Reel Reviews: Jawbreaker (1999)

Hey y'all let's see what's up today! This was another film that we watched in my horror club, and I was very excited to give it a try because it was a fairly niche film (to me anyway). My internet did go out like twenty minutes into the original watch of this film, so I had to start from the beginning and rewatch it once the weather decided to chill out. I'm going to keep this introduction short and sweet so without further ado let's get into it!

The Summary

A kidnapping prank gone wrong leaves three high-school mean girls struggling with guilt and a cover up story after they accidentally kill one of their own. 

The Review 

This film is VERY late 90s, early 2000s just in general. It was supposed to be a horror comedy but I didn't, personally, find it all that funny it was a little cheesy. That's not saying the film was bad though, I actually really enjoyed it.

This film kind of gave the feeling of Mean Girls, which hadn't come out at the time this movie was made, but the main character Courtney was seriously giving me like... evil Regina George vibes. However, I could tell that this movie took a lot of inspiration from the 1989 film Heathers. This is pretty on brand for the era I think, in non-horror films the rise of the mean girl trope definitely sparked around 1990 and carried on into the 2010s, so seeing some horror renditions of the trope is always really interesting.

Despite being classified as a "horror" film, this movie actually didn't rely heavily on special effects. This was interesting to me, and I think that's part of why this film doesn't really register as a horror film to me despite the concept of accidentally killing your friend while pulling a prank (which is honestly anyone's worst nightmare).

The only thing that I kind of have a gripe about is the casting for some of the characters. Some of the characters look young and believably high-school age, whereas others look to be about the same age as their middle aged parents. This was common in the industry at the time, especially on the horror scene, but it would have made a little more sense if the cast appeared to be roughly the same age.

Closing

I liked Jawbreaker as a crime film, however I don't really think it drifts into horror very well, though it has potential to do so. I do think that it was perfectly campy, I would definitely watch it again. If you want to give it a shot you can find it over on Tubi for free right now. If you want to see more from me feel free to click the link below where you can find my other socials. Y’all take care, and thanks for stopping by!

🍒 Check Out What Else I’ve Been Up To 🍒