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Stupid Teenagers Must Die! (2006)



Stupid Teenagers
Must Die!


I liked Stupid Teenagers Must Die!  Unfortunately, I don't think that most people will look past the budgetary limitations to appreciate the concept of this movie.

The general public doesn't seem to understand the difference between indi films, low-budget films and no-budget films.  Basically, you can have an indi or low budget film that looks just as good as a major studio blockbuster.  However, no-budget movies are typically made by a group of friends with an old camcorder and look like crap.  I'm not saying that I don't enjoy them, but I just don't expect Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when someone tells me that they're sending me a no-budget film.  Well, Stupid Teenagers Must Die is certainly not Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but for a no-budget film, it is quite an entertaining movie!


The basic premise behind Stupid Teenagers Must Die is a group of teenagers in the 1980s go to an old haunted house to have a séance and one by one people start getting murdered (and getting naked!)  The script is actually really good and the acting was far better than most no-budget movies that I've seen...and trust me, I've seen a few!  Although most of the actors surprised me with their talent, Jovan Meredith stands out as being particularly awesome as Kane, the boyfriend turned group leader who starts out the night thinking the whole séance idea is lame but ends up being the guy who saves the day (complete with 80s style Michael Jackson jacket!).   Lindsay Gareth also did a great job as Tiffany, the hot blonde wearing a T-shirt with her own name on it; a T-shirt that thankfully comes off during the movie (great acting and a hot body, you can't beat that!).  I would watch another movie with either Jovan Meredith or Lindsay Gareth just because they were in it.  Devin Marble (as Alfie) and the beautiful Renee Dorian (as Madeline) are excellent as the 'Bad' couple in charge of the night's entertainment.  I can't leave out Will Deutsch as Ryan the nerd who did a great job of capturing the 80s nerd character!  Really, I could go on about most of the cast.  Director Jeff C. Smith was lucky to work with such a talented group; especially considering the lack of a budget!  And with so many great performances, I have to think that Jeff himself must have had a lot to do with the great acting.  So anyway, they've got the 80s stereotypical characters, the 80s clothes and even the 80s bad slasher movie dialog.  Surprisingly, I think the story and the script of Stupid Teenagers Must Die are quite a bit better than most of the big-budget movies from the 80s in the genre that this movie is parodying. 

The movie did suffer from a no-budget image quality, poor lighting and bad editing.  I think in mechanical terms, this is worse than the average even for a no-budget movie (especially the lighting), but the story and acting saved it for me.  The two songs over the end credits were funny.  It's too bad that they suffered from a poor audio quality that matched the quality of the filming.  I think the rest of the musical score was supposed to sound like 80s music and not the post Nine Inch Nails electronica of which I was reminded.  Overall, the score wasn't too distracting, but it would have added a lot to the movie if the music had been better. 

Overall, I enjoyed the movie.  I would love to see it re-edited and with a better score, but I guess you can't really fix some of the filming issues.  It's really too bad that the quality wasn't better because the script and acting were really above avarage!


Gore-o-meter rating: 3 out of 5 (Not realistic, but very fun!)

Skin-o-meter: 3 out of 5 (God bless gratuitous naked boobs!)