Nothing BUT The Ordinary Teenage Life: Detention (2012)

Detention (2012)
Rating: ***
Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Shanley Caswell and Spencer Locke

Seeing the film's director, Joseph Kahn, was once a music video helmer, it's no surprise that this little bodycount number's completely out of focus and utterly chaotic. As far as creativity goes, as well as providing laughs, Detention (2012) has its own set of ups and downs.

Say hello to Grizzly Lake High, an ordinary high school! Populated by your ordinary mean girl, ordinary awkward girl, ordinary thief, ordinary bitter principal with a past, ordinary time-machine disguised as a stuffed bear, ordinary jock turned alien mutant, ordinary cheerleader switching bodies and traveling time with her mum, ordinary Canadian!

Okay, mutated jock and time machine aside, there's a not so ordinary case involving a loose psycho donning a mask similar to an in-universe slasher movie villainess, CinderHella. The killer already took out the most popular girl in school, so when our awkward and vegan female lead gets too close to being victim number two (twice!), she finds herself targeted by a psycho with an axe. But with the principal and the police believing she's the killer, their only solution for her not to do anything equally suspicious, or stupid, is to put her in detention along with the rest of her fellow "witnesses".

Of course, that doesn't work, but with the jock vomiting acid and the world ending due to a time vortex glitch coming from the past, all things are bound to get crazier!

Detention (2012) is a weird film from the opening credits to the twist ending; the first half wherein the slasher killings took place is probably the closest the movie gets to being an advertised slasher flick, but with each scene packed with things weird and unusual, and neither the cast or us are giving a bat's eye about them, it slowly gets out of hand and left us wondering how the whole film's gonna end. Frankly, it's as if the movie itself took on some magic mushrooms with speed (and I mean lots of speed!) and just gives us whatever random crap it thought up; if you ever had one of those trips, then yer not missing much!

The random nature of the film has its good and bad sides. For those who are expecting a horror comedy, or a straight slasher per se, you'll be partially disappointed; there's comedy, there's horror, there's a body count, but the net result is more teen comedy with a genre identity disorder, which is a first in my book. Luckily, despite its confused state, it's still odd enough to keep us glued and entertained, most likely out of captivation that something like this was even pulled off.

In the end, I wouldn't be surprise if you find yourself asking 'what the hell just happened here?' I did too and the closest answer I could give to you is this: Detention (2012) happened. And it is trippy!

Bodycount:
1 female repeatedly stabbed with knife, thrown off window
1 female had her head baked open with a lamp (film)
1 dog blown apart (flashback)
1 male hacked to pieces with an axe
1 male impaled by a falling ceiling fan (film)
1 male knife through mouth (film)
1 female knife to the gut (film)
1 male knife to the gut (film)
1 female knife to the back (film)
1 female knife to the back (film)
1 female knife to the back (film)
1 female knife to the gut (film)
1 female knife to the gut (film)
1 male head baked open with lamp (film)
1 male found impaled to the door with a ceiling fan, cut in half
1 male hacked in half with axe
1 male and 1 female caught on fire
1 male burned to death
1 male blown apart by bomb
1 female decapitated with axe
1 male had his head punctured on stuffed bear fangs
1 female vaporized by laser beam
2 males and 2 females vaporized by laser beam
Total: 27