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{{Infobox film
| name = Hell High
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| caption = Theatrical release poster
| director = Douglas Grossman
| producer = Douglas Grossman<br />[[David Steinman]]
| writer = Leo Evans<br />Douglas Grossman
| starring = {{Plainlist|
* Christopher Stryker
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* Jason Brill
}}
| music = Chris Hyams-Hart<br />Rich Macar
| cinematography = Steven Fierberg
| editing = Greg Sheldon<br />[[Claire Simpson]]
| studio = DGS Productions
| distributor = JGM Enterprises
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}}
'''''Hell High''''' is a 1989 American [[slasher film]] written, produced, and directed by Douglas Grossman. The film centers on a [[school teacher]] who suffers a [[mental disorder|mental breakdown]] after being harassed and attacked by a group of
==Plot==
As a child, Brooke Storm goes to play with her [[dolls]] in a shack along a biking path in the [[marsh]] near her home. A man and his girlfriend arrive by motorcycle, and Brooke hides behind the shack while the man violently attempts to force his girlfriend to have sex with him. When she refuses, the two depart on his motorcycle. As they turn around and pass by the shack, Brooke throws a bucket of wet mud at them, causing him to lose control of his motorcycle, and both are killed when they are impaled on nearby fenceposts.
Eighteen years later, Brooke lives alone in her childhood home, and is haunted by the deaths she caused as a child, which are now considered [[cold case|unsolved murder]]s. Brooke works as a domineering and neurotic high school [[biology]] teacher who is unliked by her students. One of them, senior Dickens, is particularly antagonistic toward Brooke, and when he taunts and humiliates her during an exam, she slaps him in the face. Dickens and his friend Jon-Jon follow Brooke home in their car, and spy through her bathroom window while she masturbates in the shower.
The next day, Jon-Jon goes to pick up his [[New wave music|new waver]] classmate Queenie at her home to attend the football game, where they meet with Dickens and their prankster friend, Smiler. The four disrupt the football game by driving Dickens' car onto the field before fleeing. Dickens devises a nebulous revenge [[practical joke|prank]] against Brooke, and brings his friends to the marsh where the young couple were killed eighteen years prior. There, they gather swamp mud and then approach Brooke's house, donning [[Halloween costume|Halloween mask]]s. They climb onto her roof and begin pounding their feet, and throwing mud at the windows. When Brooke steps outside, they dump a bucket of mud on her, triggering traumatic memories of the deaths she caused as a child.
The teenagers flee when Brooke's friend Mink arrives, finding Brooke in a paranoid [[fugue state]]. Mink provides Brooke with a [[quaalude]] to calm her nerves. After she leaves, Dickens enters the house and finds Brooke nearly incoherent. When Dickens attempts to sexually assault Brooke, Jon-Jon, Queenie, and Smiler attempt to stop him. A fight ensues, during which Brooke leaps from her bed and jumps through a second-story window. Assuming Brooke to be dead, Dickens sends Jon-Jon to the local diner to steal a belonging from one of the school's football players, which they can leave behind in Brooke's house, framing the football players for her murder. Jon-Jon slashes the [[quarterback]]'s tires and steals a jersey from his car. The quarterback and his teammate chase after Jon-Jon on a motorcycle, but lose control and crash.
Meanwhile, Queenie angrily leaves the house. Outside, she finds Brooke crying in the woods. Queenie approaches Brooke, relieved to see that she is alive, only for Brooke to bludgeon her to death with a rock. When Jon-Jon goes to investigate, Brooke also bludgeons him, rendering him unconscious. Brooke returns inside the house, where she stabs Smiler through the temple with a pencil, killing him. When Dickens goes to help him, Brooke lunges down the staircase with a butcher knife, and stabs Dickens in the chest. Jon-Jon regains consciousness and returns inside the house, where he finds an injured Dickens bound to a wall, where Brooke is preparing to perform a live [[autopsy]] on him. Jon-Jon incapacitates Brooke and frees Dickens, but she soon awakens. Armed with the butcher knife, Dickens leaps on top of her, and is impaled with a firepoker she is wielding; Brooke's throat is slashed in the process. Jon-Jon leaves the quarterback's jersey in the house, and returns home and hides in his bedroom.
At school the following day, police arrive when Brooke fails to appear. They enter the biology class, overseen by a [[substitute teacher]], and swiftly arrest the school quarterback. Jon-Jon is momentarily relieved, until he [[hallucination|hallucinate]]s that Brooke is the substitute teacher.
==Cast==
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* J.R. Horne as Coach Heaton
* Victoria Andahazy as Mink
* Cylk Cozart as Wide Receiver
}}
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===Critical reception===
{{expand section|date=June 2018}}
Richard Harrington from ''[[The Washington Post]]'' gave the film a negative review, writing, "Even within the limited expectations of the horror genre, it's not particularly satisfying, since the chills are all on the cheap. However, sitting through ''Hell High'' is likely to bring back at least one high school memory, that of a long, long, long detention, made worse because you have to pay for it."<ref name="harrington89">{{cite
Most reviews were negative. However, Brett Gallman on his website ''Oh, the Horror!'' considers it "a weird, gangly, messy perversion of 80s slashers", commending the film's darker narrative, performances, and dismantling of the typical slasher film formula.<ref name="gallman17">{{cite web |last= Gallman |first= Brett |title=Horror Reviews - Hell High (1989) |url=http://oh-the-horror.com/page.php?id=2102 |website=Oh, the Horror.com |publisher=Brett Gallman |access-date=5 June 2018}}</ref>
===Home media===
''Hell High'' was released on [[DVD]] by [[Shriek Show]] on July 13, 2004. It was later re-released by the company as a part of its three-disk, High School Horrors Pack on November 15, 2005.<ref name="allmoviedvd">{{cite web |title=Hell High (1987) - Douglas Grossman |url=https://www.allmovie.com/movie/hell-high-v22056/releases |publisher=AllMovie |access-date= June 5, 2018}}</ref> On July 18, 2022, [[Arrow Films]] released ''Hell High'' on [[Blu-ray]] in North America and the United Kingdom, featuring a new restoration from the original film elements.<ref>{{cite web|date=April 29, 2022|last=Squires|first=Jon|url=https://bloody-disgusting.com/home-video/3713058/1989-slasher-movie-hell-high-comes-back-to-life-on-arrow-video-blu-ray/|title=1989 Slasher Movie Hell High Comes Back to Life on Arrow Video Blu-ray|url-status=live|archive-date=July 22, 2022|archive-url=https://archive.today/20220722032152/https://bloody-disgusting.com/home-video/3713058/1989-slasher-movie-hell-high-comes-back-to-life-on-arrow-video-blu-ray/|work=[[Bloody Disgusting]]}}</ref>
==References==
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[[Category:1989 horror films]]
[[Category:1980s slasher films]]
[[Category:American films]]▼
[[Category:American high school films]]
[[Category:American independent films]]
[[Category:American slasher films]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Films about teacher–student relationships]]
[[Category:Films shot in New York (state)]]
[[Category:
[[Category:1980s English-language films]]
▲[[Category:1980s American films]]
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