User Reviews

School Spirit (2019) is another Into the Dark horror movie I recently watched off Hulu. The storyline is very "Breakfast Club" like where kids show up to detention with an over zealous Vice principal with a drinking problem in a school that has a history of kids disappearing in it. As the kids sneak out of detention they begin running into a mascot in the hallways that ensures the kids never return to detention again. This movie is directed by Mike Gan (Burn) and stars Annie Q. (The Leftovers), Corey Fogelmanis (Ma), Jessi Case (Mother's Day), Julian Works (Titans) and Julia Aks (John Wick 3). This is a fun movie to watch unfold, primarily due to the engaging characters and the interest in seeing what heinous acts the pending valedictorian did to get herself in detention (and if it ties to the killings). The concept for the villain is actually pretty funny and fun. The kill sequences are just okay but not so poor you don't enjoy the film. This is a very well paced and thought out film that is worth a watch. I'd score it a solid 6/10.

The slasher movie is one of my favorite sub-genres of horror, so it's nice to have a series like this where each episode is basically a feature-length film and the random episode like this one comes along that feeds into my slashing needs! lol SCHOOL SPIRIT Is a blatant homage to The Breakfast Club: 5 students and their principal in detention on a Saturday closely mimicking the characters from the original film. Erica=Claire, Brett=Brian, Lizzy=Alison, Victor=Bender, and Russ=Andy. There is also a 6th teen Jason, a jock who is not part of the detention crew and is only at school for football practice and the case could be made he's an Andy too as he is Erica's former boyfriend and part of her clique. The best character is actually the Vice Principal, who is virtually the same as Paul Gleeson's bitter, vitriolic, confrontational character from TBC. His acting is a cut above the rest, which is to be expected as he's obviously a veteran. But I thought the chemistry among the 5 detention kids was good enough. They were not exactly like their TBC counterparts.

There were twists, most notably that this is the slasher version of TBC, where there is a killer on the loose who has been responsible for the disappearance for students over the years and the start of the film we see him or her snatch 2 students who were breaking in the school to pull a prank. Flash forward a year to our story of the 5 kids in detention, with Erica as the protagonist. She's the straight-A student council president who can do no wrong, but she did something to get her thrown in detention. This is treated as a mystery throughout the film. The other 4 tease and prod her to get her to open up and let loose. As the film wears on, the group bonds just like TBC. The group theorizes as to what could have happened to the missing students from a year earlier and Victor comes up with this theory that it's the ghost of a teacher that was murdered there 10 years earlier.

The outcome of the flick was completely predictable to me, but I didn't care as I enjoy slasher movies, so bring on all the clichés. In fact, the predictability added to my enjoyment because I braced myself for the conclusion. And I found all the characters pretty likable and the story to move briskly. Making it a twisted version of TBC actually enhanced the plot as the story could go to darker places than that film was allowed to. I found the climax to be very well done. One of my favorite episodes of the season.

If you have nothing else to watch and are bored it's a good pick. The acting was pretty good, I mean an actor can only do so much with a mediocre script. What I do want to know is who the hell opened up the doors in the end?!

Imma say who it is in here so be warned. Watch the movie before reading this though because it will sound better once you have seen it. So basically after the first kill (during detention) it is pretty easy to figure out who it is and it is made even more obvious as the movie goes on. For anyone who has seen whodunnits such as Scream you know that whoever leaves for an extended period of time without being followed on screen is the killer. Basically the killer fit the checklist right after that first disgusting kill in the classroom. One of two people who went off on their own but the only one tall enough to fit the profile so based off of that you pretty much know who it is. The movie is at its best once the killer is revealed. The whole motive scene in the cellar of the school is the best part. The actor who portrays the killer sold the creepy factor with his goofy smiles while explaining his motive. Brett (the shy, quiet guy who has a crush on Erica) is the killer. His mom was the teacher who was killed by the "bad kids" years earlier so in revenge he now kills the bad kids even though none of the kids in detention were even part of his mother's death. He has an Erica shrine and talks about his mom as if she were still alive and even has her skeleton dressed up as her. Very Norman Bates of him. Eventually though Erica outsmarts him and stabs him while being kind of mean. Kind of makes you feel bad for him for a millisecond but then again he is serial killer. The movie even though it was predictable was fun to watch. After I figured it out I would have given up but I stayed to confirm that it was actually Brett. It was worth it though because once he reveals to Erica and Lizzy that he is the school spirit things really start to get good. Out of all of the teen characters he by far has the strongest performance as he was able to go from the shy, nervous teenage boy to the shy, nervous and teenage sociopath before you can even say school spirit. Based off of his personality before the reveal you might have been like really? Him? Then you seen him put the axe in Lizzy's head and realize that this is for real. He was the most interesting one to watch in the movie because he went from "is he going to get the girl?" to "wow he is a major sociopath". Yes it was not hard to figure out that it was Brett but waiting until the end to see if you were right and then watching the last twenty minutes is worth watching the rest of the movie. No it is not a movie like The Breakfast Club or Scream that you can watch over and over again. The last twenty minutes though is something that you can watch again and again. The Norman Bates-esque character and the seemingly perfect A+ student going back and forth is strong and makes the movie a lot better. I would watch it again just for that scene alone. So if you have not seen it and read this whole thing watch it.

I thought this was fun to watch. However one thought kept going through my head that spoiled the entire episode.

SPOILERS:

Kids in detention, one shared she was in for pulling the fire alarm. After that, students go missing, vice principal locked the doors, (previous dialog regarding manual labor) contained dialog "that's illegal" "you can't do this/that/the other thing". No mention of illegality of locking students in.

Oh, the constant thought I had for 80% of the episode was: "this would be a good time to pull the fire alarm".

It was fun for what it was: The Breakfast Club with murder. A nice little "twist" with Erica Yang actually being a cheater, but these Into the Dark movies are just nonsensical gore with no story whatsoever. There was so much more they could have done with the idea of a spirit haunting the school than this.