shots, where the rape becomes a kind of vicarious thrill for the audience. Instead, he makes it ugly, and then further ratchets up the collective audience hatred for the perps by adding insult to injury, as both the rapists and their snotty, viciously cliquish girlfriends conspire to trash Michelle's rep at school. All fine and good, because you know there is going to be a payoff, that these jerks and bitches will pay for this sins. Unfortunately for the audience, Michelle goes overnight from being sympathetic victim to inhuman monster. Sure, you want the bad guys painfully punished, but what we get is just prolonged torture -- which is torture is sit through. It's unpleasant, disgusting, ugly, and a lot less fun than it sounds. (Although it was kinda funny to watch her bash one guy with a textbook so badly that blood spattered the walls. Was this one of those switchblade-wielding history books?) "Heathers" (from which it borrows freely) got away with a lot of the same material because it was more capably written and wickedly funny. Here you just have the increasingly unlikable Michelle wearily rampaging her bloody way through the student body, all but leaving aside any question of how she manages to get away with it. I guess part of the reason is that her town has, by my count, only two police officers, who only appear for a couple minutes and ask maybe one question. Also, Michelle is apparently an expert at cutting up and disposing of the body of a guy she kills in her own bedroom. No, I guess you shouldn't demand that much of movies as low-budget as this one. Writer-director Hemphill certainly didn't.

Oh my gosh! The other reviewers MUST have worked for this absolutely terrible, terrible film. It is badly written, horribly acted, completely weaseled out plot and was there a director? God let's hope not because he was worthless! Did they spend all of a hundred bucks on this thing? The dialog never moved above trite. And good God man hire an actual sound person. Grammar school kid you-tubes flicks had better sound.The lead wasn't actually that bad an actress. But even when you look pretty good covered in crap, all anyone remembers is the crap. This is a lesson to all actors, just because you were offered a lead role, doesn't mean you really want to be in the film.