Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Heathers: The Musical’ on the Roku Channel, a Live-Shot Version of the Hit Stage Production Based on a Cult Classic Movie

The Roku Channel brings us Heathers: The Musical, a sort-of-movie based on a hit theater production based on the cult classic 1988 film that starred Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, and savaged the happy-ending high-school movies that dominated the decade. This new thing you’re possibly enticed to stream is shot in front of a live West End audience, so it’s not an expensive production, merely a filmed version of the stage version, because a movie version of the stage version of the original movie version would just be ridiculous. So setting aside any consideration as to whether this dark, dark (dark!) satire works as a bubbly musical, the main question we should address is as follows: Is this worth streaming, when the original movie, chock-full of quotable dialogue and unforgiving black comedy, is also streaming on the very same service?

HEATHERS: THE MUSICAL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: No, they don’t update it to the modern day – that would be, as they say, problematic. It’s 1989. Westerberg High School. An opening number consists of all manner of insults culled hot and steaming from the era: Freak, slut, homo, hunchback, lardass, cripple, etc. That, as they also say, was then, and this is now. Between tirades of ironically deployed slurs, we meet our protagonist, Veronica Sawyer (Alisa Davidson), who narrates from her diary – in sooooooonnnnnnggggggggg! Her best pal since forever is Martha Dunnstock (Mhairi Angus), an outcast dubbed Martha Dumptruck. The two of them chow popcorn and rent movies but that’s not enough for Veronica anymore. She yearns to be popular. Do you ever yearn? Often I sit, and I yearn. Have you yearned?

And she achieves. The school is ruled by the three Heathers: Heather Chandler (Maddison Firth), the “mythic bitch” leader, and her flunkies, Heather Duke (Vivian Panka) and Heather McNamara (Teleri Hughes). They are the peak of the social hierarchy. Plant your tray of fiestada pizza and an underbaked chocolate chip cookie next to theirs at lunchtime, and it’s like having an audience with the Queen. And somehow, Veronica weasels into their exclusive clique; her corresponding thigh-highs and primary-color outfit completes her assimilation. But she soon finds that being a member of the “lipgloss gestapo” is not all it’s cracked up to be. The Heathers treat each other like shit just as they treat everyone else like shit.

Veronica wanders into a 7-11 and meets J.D. (Simon Gordon) and, after a big comical ode to Slurpees, totally make out. He’s the new guy in school. He’s always the new guy in school. His dad is paid to demolish buildings, and they move around a lot. But he beats up the two jock bullies, Ram (Rory Whelan) and Kurt (Liam Doyle), establishing himself as someone you don’t eff with. The Heathers pull a cruel prank on Martha, so Veronica quits the band. And here’s where it gets dicey: What with one thing and another, the morning after a party, Veronica and J.D. mix up a hangover cure for Heather C and put drain cleaner in it and Heather C drinks it and it kills her. J.D. and Veronica forge a suicide note, elevating her to martyrdom. Next stop, Ram and Kurt, because they sexually assault Veronica, and after she intends to prank them and J.D. renders them dead via bullets and frames it as a tragic suicide pact between gay lovers, inspiring a number titled ‘My Dead Gay Son.’ This whole mess renders poor Veronica a tortured soul (and an accomplice to murder, but nevermind), where J.D., well, he justifies it. They were a-holes. Can’t disagree, but, like, death is so permanent, you know?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Disney took a similar just-film-the-stage-production-it’s-cheaper-than-making-an-actual-movie approach to Hamilton, and it was a huge streaming hit.

Performance Worth Watching: Davidson is a rock-solid lead, and if the material doesn’t inspire her to reach particularly deep into the well of human emotion, she pretty much nails the musical’s cheery/bleak tonal dichotomy.

Memorable Dialogue: The musical cops its best lines direct from the movie (you know, something about a chainsaw), so let’s choose a choice lyric from one of the musical numbers: “Welcome to my school, this ain’t no high school, this is the Thunderdome.”

Sex and Skin: Chiseled football dudes in bikini briefs, Davidson keeps her top on as she straddles Gordon.

Our Take: By their very nature, filmed versions of stage productions tend to lose something in translation to a flat screen – I call it you-had-to-be-there-ism. You’ve only got so many angles, and cuts to audience shots are cues for us to react, not unlike a laugh track. The high-wire vibe of live performance is present, but dulled. Yet the production is quite a popular one, and its soundtrack racks up YouTube plays in the tens of millions, so here we are.

And the result is fine, just fine. It justifies its existence by delivering songs that only border on highly memorable, but at least have a bevy of clever lyrical turns of phrase – there’s something appealingly subversive about a chorus of performers spewing a bevy of un-P.C. put-downs cribbed wholesale from 21st-century lists of banned words. Not that we should dust off the most offensive slurs for daily use, but Heathers: The Musical gets away with it because the original movie’s seething satire remains potent, even in diluted second-hand form.

The aforementioned tonal dichotomy is often an uneasy fit, however. Suicide, murder, eating disorders and homophobia are addressed with glibness at first, before the production transitions to a more serious and earnest tone. It also dutifully doles out musical numbers to one-joke supporting characters, bits that have their moments but drag out the whole endeavor, rendering a concise 100-minute movie a 135-minute trek that gets sloggy in the third act. It feels like it’s losing its nerve, the pace dulling its slashing blade of hyperbolic teen angst. The Musical will appeal to those who want to see the play but can’t trek to the West End; for those who are just curious fans of the Ryder-Slater movie, it’s not likely to fly very high.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Watch the movie instead. It’s right there.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.