Bad Kids of Crestview Academy (2017) User Reviews

The Breakfast Club with Ten Little Indians

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 3 December 2017]

I've long been of the opinion that actors take roles in horror films because they can go to town acting outrageously and never be accused of overacting. Maybe doubly so for young actors in these teen flicks.

In Bad Kids From Crestview Academy five of them get detention in the library, but as that famous Red Buttons song went, 'strange things are happening'. Someone is out to kill these kids in a most gruesome manner.

Crestview is an expensive prep school for rich juvenile delinquents and the rich and famous pay dear for little Johnny or Jane to go there and gain that all important high school diploma.

The film starts out like the Breakfast Club but it turns into a gory version of Ten Little Indians.

In fact the gambit that failed for the murderer in the Agatha Christie classic succeeds quite well here. If you care to watch, if these movies are your cup of tea, you'll see what I mean.

Good, but inferior to the first, and if you don't love the original, you'll probably hate this one.

[indyj1 · 6/10 · 9 April 2017]

I enjoyed the film, but didn't love it like I do the the first movie. While they managed to capture the essence of the original film - telling the story in bits and pieces, out of order, any with layers within layers - but whereas they reached a point where that formula again worked, the film then went way too over-the-top in an attempt to really out crazy its predecessor. It was also disappointing that, while the first movie had reasonably well-developed, multi-layered characters, with the exception of the main character Siouxsie, all the others were ridiculously shallow one-note caricatures in this one. If you really loved Bad Kids Go to Hell, you're more likely to get some enjoyment out of this one, but don't expect it to be as good.

humor needs a little work

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 26 December 2018]

Four years earlier, a psycho rampage occurred during detention at the Crestview Academy. Siouxsie (Sammi Hanratty) forces her way into detention to investigate her sister's death and exact revenge. Joining her in detention are "Latin Spice" Brian Marquez, "Cat Lover" Sara Hasegawa, "Mr Clean" Blaine Wilkes, and "Preacher's Daughter" Faith Jackson who are connected to the party where Siouxsie's sister died. Once again, it ends in carnage and destruction with Siouxsie wielding a flamethrower.

So.... That happened. Sean Astin walks into a sex scene. That's this movie. The 'kids' are younger this time and I don't know if it helps this sex-obsessed high school murder drama. Ben Browder is directing this time and he's trying to be funny. Sammi is a solid lead but the other girls struggle to play dumb. The guys are bland. The main issue is that the humor isn't funny. It's weak grade school humor where Drake Bell is a computer sex fiend. It's a bunch of ridiculous dark humor which is suppose to be funny just because it's ridiculous. This needs a comedic writer to make one more pass at the script.

Cool effects and good production quality, but it's a big let down with a convoluted story

[korythacher · 3/10 · 29 July 2021]

Bottom line: I wanted to love this, but it was a let down. It might be worth the watch for the inventive effects if you're a fan of horror in general. The review is long because of how polarizing parts of the movie were.

Bad Kids of Crestview Academy had the potential to be a smash hit, but in the end I was left frustrated and disappointed.

I had low expectations going in, but they turned that around pretty fast with some very cool comic-book style effects. They use it for transitions, they use it for overlays, and they use it well. The first time it showed up I liked it, but was worried they wouldn't do much with it, and it just got better from there (mostly).

• The production quality of the whole thing is good.

• The actors are all alright, albeit overacted at times, but that's what you get/want/expect with these kinds of movies. They're all also attractive, which helps. I'm not a big fan of Sammi Hanratty, but I'm not sure why, and I'm not going to knock her for the performance.

• The basic outline is good: it's a mystery/slasher with kids in detention. You *want* to wonder who did it as all the characters die off and the mystery reveals itself before a 'final girl' sequence. You *almost* get that.

By the half way point I was having a good time and wondering why I hadn't heard more buzz about it, but that didn't carry through to the end.

With all those things going so right, what went wrong? The needlessly convoluted story line(s)

The broad strokes without specific info:

• They start with a 'mystery' to even figure out what the backstory for the main character's motivations and they take way too long to give us enough information. After a while it felt like something that shouldn't really be a mystery to the audience at all. It was frustrating, but I overlooked it for the fun bits. If the main character had a better reason for being in detention, and we had some of the slow-rolled flash backs earlier then it would have made more sense for her to even be there.

• They rush through the actual slasher/mystery portion dumping all the deaths into a very tight timeline and immediately tell us who the killer is with no mystery about it
• Instead of ending the movie, they added a bunch of needless layers to the killer's motivation and then turn it into a (bad) action movie. They tried to have a lot of side stories, overlapping layers, and double crosses, but really they just constantly revealed new stuff in a way that made me say "alright, I guess that's a thing now". It didn't feel like I was finding out what was happening, it just felt like random new stuff was being thrown in.

• They hint at a cool side story around the halfway mark, but then they don't touch it again until the end where they (very poorly) 'tie it in' to the main storyline and ruin it. They would have been better leaving it out completely.

• Internal logic fell apart in more than a few places, which really stood out when they tried to stack up all the layers.

With what they had already they could have cut out a big chunk of the over complicated story from the end, dropped it down to 90m, and slow-rolled the deaths to make me wonder who the killer was. They would have gotten a solid 7-8 stars. As it stand, I was torn between 3-4

An added observation: I'm surprised I only saw one review mention this, but they made a big point in the dialogue to have a ton of references/jokes about the main character being Native American. I didn't find them to be offensive, and I'm not sure is anyone would, but it really sticks out like a sore thumb. The thing that made it stand out is that she is one of the two whitest people in the whole movie. It felt like they intended the actress to be obviously Native American, and should have chopped out the dialogue after casting Sammi Hanratty. Some examples are referring to her as an "Indian Princess" and her being "Tired of cleaning up after the white man".

Disgusting

[rishikaishrajput · 1/10 · 11 September 2019]

Wish i could give it a Minus rating, utter rubbish...!!

Disappointment

[mbmarsh-05709 · 3/10 · 13 April 2017]

I really enjoyed the first movie "Bad Kids Go To Hell". Pretty good acting and a good plot and everything. But this one, "Bad Kids of Crestview Academy", just really disappointed me. A lot of the acting wasn't good. It seemed forced, over dramatic, and at times didn't make sense. But I think, at times, that had more to do with direction and the script than the actors themselves. The dialogue is the same. It was annoying and at times didn't make sense or unnecessary. I really about stopped watching a few times but I already invested the time and I just wanted to know how it ended, in case there is a third. But I literally suffered through the last half. The story line just sucked. I feel like there could have been more thought put into it and the dialogue or something.

About 100X better than the first entry in the series...

[A_Different_Drummer · 7/10 · 18 January 2017]

.... which, depending on your POV, may or may not be a compliment.

Here is the scoop -- there is a theory in the biz that if you deconstruct enough films in the same script, you may possibly trigger a paradox in the (Hollywood) time-space continuum, Star Trek style, and end up with a film which is actually a legitimate successor to the genre you were trying so hard to satirize.

Which is what I think happened here.

Ben Browder seems to have learned a LOT of valuable lessons from his first "Bad Kids" attempt -- just a rambly B movie which gained cult status because of some clever tropes -- and came back with a film which (I kid you not) has a remarkably tight script, good performances and good production values.

Which is not to say that the Coen Brothers are nervous, far from it. But the script is so interesting (with sly hints of Scream, Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and even No Country For Old Men) that it actually engages and holds the attention.

And Sammi Hanratty gives what can best be called a bravura performance, biting into each line of dialogue and each piece of mayhem like she actually believes what she is saying ... like her career depends on it (which it probably DOES!) ... and essentially picks the film up and carries it to the finish line.

Gina Gershon does little more than offer a parody of herself, but her character ironically provides a "political angle" to the film which conveniently comes at a time when the world at large is starting to see politicians as potentially more dangerous than serial killers.

Recommended. And I predict there will be more in the series.

Disgusting load of utter vile rubbish

[Boristhemoggy · 1/10 · 15 January 2017]

Right from the very start this film promises to be badly acted, badly scripted, with an awful story, poor direction and it's just wrong on so many levels: racist, sexist, insulting and just plain rude. You think it's going to be something like Mean Girls meets The Breakfast Club, but it's not even anywhere close to either, it's more like Rotten Tomatoes worst offering.

To think that $5 million was wasted on this is actually terrifying because who made the decision to spend so much money on something so few are going to like?

I despair to think that people actually film this stuff and get it out there, I despair that anyone but a teen with severe angst would like it. It's utter garbage, don't waste even one minute of your time on it.

Teenage Massacre

[scythertitus · 7/10 · 23 March 2019]

This film works pretty well as a teen comedy slasher, the kills are kind of cool if mostly unoriginal, but definitely fun for someone who is new to the horror genre.

The film never drags and the story has legs, but it does suffer from a lacking in the effects department. At least it tries to continue aspects from the original and doesn't just go somewhere completely different, so if you are a fan of the first film you will probably like this.

Overall this is definitely a horror designed for teens and never really rises above a beginners level in terms of entertainment, dialogue or gore. It's not a bad time though.

disjointed, senseless, illogical, asinine

[grrg63 · 1/10 · 23 April 2017]

I just wasted 100 minutes of my life on this and these are the words that came to mind when I thought about describing it:

disjointed, senseless, illogical, asinine

The cast was fine, but if you stick an accomplished actor like Gina Gershon in a load of crap like this you still wind up with a load of crap. The screenplay and plotting were what killed it. I really liked Farscape.

Surprisingly Good

[joeywyss · 10/10 · 18 November 2017]

I kept waiting for this to turn into a groan-er, but ended up very surprised. There's some very dark twisted humor woven throughout, and a good choice of newbie casting gives it a solid base to build on. After all the garbage horror I'm finding on Amazon Prime, this was a delight. I had an expectation of some degree of quality when I saw Gershon, Astin and Browder (who also directed!), and was waiting to be let down by the 'teens' but they held their own which saves the movie. Funny without being silly or campy, gory but not ridiculously so, and a solid script that stayed on point. The blending of the graphic novel scenes was a cherry on top to be sure. I usually prefer my horror to lean more supernatural , but this was a solid choice, and THANK HEAVENS none of that found footage garbage.

Decent and different slasher

[bellino-angelo2014 · 7/10 · 24 April 2023]

Although I am not a huge slasher fan I enjoyed most of the ones I saw (such as the SCREAMs and the I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER) and don't mind to watch them just for increasing the numbers of movies seen with actors I love. And although I have never seen BAD KIDS GO TO HELL I was very curious about its sequel after seeing it as a Youtube suggestion, and I ended up enjoying it.

At Crestview Academy there is the strange issue that when the students are put in detention end up slaughtered but this time five kids want to know what's really going on and try to stop this massacre, and things become serious after a student throws herself to her death on headmaster Nash's (Sean Astin) car. After some deaths, our heroes will do everything they can for stopping this madness also with the help of the headmaster and his daughter during a mid-credits scene.

As I have never seen BAD KIDS GO TO HELL I had to read the plot and reviews first and they helped me a bit. But I still liked this slasher because it reminded me of the classics of the genre I love and there were lots of twists and turns, and also lots of entertaining moments involving Astin, and the teen actors were surprisingly good.

Not to be missed for slasher fans, and overall, very entertaining and funny.

Who cast this crap?

[MagicMurderFan · 3/10 · 22 June 2020]

If you're going to claim an ethnicity make sure the actor or actress in this case, is remotely believable. I know it's possible to be light complected when you are "Indian" as they put it, but give me a break, blonde blue eyed girl to play the "native" heritage. Both girls were a lousy example. Just because you 1/100th stop waking around acting like you are a native. "He's tired of cleaning up after the white man." Is this a joke I don't get? I don't get offended easily, like at all. I'm not offended, as I'm more like "now that's just dumb" I couldn't roll my eyes hard enough. I hate it when people are like I'm 5% Cherokee, I ignore the 95% Irish because it's "cooler". We don't all know each other or have a mystical connection with nature. Uhhhh, I tried to get through this but the main character was horrible. The acting was sucky, it tried to have an edgy story line and it just came across as, trying too hard.

wtf where they thinking

[stymie79 · 1/10 · 15 October 2018]

If it was all animation i might have enjoyed this film i'm no critic it's not a good film.

Sad

[solidabs · 1/10 · 11 February 2021]

Hollywood is just sad. Just when you think you've seen the crappiest movie. They do not let you down. Bam another one. Sad.

I literally can't comprehend this movie

[jtyn-30813 · 1/10 · 18 August 2021]

Wtf was this garbage? Were their acting skills satire as well?

Not that bad...

[ryu9376 · 7/10 · 7 March 2019]

Honestly, this wasn't what I was expecting. It was better than I had first anticipated, and was quite entertaining in it's own way... the young kids in the film definitely made some of the scenes memorable. But basically I gave it a glance because Ben Browder was involved with this project.

I literally cannot comprehend this movie.

[jtyn-30813 · 1/10 · 18 August 2021]

This was garbage; this was a dumpster fire. I had no clue what was going on and I seen the first movie! Was the acting satire as well? Who knows. But I do know this was a waste of my time. You could watched anything else and get more entertainment from that than this garbo.

Warning: This movie is REALLY racist against Asians for some reason. There's like at least one racist joke made against the one Asian character every five minutes and I'm not even exaggerating! There's one Asian character and they call her names like 'Ho Chi Minnie Mouse' and 'Chinese Fortune Cookie' which isn't even funny??? The characters in the movie are supposed to be ignorant but there's a difference between ignorance and racism. This was disgusting to bare witness to. (I've never read the comics so I don't know if these comments were in the comics.)

Side note: Drake Bell's character is interesting to see now in the new light. I think his character was supposed to be a pedo or whatever.

Entertaining

[brettbentman · 30 June 2021]

Nice film. Not gonna blow your mind but fun to watch if you wanna escape for a few hours.

That's Gonna be a Hard Pass

[infinitetyler · 2/10 · 7 April 2024]

Amazon was pushing 'Totally Killer' on me, and I couldn't make it through that one either. This one also appears to be targeted towards the 14-34 female, um, let's say "Velma" demographic, so I'm probably not the audience they're going for. I guess I was expecting more of a "Disturbing Behavior" type movie, but BKoCA is more like a spoof of a horror movie than it is a horror movie.

That being said, it's a horny/gory teen comedy that leans heavily on current-day tropes which won't make sense in the future, so if you hadn't heard of this movie before, then you probably won't hear about it again. It employs levels of acting and writing that you would see on The CW. The camera work and audio is well done.

This was made for a pretty specific group of people, so if you're in that group you'll probably love it, but otherwise you deserve a medal for making it through the first hour.

PS- I saw someone else mention that it has themes of "And Then There Were None", but implying that these writers read Agatha Christie is giving them way too much credit. I could see if maybe they watched a YouTube video summarizing the film adaptation.

Jesus loves cheerleaders

[nogodnomasters · 8/10 · 11 August 2017]

Based on a graphic novel and uses bits of it for effect. Souxsie (Sammi Hanratty) is investigating the death of her sister, ruled a suicide. She believes it was murder. She manages to get herself in rich kid detention on Saturday so she can find out what happened...a party that she was at. The film opens with a SWAT team chasing her down and she has a welder flame thrower. It then goes back a day to take us up to that point. The ending, I didn't see coming...you won't either, unless you read the book.

This is a quirky clever cult film that was filled with smiles, but not hard laughter. The twists are more clever than funny. The movie has some good characters that I wish we could have gotten to know better, a group that makes the "Breakfast Club" look like the weenies they really were.

Guide: F-word. Brief sex. Brief nudity

Pretty funny teen horror spoof!

[sergeivolkov · 8/10 · 15 January 2017]

Anyone who takes themselves seriously or the teen horror genre seriously will not like a comedy spoof on the genre.

The movie at it's opening credits clearly sets itself up as a bloody comedy spoof on the teen horror movie theme. It throws in some modern tech jokes while keeping the familiar traditional killing formula.

The cast looked the part and did a good job of acting...remembering it is a horror spoof they played their parts well. I did laugh in many places and enjoyed the off beat comedy choices.

At the very end...i usually do not care who directed a movie but since this spoof was really well done i decided to go back and see who the directer was...Ben Browder ...LOL now i understand why the movie was so creative, not boring and had enough entertaining twists.

Worth watching...just for fun!

Exceeded my expectations

[joshuauzoamakah-45181 · 8/10 · 28 November 2019]

For a low budget movie, this one actually exceeded my expectations

A thoroughly impressive effort

[jtindahouse · 8/10 · 31 May 2017]

There's nothing better than going into a movie with very low expectations, only to be blown away by how much you enjoy it. That was very much the case for me with 'Bad Kids of Crestview Academy'. It's so rare today that I enjoy anything horror related, let alone the low-budget, barely heard of films that are a sequel to an original that I have never heard of either.

The film's biggest strength is that it is just straight up fun. It finds an almost perfect balance between being light-hearted and comical and yet at the same time taking itself just seriously enough so that the convoluted story never becomes tedious or boring. Say what you will, but that is a very hard balance to find that some very good film makers have failed to achieve over the years.

The synopsis and opening scene (a scene that is a flash-forward to near the end of the film) imply that this will be a very simple film in approach. This really couldn't be further from the case. There are a couple of times when you think to yourself "OK, that was the film's big twist", only to find out (more than once) that that is only the beginning of things.

I was really impressed by this film. It's easy for these types of films just to be lazy and do the bare minimum to keep their audience happy. 'Bad Kids of Crestview Academy' never takes the easy road though and the result is an audience that is going to thoroughly enjoy themselves. A great effort by all involved.

People who use the word rubbish

[Behlowwme · 10/10 · 14 April 2021]

I haven't seen this movie. I just wanted to point out that people who use the word rubbish... are all the same people, they just don't know it! Stupid people that want to feel important by righting reviews and use the word rubbish! If you see the word rubbish....you should probably ignore that review!

Thank you Management.