Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) User Reviews

An outrageous, deliciously bad-taste classic.

[BioChemical · 8/10 · 27 December 2004]

From the moment front-runner Tammy Curry (Brooke Bushman) is blown to pieces on her sabotaged tractor, it's clear this beauty pageant will be fought tooth and nail. And it ain't gonna be pretty.

In the small Midwest community of Mount Rose, Minnesota, the Sarah Rose Miss Teen Princess contest is into the final furlong. But for all the sugar-coated spoutings of world peace and harmony hairspray, it's a question of victory by any means necessary - as a roving documentary film crew discovers.

In the Blue Ribbon rhubarb pie corner is Becky Leeman (Richards, rich kid daughter of former winner and rabidly proud officiating beauty pageant President Gladys (Alley). And in the red, trailer-trash corner is morgue make-up artist Amber Atkins (Dunst), championed by her boozy mother Annette (Barkin) and her mother's morally suspect best friend Loretta (Janney).

Casting wise it's spot on, as Alley launches with smiley, viper spitefulness into a beacon of single-minded hypocrisy, and is well matched by Richards, even if she looks the least convincing high school teenager since Stockard Channing's Rizzo enrolled in Rydell High. Dunst meanwhile blossoms into a very accomplished actress, and - together with Barkin and Janney - claims most of the prize lines.

If there's a weakness it's that the mockumentary approach doesn't always work, and the film drags on a little too long after a seemingly natural conclusion. Still, the dark laughs are consistent, and the parody of middle America's bizarre beauty contest fixation is spiked with some jolting shock tactics - from the nurse-assisted wheelchair dance by the reigning anorexic crown holder to Richards' hilarious (not to mention blasphemous) love song for Jesus - but such blackness never obstructs rooting for Dunst's likable teen. An outrageous, deliciously bad-taste classic.

8/10

Intelligent, witty and biting dark satire

[The_Void · 8/10 · 16 July 2004]

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a film about a teenage beauty pageant. As you might expect; it features plenty of young girls in skimpy outfits, dancing, singing and all that crap. However, unlike a lot of films of the same ilk; here, hidden behind a facade of teen beauty and all the other trademarks of the teen comedy genre, is an intelligently written, witty and very dark satire on the consumer society.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a filmed in the style of a documentary, a la 'This is Spinal Tap' and follows the escapades of a group of contenders in the annual beauty pageant. The contenders are introduced via a very amusing sequence, which sees them tell the audience about themselves. It's very MTV in the way it's done, with all the girls introducing themselves as shallow, fussy, typical teenage girls. After that, the film starts to set its dark tone, with one of the girls being blown up, and is the tone that will be carried throughout the rest of the movie. Some of the humour in this movie is so dark that even I, a fan of very black comedy, couldn't decide whether to laugh at or not; a woman that gets a beer can melted to her hand, an anorexic previous winner, and the pageant winner being blown up on a huge float are all included in this movie. It's lighter and more tongue in cheek moments are also done very well, such as the part in which one of the judge's brothers gets caught in the car door, or a hilarious 'home video' of an explosion.

The characters in Drop Dead Gorgeous are all, with the exception of Amber Atkins, disagreeable, shallow and overblown stereotypes. This is one of this movie's main assets; it has the parodying of stereotypical people spot on; we've got an "I'm not a pervert" pervert judge, an insensitive, egotistical head of the richest family in town, the overenthusiastic boyfriend and many other colourful and amusing characters. Some of the lines said by these characters are priceless; stupid, but not overly stupid and you really could imagine people like these saying things like the characters in this film do.

The entire cast of this movie excels; it features a lot of small characters and each one plays their part to perfection. The main acting plaudits come for Kirsten Dunst in the starring role of Amber Atkins. Kirsten has the ability to act, and act well and she's also extremely good looking. Many actresses look good and can't act, or vice versa but Kirsten has both abilities, which makes her a very good lady to have in your film. With a few more hits under her belt; Kirsten may well be remembered as the finest actress of her generation. Two other stand out performances come from Kirstie Alley as the former winner of the pageant and mother of one of the contestants; and Ellen Barkin, who brings the characters of Amber's mother to life brilliantly.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a film that will be overlooked by many because it's a teen comedy. This is a great injustice; here we have a film that is extremely funny, well acted and actually has something to say.

Simply Wonderful Black Comedy

[mjw2305 · 8/10 · 31 December 2006]

Ellen Barkin is the trailer trash mother of Amber (Kirsten Dunst), Kirstie Alley is the homicidally ambitious mother of Becky (Denise Richards) a spoilt rich bitch. They will stop at nothing to make sure their daughters win the Mount Rose beauty pageant, and i mean nothing.

The whole movie is made in incredibly bad taste and for that reason alone, a lot of people will hate it; but i found it was very refreshing to see a black comedy of this quality for a change. It's wonderfully scripted and directed, and the cast is simply perfect; everyone in it appears to be relishing the humour in the movie and it shows in their performances.

If you like this kind of humour, you will love this, if you don't warm to black comedy then it's best left alone.

8/10 Personally i think its great.

Most smartest and funniest American film since The Producers

[alfa-16 · 3 August 2004]

This is a seriously funny film, deeply subversive and a great piece of work. What it's not is a satire on the vacuousness of beauty pageants.

DDG aims at the emptiness of our whole materialistic culture and the way we have traded in the more valuable things in life for the pursuit of a perfect self image and will even cash in that perverted, limited objective for a few minutes of fame on TV. Life is a house of cards with hidden truths under every shiny surface.

The humour is so dense and the jokes are so profligately thrown around that it occasionally feels like an incarnation of The Simpsons, 54 episodes of which benefited from the efforts of DDG scriptwriter Lona Williams. She may have written your favourite. The performances are no less praiseworthy with outstanding leads and fabulous and memorable minor characters. Look out for the Sheriff. Amongst them all, I'll single out two which I think are pitch perfect, Sam McMurray as the ruthless father in thrall to his wife and daughter and Nora Dunn as the drunken 'has it come to this?' State Pageant organiser. There are lots of others to choose from.

Every you time you watch you get something new, enabling you to rejoice further in the fact that half the people who watch it don't get any of it at all. In fact it's so sharp that even people who like this type of thing can get cut to pieces by it. We are, after all, watching ourselves. Mind your fingers . . .

Most smartest and funniest American film since The Producers? Yes, it's THAT good.

Not exactly the most subtle satire, but it works

[philip_vanderveken · 7/10 · 19 July 2005]

Beauty contests are of all times and for people of all ages. There are all kinds of contests, but they don't always have a very good status (just to give you a few examples: We have Miss Belgium, but also Miss Egg, Miss Grape, Miss Strawberry...) But one thing they all have in common. The girls that participate in it all believe that they are the only ones that deserve to win and their supporters, with their parents on top, are convinced that their girl is the next miracle on two legs. And there aren't too many differences between the different countries. This movie was clearly intended to make fun of the American beauty contests, but it all felt very familiar.

"Drop Dead Gorgeous" isn't exactly what I would call a subtle satire. They use some standard situations, magnify them by a factor of 1000 and then aim at them with a large cannon so they certainly will not miss their target. Does that mean that the humor isn't any good? No, certainly not. It's sometimes so over-the-top that you will almost certainly have to laugh with it, but it's just not the kind of movie for the people who only like very 'intelligent' comedies. And even though the idea of a 'mockumentary' isn't new, it is done quite well in this movie and in a more or less original way. They make fun of the contestants and their fans in this movie, but don't really spare the TV-crews either. They make for instance fun of their eternal drift to sensation and spectacular news items.

In the end this is a nice comedy that may perhaps not be liked by everybody, but that certainly offered some good performances by all the actors. They made the many funny characters look even more ridiculous as what they are in real life (and that's certainly not always easy). The story was good and the entire movie really could have been a lot worse. I liked what I saw and I give this movie a 7/10, maybe even a 7.5/10.

If you don't deserve it; you deceive to get it.

[michaelRokeefe · 7/10 · 29 August 2001]

This is a semi-hilarious mock documentary about a teen beauty contest in Minnesota. Anywhere from hilarious to ridiculous and all points in between. The only thing redeeming is Kirsten Dunst. She knows how to get your pity, concern and loyalty. Ellen Barkin is hardly recognized as Kirsten's drunken mother. Kirstie Alley is pretty darn good as the dirty dealing former beauty queen and mother of the obvious next winner(Denise Richards). Miss Richards' character is beautiful; but spoiled, pampered and a bitch. Not exactly an expose, because the behind the scenes back stabbing is assumed to be part of a beauty pageant. Tongue-in-cheek humor. Nevertheless another vehicle for the talented Miss Dunst.

Underrated Comedy

[i_am_the_beck · 9/10 · 15 July 2005]

I never expected to enjoy this movie. In fact, I thought I was going to hate it. "Beauty pageant themed, chick-flick comedy", right? Stupid jokes about hair, dresses, and stuff I couldn't care less about, right? Wrong. It's presented in that faux-documentary (or mockumentary) style that Christopher Guest has perfected. It pokes fun at middle America, small towns, that sort of "redneckish patriotism" we see so often, and of course the way these contestants (and their parents) take themselves WAY too seriously. It also shines as a mostly female comedic sandbox where Allison Janney, Ellen Barkin, Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy, and Kirstie Allie can show off their comedic skills (I had no idea that some of them had it in them). All I can say is that it's hilarious. Will Sasso is the greatest "handi-capable" character ever put on film. His "cheerleading" as Kirsten Dunst spells every state in alphabetical order is comedy gold. If you don't laugh...you're dead inside.

Fun and dark mockumentary

[bh_tafe3 · 7/10 · 2 December 2014]

There were a lot of really good films in the late 90s that came and went un noticed, some found an audience on VHS and others simply slipped away into the weekly rental section and stayed there until DVDs took over, resulting in such films being all but forgotten. It's a shame such a fate befell Drop Dead Gorgeous, a dark, funny and genuinely clever lampooning of the beauty queen pageant done as mockumentary.

Drop Dead Gorgeous focuses on a film crew who are making a documentary about a local beauty pageant, interviewing all of the contestants and event organizer Gladys (Kirstie Alley) a former pageant winner who's daughter Rebecca (Denise Richards) is entering this year's pageant. Two things quickly become obvious: that ill fortune is befalling many of the entrants and the only serious contenders and Rebecca and girl-next-door Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst). Amber comes from a trailer trash family (Ellen Barkin plays her mother), and works making up dead bodies at the local funeral home. A young Brittany Murphy and Amy Adams also star.

The film is well written, finding a good blend of darkness and humour and always keeping a light tone, which is the key to the film's charm. Some scenes verge on being brilliant and the performances, particularly Kirstie Alley, are all first rate.

While the film can be enjoyed on multiple viewings, it's not really the type you watch over and over, which also would have counted against it as an appealing VHS purchase.

Fun, dark and well made, Drop Dead Gorgeous is well worth tracking down.

The best of the worst

[ggray-6 · 10/10 · 2 October 2005]

Quite bluntly, this film is stupid. However, it's a rare breed, one of those "good" "stupid movies". I've read some reviews criticizing this film for not accurately portraying Minnesota. Some viewers simply don't get it. This movie is supposed to be "stupid". It is not supposed to be some supremely accurate social depiction of small town Minnesota. It is a mockumentary and an intentionally absurd exaggeration. And it works like a charm. If you "get it", this will be one of the funniest movies you'll ever view. The actors are almost, top to bottom, perfect... especially the portrayals of Amber Atkins' mother and aunt, and the Vilmes father and son. I can see how certain viewers would absolutely abhor this seemingly inane, ridiculous film. But it is, truly, a phenomenally clever spoof on a competition many treat as life and death. In fact, it's almost frightening that there's a little more realism in this farce than most would like to admit. This film is simply a fabulous little spectacle.

Best line: "You are a good person. Good things happen to good people." "Really?" "No, it's pure bull____, sweetie. You're lucky as hell, so you might as well enjoy it."

Second half disappointed

[Sergiodave · 6/10 · 20 July 2021]

The first half of this mockumentary was great, wonderful dark humour. Unfortunately it didn't manage to stay quite as funny. Great idea, but the humour ended up falling short. Still. A lot better than most comedies.

Drop Dead Gorgeous

[studioAT · 2/10 · 13 May 2021]

Big silly black comedy fun, but didn't do a lot of me.

It has a good cast though.

Extremely Subversive

[aimless-46 · 9/10 · 12 January 2007]

Imagine a weird blend of "This Is Spinal Tap" and "Fargo" and you will have a fairly good read on 1999's "Drop Dead Gorgeous. There is definitely a Coen Brothers feel to the film, which is done in "mockumentary" style and told from the point of view of a film crew investigating the world of local beauty pageants; specifically the Miss Teen Princess contest in Mount Rose, Minnesota.

But it would be a mistake to think that this is just a satire of the beauty pageant world or of folks from Minnesota. The film has much bigger targets, as it pretty much takes on every excess to be found in the competitive culture of modern American. Making it the most subversive comedy since "Dr. Strangelove". It may not have the consistency of Kubrick's masterpiece, but it has a slightly higher comic hit to miss ratio than "Airplane".

Former Miss Teen Princess Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley) is in charge of the Mount Rose preliminary, a conflict of interest because her daughter Becky (Denise Richards) (a younger version of her mercenary mother) is a leading contender. After murdering her daughter's only real competition, Gladys targets trailer-park girl Amber (Kirsten Dunst), who hopes to use the contest as a means to follow in the footsteps of her idol Diane Sawyer.

There are so many different types of humor in "Drop Dead Gorgeous" that almost any viewer will find something amusing. But the degree of amusement will be in direct proportion to your degree of irreverence and "nothing sacred" attitudes. So if you are easily offended or are sense of humor challenged you would do well to stay away from this film.

I particularly liked the contestant's dramatic reading from "Soylent Green", and Britney Murphy's line about being conceived because her parents wanted someone who could donate a kidney to her older brother.

Although she only has a small part, Murphy pretty much steals every scene in which she appears. The three big parts (Alley, Richards, and Dunst) are played straight (or with parodied straightness) so most of the comedy comes from the supporting cast; most notably Allison Janney as a trailer park neighbor, Will Sasso as a mentally challenged small businessman, Seiko Matsudo as the resentful biological daughter of an Asian couple who dotes on their adopted Caucasian daughter, and Matt Malloy as a contest judge with a not so secret agenda.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

A Black Comedy Not for the Easily Offended

[JackCowart34 · 7/10 · 11 February 2023]

Drop Dead Gorgeous is an underrated and often forgotten comedic gem from 1999 that features a formidable ensemble cast of young talent who have since gone on to have prosperous and prestigious acting careers. The humor is dark, immature, and borderline offensive, which means it falls squarely in my wheelhouse. Director Michael Patrick Jann's mockumentary-style filming allows each character individual moments to shine via either an interview or a pageant performance, both of which are equally hysterical. This time we spend with the various contestants helps to establish personality traits, quirks, and possible motives while remaining lighthearted and entertaining throughout. It's a rare mystery where the journey is more important than the resolution. As to whether that's an accomplishment or a flaw, I'll leave it up to each viewer's discretion. As for me, I wasn't pressed to know the outcome; I was just happy to be along for the ride.

Drop Dead Boring

[jens1966 · 1/10 · 23 August 2002]

I laughed out loud watching this movie--ONCE. And I forget what scene it was... A friend lent me this DVD, telling me it was hilarious. I can't believe I wasted 1 1/2 hours of my life on this! And don't tell me I "Don't get the jokes"!!! A five-year-old can get the hackneyed jokes in this thing! But if you can't get enough of mundane stereotypes, by all means, watch this movie! This film pokes fun at Mid-westerners, women, Christians and more, in the most obtuse, unimaginative, witless ways! The plot is slow and weak. Don't get me wrong, I love dark, irreverent humor if it's well-written and well-acted. This movie is not an example of either. I cringe to hear it mentioned in the same breath as Best In Show and Spinal Tap! If you feel they are on par with this movie, you mustn't have very discriminating taste.

Good flick! Very funny.

[Cowman · 18 May 2000]

This is a great film for anyone who hates beauty pageants, and enjoys dark humor. The "mockumentary" aspect was done greatly, and the performances were also great, especially by (the very hot) Kirsten Dunst. I really like films that poke fun at serious topics (like death and mourning), and this one did a great job of it without being completely tasteless.

A satire about beauty pageants even straight guys can enjoy

[MBunge · 7/10 · 25 February 2011]

Drop Dead Gorgeous is an incorrigible satire that overcomes the doomed reputation of its genre to be one of the funniest films I've seen in a long time. Even when it's well done, satire tends to be more clever than comedic…and it usually isn't that well done in the first place. This movie spectacularly succeeds by not only offering up sharp takes on fairly obvious and easy targets, but also delivering delightful bits of lunacy that will make you laugh at everything from horrific eating disorders to physical mutilation.

The story is about a documentary film crew that goes to the small Minnesota town of Mount Rose to cover the local qualifying pageant for the America's Teen Princess competition. They film and interview the pageant organizers, young contestants and their friends and family. The crew is also around to record the deaths and maimings that surround the pageant and always seem to benefit Becky Leeman (Denise Richards), the jaded and two-faced daughter of Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley), the pageant organizer, a former pageant winner and a stage mom desperate to relive her past glory. The only real competitor to Becky, at least the only one that luckily remains unharmed, is Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst). She's the good hearted trailer park girl who squeezes in tap dancing practice during her two jobs, one in the school cafeteria and the other putting make up on stiffs in the town funeral parlor.

As you might expect, a lot of the satire of Drop Dead Gorgeous is aimed at the natives of Minnesota and the classic tropes of small town life. It's reflected best in some of the pageant contestants. There's the slutty cheerleader (Amy Adams), the drama club chick (Laurie Sinclair), the tomboy of ambiguous sexuality (Brooke Bushman) and the fat girl who loves her dog a little too much (Shannon Nelson). But these filmmakers then compliment those fairly obvious characters with some wonderfully off kilter contestants. One young woman is a future fag hag (Brittany Murphy), another lives her life as a tribute to her deaf mother (Sarah Stewart) and another is a white girl adopted and raised by Japanese parents that are pathetically desperate to assimilate into the good ol' U S of A.

By adding bizarre and outrageous bits that are only trying to make you laugh, it makes the satiric and darker outlook of the film go down a lot smoother. Many satires fall into the trap of being self righteous or exploitative but because there's a different and separate layer of comedy running through the story, Drop Dead Gorgeous is just plain hilarious. As you react to the crazy, non-satiric jokes, it becomes easier to appreciate the humor underlying the satire. And since the non-satiric comedy is more over-the-top and potentially offensive than the satiric moments, it never feels like the film is being judgmental about these characters or their dreams.

Helping things out is a cast that's as good as the material they're given to work with. Kirsten Dunst and Amy Adams are the highlights, both absolutely adorable and just close enough to being realistic to give their characters that extra oomph. Ellen Barkin is also great as Amber's "rode hard and put away wet" mother and Allison Janney almost steals the show as her outspoken and cougarish trailer park neighbor. The other actors are also very funny and screenwriter Lona Williams gives one of the best performances in the movie without saying a word. Denise Richards is…well, she's Denise Richards. If you've seen her in other films, you know what to expect. She's good looking and makes an effort, but there's just not a lot going on.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a movie about teenage beauty pageants that's so funny and bold, even a lot of high school boys could enjoy it…and I'm talking about heterosexual high school boys. I'm not sure there's any higher praise that I can give.

An entertaining mockumentary

[cricketbat · 6/10 · 22 August 2018]

An entertaining mockumentary with a murder/mystery twist. Drop Dead Gorgeous is also a fun parody of Minnesota culture and beauty pageants. I had fun watching it.

In This Case, I Would Try the Lutefisk

[bkrauser-81-311064 · 10/10 · 18 February 2012]

The quaint tales from Lake Wobegon have nothing on this pitch black fable from Mt Rose's, Miss Teen Princess Pageant. Captured by a supposed documentary film crew over a course of a few weeks, "Drop Dead Gorgeous's" biting satire and gallows humor hits you like a malfunctioning stage light to the head.

Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst) is a modest teenager with the modest goal of performing her dance routine in front of her mother (Ellen Barkin) who was a former beauty queen. Amber's other idol, Dianne Sawyer was also a beauty pageant winner so it only makes sense she's in it to win it. Her chances of taking home the prize however are dimmed at every turn by town rich girl Becky Leeman (Denise Richards) and her overbearing, duplicitous mother, (Kristie Alley) who is also the pageant organizer. As "accidents" start to occur and bodies start to pile up around town it is clear something's rotten in the State of Minnesota.

You might gleam that this film pokes a lot of fun at beauty pageants. Well, you'd be right but small town America gets by far the largest skewering as evidenced not only with the exaggerated Midwestern accents and trailer park foolishness but the corruption of the pageant itself. Each character, even the background ones leave an indelible mark, showcasing a parade of farcical character traits and neurosis topped only by their particular "talents". They are of course oblivious to their own faults allowing the film crew to edit their doc with levels upon levels of delicious irony.

People who deride this film because it doesn't rise to the level of "Waiting for Guffman" are making a false comparison. "Guffman" uses the mockumentary style as its own genre. The humor stems not from anarchic comedy or exaggerated satire but from the human elements captured' on film. Christopher Guest's characters are more three-dimensional and as a result the satire culminates in warm lighthearted jabs. "Drop Dead Gorgeous" on the other hand is a dark comedy with the mockumentary style serving only as a gimmick. The style isn't fundamentally important to the themes like in "Guffman" yet important to amplify a few key gags.

And boy are these gags effective! Nearly every joke hits it mark. Due credit should be given to scribe Lona Williams who also penned and story edited much of the Drew Carrey Show. But I reserve my largest accolades to the cast. Not only do Dunst, Barkin, and Alley deliver but so does the supporting cast which includes Allison Janney Brittany Murphy, Amy Adams, Mindy Sterling and even walk-ons by Adam West and the always funny Nora Dunn.

In conclusion, for those who like their satire cold and black, and those who can appreciate a largely female cast "Drop Dead Gorgeous" maybe just the shot in the arm you need.

http://theyservepopcorninhell.blogspot.com/

Satirical Female Fun

[Miroslav-27 · 6/10 · 24 July 2021]

Had some fun watching this gem of a throwback tonight. Feels like it probably was extra funny because it's a little dated, but man was it clever. Sure it skews female and it might have gotten cancelled in today's culture, but you have to appreciate it for what it is. It's a spoof, and it knows it, and embraces it every step of the way.

I LOVE this movie !!! Wanna laugh ? Watch this.

[mariarammstein · 10/10 · 2 April 2022]

From the first time I saw it up to now, over twenty years later. Every couple of years I rewatch it and it always makes me laugh out loud. Denise Richrards psycho rich spoiled girl, Brittany Murphy's laugh, Allyson Janney's trailer trashy friend of Ellen Barkin trailer trash mum of Kirstin Dunst, with their hearts in a good place, Will Sasso' as. The slow but freaking funny judges brothers, all the actors and actresses are giving great performances and it seems the entire cast and crew had fun making this comedy.

The end is a bit far fetched but it's a very, very enjoyable watch.

Love it !!!!!!

Underrated

[angelesoviedo · 7/10 · 13 December 2021]

I wasn't expecting this. With an amazing cast and funny scenes, this satire surprised me greatly.

The movie is about this pageant competition in a small town. Everyone is weird and that is What makes this film really fun.

The Worst Movie of 1999 and perhaps the last decade!

[Reb9 · 1/10 · 1 August 1999]

I love great satire but this mean-spirited little poison pellet hasn't the intelligence for satire, parody, or even humor for that matter. Every idea has been done before, and better, in even the most mediocre films. This little number makes John Waters look like Miss Manners.

Don't waste your time or money on this dreck.

One of the All-Time Great Comedies

[davidkennedy-91087 · 10/10 · 23 April 2022]

Kirsten Dunst leads an all-star cast as a legitimately talented beauty pageant contestant who finds her life on the line when someone starts murdering her competitors in a small town pageant.

There are so many oddball characters and pieces of local color that, at times, it feels like an authentic documentary on small town life. Every actor from Kirstie Alley to Denise Richards to Brittany Murphy to the scene- stealing Allison Janney have never been better and all seem to understand the material they've been given.

A Little Jab at competitions and how people CAN be over-competitive.

[thescholar22 · 7/10 · 30 October 2019]

Thought about this movie from 1999 for a few weeks now since the main plot feels kind of true for reality tv, contests, and game shows today at times. I'll tell you a bit later in this review and you'll know what I'm saying. This movie is a black comedy mockumentary about this Minnesota town and it's high school Beauty pageant it's going to have. Only a handful show up and along the way someone tries to kill off the contestants one by one.

One of the contestants is a young Kirsten Dunst before the Spider-man movies. Another is this anorexic girl from last years contest in some hospitals eating disorders ward. People in this movie keeps saying if they're on Cops which is a bit of a joke in the end. Near the end when it's found out who was killing all these girls it's a bit shocking. Then there's the pageant State finals and most of the contestants get food poisoning and there's this big scene of all the other contestants throwing up. Kirstin Dunst ends up winning since she didn't eat the food there.

At the end where the winners of this pageant go to this make up place that promoted the beauty pageant. Sadly the make up place was shut down after problems with tax evasion around the time of the documentary, permanently. Then all the other contestants go crazy and attack the building but Kirstin Dunst just gets back on the bus, showing self control and being calm through it all. Then the movie explains what happened to the runner up in the pageant, the killer, and Kirstin Dunst, then it ends.

What really gets me is not only the dark humor, how overly competitive people can be, and it's also PG-13. The story also felt a bit realistic since a lot of people in these contests, reality tv, and even game shows can be overly competitive even though it's just a contest. They have other accomplishments and stuff to fall back on if they lose this and it isn't important. You can give this a watch on Hulu since it popped up recently and is considered to have a cult following.

So many things to hate in this film

[philfromno · 2/10 · 7 September 2002]

Where to start...Well, the misuse of the mockumentary form should be mentioned. So many of my favorite comedies, from Spinal Tap to Waiting For Guffman have used this form to hilarious effect. What the people who made this film missed, though, is that these films rely on subtlety and a certain kind of naturalism that comes from the use of improvisation (and talented actors, of course.) The comedy here is so over the top and histrionic, the acting so ridiculous, that the documentary style falls apart. It seems like the filmmaker's used this form as an excuse to have the characters speak all of the exposition directly into the camera. They certainly don't seem married to the premise, as they basically act out a standard comedy plot (minus the humor, that is) in front of the supposed documentary camera. The absurdities here include a dance scene where there are at least 7 or 8 camera angles, and plenty of private conversations. By the end, the filmmakers seem to have forgotten that they were even making a mockumentary, as the camera seems to be wherever an important plot point is occurring.

Second point. I'm not particularly offended by tasteless humor, but here they really seemed to have forgotten to actually write any jokes. It's as if it's inherently funny to show a huge retarded man-child or a girl dying from anorexia. In fact, the poor anorexic girl must have really made the director bust a gut, as they drag her out twice without writing a single joke for her.

All of the characters have their supposedly hilarious quirk, which is basically repeated every time they show up on screen ("I'm a slut", "I like sign language", "My brother's gay.")

It all grinds away to a dull and obvious conclusion and then, inexplicably, keep on going, until you fear that this desperately unfunny movie will simply never end. At only an hour and a half, it feels like it takes all day to end, but you will be thankful to see it go.