USA
Review: JA Kerswell
Like a bloody penny, the slasher bounced back in 2009 with this hugely entertaining slice of mayhem from one of the most unexpected sources: MTV. Ten years after teens were found carved up at a roller dome by a psycho dressed as a knight, a bratty high school student insists on having her Sweet 16 at the now-abandoned location. Heads will roll (again).
Despite looking like a teen model, Skye Rotter (Lauren McKnight) is the weird, goth kid outcast at her school. She lives in the shadow of what her father, Charlie (Alex Van), did a decade earlier. He ran the local roller rink, modeled after a medieval jousting court, where he appeared as the Lord of the Rink, dressed in chainmail and wearing a knight’s mask to amuse the young skaters. However, he was eventually driven insane by the attitude of obnoxious, entitled teenagers and moved from giving them birthday cake to slicing them up and dumping their body parts in barrels. When a prepubescent Skye tipped off the police, her father was arrested, and six dead teenagers were found at the roller dome.
Ten years later (and with her father supposedly killed in a prison transfer years earlier), Skye is dismayed to learn that Madison (Julianna Guill)—the most popular girl in high school and the bitchiest—has insisted that her Sweet 16 be held at the long-shut roller rink and has given her event planner two weeks to turn it into a venue fit for her lavish party. Even when Madison's father asks if there’s an alternative venue where multiple murders haven’t happened, Madison blythley says: “I don’t care if the Titanic sank here.” She crows, “My friends are going to freak when they find out I reopened the roller dome!”
Madison also hates Skye, especially after learning that her ex-boyfriend, Brigg (Chris Zylka), has developed feelings for her. She sets her “bitch squad”—Olivia (Maia Osman) and Chloe (Susan Griffiths)—on the school outcast. The nerdy Derek (Matt Angel), Skye’s best friend at school, says they must gatecrash Madison’s bash because “All the regular people at that school are dying to go to that party.” Against her better judgment, Skye agrees, and they attend with most of the rest of the school. However, someone is already lurking at the roller dome, and time hasn’t blunted his hatred of spoiled, bratty teenagers …
With MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16, director Jacob Gentry and writers Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas were not only paying homage to the early ‘80s teen slasher cycle but to the post-SCREAM revival cycle that had begun fading only a decade or so before this was released. It features undoubtedly the best gloriously knowing moment since Julie James saw “I still know!” Flash on the karaoke machine in I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1998), in the scene where a roller-skating teenager is decapitated with a battle axe by the killer, and, headless, continues rolling into the party as her neck stump pumps blood before crashing into Madison’s giant sushi cake in front of horrified party-goers and triggering a panicked rush for the exits. This moment is slasher trash aesthetic par excellence, bringing together references from the roller rink of GRADUATION DAY (1981) and the catwalk decapitation in PROM NIGHT (1980). The horror is hilariously leavened by Madison exclaiming “My sushi cake!”; ignoring seeing her best friend’s decapitated body still twitching on the dance floor.
The film also recalls HEATHERS (1987) with its bitchy clique and peppers the action with other nods to past slashers, including another Julie James reference when Skye sees the Lord of the Rink staring down at the party from a higher balcony. Although the roller skate decapitation combo is the goriest moment in the film, it is perhaps surprising—given its small-screen origins—that MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16 features a good amount of popcorn grue. Also, like the best horror comedies, the film, whilst benefiting from a genuinely witty script, plays its slasher elements relatively straight and features some great chase and fight scenes toward its close. Arguably, the film could have leaned into its whodunnit angle a bit more (it is revealed fairly early on that Skye’s father has returned, although his character and motivation are a little underdeveloped). The cast is clearly having fun, and a standout is Guil as the uber-bitch Madison (she also appeared in that year’s FRIDAY THE 13TH big-screen reboot), with McKnight as an ample foil. Perhaps in a nod to 30-year-olds playing teenagers in old slasher flicks, most of the cast is 5-10 years older than the characters they are playing.
In a meta idea that showed the spirit of SCREAM was still alive, the film was sparked by MTV’s MY SUPER SWEET 16 (which ran from 2005-2017), a reality TV hit that offered a fly-on-the-wall look at lavish parties thrown for teenagers by rich, indulgent parents and the tantrums that inevitably followed. It was also inspired by the continued box-office success of teen horror.
MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16 was filmed in August 2009 in Atlanta on a $1.5 million budget, with the Yaarab Shrine Temple on Ponce de Leon in Midtown as the main location (the old movie theatre doubling as the film’s roller dome). The 32-year-old director, who had previously directed a segment of the anthology THE SIGNAL in 2008 and was an Atlanta resident, told The Atlanta Constitution in October of that year that he wasn’t a fan of reality TV, saying they were “the lowest form of entertainment you have. But then I saw the show they were trying to base this on. I had this realization: it’s the perfect scenario for a horror film. It flipped me around.” The film debuted on MTV before Halloween that year and was successful enough to generate two direct sequels in 2010 and 2012.
Gentry said his intention was “… a John Hughes film that gets interrupted by a John Carpenter film.” Although perhaps a little dated now, MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16 remains a sugar rush for slasher fans who appreciate the subgenre’s campier side.
BODY COUNT 9:
Female 4 / Male 5
MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16 (2009) - trailer
