Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Hulu’s sort-of-holiday-themed horror anthology Into the Dark continues with a slightly too-early August back-to-school episode, School Spirit. Sometimes, the Blumhouse-produced series shows thematic moxie, such as July’s ambitious take on the border crisis, Culture Shock. Sometimes, it’s simply a lark of a genre exercise, a la April’s I’m Just F*cking with You. The latest outing falls somewhere in between — for better or for worse.
INTO THE DARK: SCHOOL SPIRIT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Subtitle: THE DAY BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS. Two students break into Helbrook High School — which is notably not named Heckbrook, Heavenbrook or Hellmouth — to install a spycam in the girl’s locker room. Before you can say Porky’s Revenge, they’re mercilessly slaughtered by a shadow-lurker. Their bodies are dragged away. Blood washes down the drain.
A week later, Helbrook’s model-student Harvard-hopeful smiley-gladhand class president Erica (Annie Q.) tiptoes into school. It’s a Saturday. She has detention — and she’s trying to keep a lid on it. “F—,” she mutters, very un-model-student Harvard-hopeful smiley-gladhand class president-like.
In detention, she meets detention regulars: Lizzy (Jessi Case), a serial insubordinate. Russ (Philip Labes), a serial class-skipper. Vic (Julian Works), a serial Benderesque rebellious sassback. Brett (Corey Fogelmanis), a serial nice guy — like, what’s he doing here? They’re lorded over by their hopelessly cynical booze-in-the-drawer sad-sack vice principal, Mr. Armstrong (Hugo Armstrong), who punishes them with gum-scraping duty, then goes to his office to drink and cry while stalking his ex-wife’s Facebook page.
The detentioneers banter about how the school is on lockdown after the disappearances of their pervy Gilbert and Poindexter classmates. Vic spooks them with the legend of a dead teacher who’s now a zombie version of the Helbrook Admirals mascot, haunting the high school because students caused the heart attack that killed her. Erica steadfastly refuses to reveal why she’s in detention. Lizzy suggests they get high. So they get high. And it’s only a matter of time before something starts killing the crap out of them.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Breakfast Club meets Scream in this misfits-in-detention-meets-dead-angsty-teenager flick.
Performance Worth Watching: Hugo Armstrong is nice and detestable as the creep veep, who doesn’t hesitate to cuss at and physically jostle teenagers. We all know he’s a sad, pathetic, weepy failure of a human being, which is totally hilarious. He probably eats every meal off the Burger King value menu. His name should be Mr. Armweak.
Memorable Dialogue: I’ll decontextualize the quote so it’s not a spoiler — and because it’s funnier that way: “I’m sorry you live in the cellar. It must be lonely!”
Single Best Shot: The camera sits static beneath a table as the maker of dead teenagers uses its boot to nudge a wastebasket over and collect the blood spilling from its latest victim.
Sex and Skin: None, save for Erica’s basketball-star ex-boyfriend taking his shirt off in hopes of getting one last schtup in before the inevitable scene in which all the blood leaves his body in a highly unnatural fashion.
Our Take: Hey — school “spirit.” Get it? “Spirit”? It’s funny because the slayer not only gets angry when kids talk smack about Helbrook, but it also looks like a Scooby-Doo villain!
Co-scripted by two of the guys who get screenwriting credit on the upcoming blockbuster Sonic the Hedgehog, School Spirit is an uneven blend of seriousness and not-seriousness, and is populated with neo-twits with all the emotional depth of a shotglassful of Sharkleberry Kool-Aid. It’s all pretty bland, driven by the wafer-thin premise of Erica’s secret — and the kills, of course, which can be funny and gruesome, and make you wonder why anyone would stand so still when a ghoul is coming at you with a fire axe. Perhaps I shouldn’t judge until I’ve experienced the same?
Funnier still is how characters bar themselves in a classroom with a deranged murderer somewhere in the school, and still have the wherewithal to obsess about their own personal shit. Teenagers, right? I can barely concentrate on work when the lawn needs to be mowed and the chance of rain is 49 percent, but these kids. They achieve a highly actualized level of psychological compartmentalization that we all should aspire to.
But this is a big BUT: the ending starts off reasonably OK, and ends up being pretty inspired. It drew a big laugh. Go figure. Consider my cynicism abated.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The last three minutes saves School Spirit by the bell.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.
