MovieChat Forums > Detention (2012) Discussion > Intelligent film masquerading as trash

Intelligent film masquerading as trash

posted 12 years ago by answermehere
40 replies | jump to latest

I'm surprised by how many people on here failed to understand this film.
This is not a movie for your typical slasher fan - this is a movie for true cinema nerds who've seen lots and lots of films in many styles. It plays with genre in a way that few other films do - the closest thing I'd compare it to is Donnie Darko, but it's much more irreverent and "meta" than that film, or maybe "Cabin in the Woods" but it's much funnier and creative than that film.

What may be confusing people is that it acts as if it's a teen movie, when it's actually a commentary on teen movies. It looks sloppy and ADD, and that's intentional. Joseph Kahn the director has made some awesome films, and he's an opinionated student of film. Listen to him discuss this film on one of the podcasts he's taken part in, and you're likely to re-evaluate this movie.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] SaberRider85 12 years ago

I´d rather compare this film to Survive Style 5 than Donnie Darko. But nevertheless it was awesome.

[–] yankeegirl9 12 years ago

Personally, I thought it was hilarious. And my roommate and I had fun trying to catch all the pop culture references throughout (though there were so many, it'll probably take another viewing or two to catch them all!).

[–] CranberryNoVodka 12 years ago

This movie surprised me. I just finished watching it on Fear Net. It's a nice satirical film with some horror but not much. I liked it.

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[–] bornskeptic 11 years ago

I enjoyed it and thought it was fun and sometimes clever.
But it came off like the writers thought they were smarter than they really were. Some of it was too forced. And not really smart, but smart-ass. As if it was still hip to be a smart-ass.
Like the people that still say 'guac' instead of guacamole because they are convinced it's somehow still cool.

[–] NotAnUndercoverCop 11 years ago

Planet Terror did this the best. It did it so well I'd put that film on par with anything you could name. Another film that I felt did this well was Hobo With A Shotgun. Another movie that people will say they don't appreciate in spite of their self proclaimed "movie nerd" status. But it too is an excellent and intelligent film.

[–] OpinionSoup 11 years ago

Responding to answermehere's op,

Liked your summary and it pretty much matched my opinion, even to the Donnie Darko reference (in fact I hopped online to see if it had a connection) I was surprised by the number of low scores.

I think the movie worked for me because I was expecting a cheapo comedy slasher, perhaps a scary movie clone, but it sort of incrementally stepped away from that without me quite realising it had not finished stepping, so it kept surprising me. The pacing happened to work just right for me on the day I watched it. Perhaps on another day or if I went in with different expectations (eg I read this review before watching it) it would be different.

[–] Rena_Mahone 11 years ago

Glad to see some people on here who appreciated this movie; it is not perfect at all, but certainly quite special.
As others have already said, I think it was original, refreshing, bizarre, experimental, satiric, messy and brilliant.
I do not agree about Detention being similar to Donnie Darko (and even less to Cabin In The Woods), but I had a vague DD feeling too - I'm pretty sure it was thanks to the hoodie guy (Elliott was his name?). I do think he was inspired by Donnie, but DD is not listed in the movie's references?

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[–] TheAnimalMother 11 years ago

More like this film is badly written trash masquerading as intelligent trash. I think you're entirely wrong, I'm sure most people got the satire theme of the film, (It's not exactly hard to understand.) but its aim alone doesn't mean that the film is any good. I've probably seen more films than anyone in this thread, yet I still feel this was garbage. I get the point of the film, but that still doesn't make it funny or interesting whatsoever. The film was an overwritten borefest. Even Cabin In The Woods was a better film than this and Cabin In The Woods sucked as well, it was just another unimaginative boring rehash of other films. This film deserves no comparison to Donnie Darko at all, Darko is easily 10 times better than this film at the very least.

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