Never Been Kissed

I feel that I must preface this recap by saying that I love this movie to pieces. It is one of the best of the unusually awesome crop of teen movies that sprung up in the late 90s/early 00s (see: Bring It On, 10 Things I Hate About You, etc.), only to be replaced by anemic and/or offensively bad romcoms (see: P.S. I Love You, Made of Honor, etc.) later in the decade. That said, I am about to rip this movie apart. But understand that I do it with love!



The movie starts at the end, with Drew Barrymore standing on the pitcher’s mound wearing a pretty pink dress. She VO’s that this is not one of those dream sequences that you think is real and then turns out to be a dream sequence. She was just trying to do her job, and then things happened. LIFE happened. And now she’s here, doing god knows what.

Anyhow, flash to the past! Or the present? Or whatever. The point is, Drew Barrymore is a dweeb. You can tell because she is wearing an unfortunate skirt suit and has brown hair. She exposits that she was the youngest copy editor at the Chicago Sun Times and nobody would ever pick her out of a crowd.

Drew’s assistant is some kind of weird 80s throwback yuppie d-bag who could only exist in the movies. Like, I think this guy might be Patrick Bateman’s weird Canadian cousin. He completely ignores her because she is frumpy and therefore does not deserve respect.

Drew’s slutty friend Molly Shannon bursts into her office to tell her about the latest guy she “did it” with. This is what I love about romantic comedies from this time period. They say things like “did it” instead of fucked and the whole movie is leading up to a kiss. Ah, innocence! If this movie were made today, it would be called The 25-Year-Old Virgin, the Molly Shannon character would be topless for 64% of the movie, and the John C. Reilly character would be a perv who propositions Drew twelve times per scene. I miss the 90s :(

So John C. Reilly comes in to boss Drew around because he’s her boss, and she corrects his grammar. He gives her a great face which says “If I look even slightly like I give a fuck, it is because I am barely containing my urge to stab you in the eye with a pencil, but since I think you might have Asperger’s I am contractually obligated to let it slide. Also, fuck my life.”



Drew chases JCR through the newsroom blabbing about how she has so many great ideas and he should just let her be a reporter already, but he doesn’t think that she can grab a bull’s balls (agreed). If this movie were made today, she would at some point actually have to grab a bull’s balls.

Molly Shannon tries to get Drew to go on a double date with some loser from the office, or at the very least, buy some colored underwear. Drew then reveals that she’s never had a REAL kiss. Their token sassy black coworker is here for the conversation so that she can make sassy comments. Drew goes on to describe what the kind of kiss she’s waiting for is and the music gets really sappy and there’s like, a glowing light around her. Meanwhile, I’m wondering howtf she would know what it’s like to get a great kiss if she hasn’t had one. Is this some kind of a priori knowledge I missed out on somehow? And do you think she might just get that kiss by the end of this movie? Maybe on a baseball field somewhere? Nah, I know; it’s too farfetched! Anyhow, at the end of her moving speech, Sassy Black Coworker says “Damn, girl; you are a writer!” Yeah, a writer of really bad romance novels for young adults, apparently.

And now, it’s time for a trip into Why Drew’s Life Is Empty and Meaningless.

A. She embroiders pillows in her spare time.
B. She has pet turtles.
C. She talks to her pet turtles
D. She lets her pet turtles tell her where to put the aforementioned embroidered pillows when she finishes them.

I personally don’t find that at all pathetic. It just seems like she has very useful and possibly magical pets.

The next day, Drew is at a big staff meeting. Garry Marshall is a very finely drawn and totally non-cliché newspaper boss dude. On opposite day. He starts the meeting by firing somebody just for LOLs. He then shares with the room that because he almost killed his child by feeding him peanuts, he thinks Drew should go undercover at a high school so that the world can learn what kids today are like.

Drew is pants-peeingly excited, but Molly Shannon and JCR think she is an incompetent loser and they basically shit all over her dreams. So she rubs it in their face that she taught them to speak Spanish and knit, respectively, so they should give her a chance. Apparently this argument is a lot better than it seems, because they’re like “Oh, I guess you’re right. You can do it!”

Drew is afraid that she won’t be able to fit in with the hep cats at her new high school unless she drives a shitty deathtrap like her brother David Arquette’s car, so she makes him trade cars with her.

And now, it’s time for a trip into Why David Arquette’s Life is Empty and Meaningless!

A. He works at a luau-themed packing supply store
B. He lives with his parents
C. Apparently going to community college is way too intense for him
D. He gave up playing baseball forever because he got mono once

I say fair enough on that one.

To get back at her for pointing out how pathetic his life is, he reminds her that she was a big fat loser in high school who people called “Josie Grossie.” This trip down memory lane makes her feel the need to puke, but she manages to correct his grammar on her way to the toilet. He kind of deserved it, though.

Flashback time! If you thought Drew was a nerd in the present, just wait until you see her in the 80s! Hey, wait a second! She is supposed to be 25 years old, and this is taking place in 1999. Which would mean that the oldest she could have been in the 80s was 15. But, as we learn later, these flashbacks are taking place her senior year. So either:

A. Drew can bend time and space
B. She graduated three years early, or
C. She went to high school in Canada, where the 90s just looked like the 80s

Seriously, they’re playing “She Bop” in this scene and that shit is from the first half of the 80s. But I digress. Drew in the 80s not only has brown hair, but she has FRIZZY brown hair and BRACES. You can’t get much dweebier than that.

In the past, she had a crush on some blonde d-bag named Billy who looks like he’s graduating at least five years late. She goes up to him, giggling, to offer him math notes, but some meanies have poured some product placement into her backpack to make it looks like she’s peeing her pants. Which, despite their camera tricks, it really doesn’t at all.



Back in the present, Drew is thinking that this is a very bad idea.

She, like any sensible girl in the late 90s, consults Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover to discover her inner diva! CVM tells her that she would look hot if only she had blonde hair, lots of makeup and fashionable clothes straight from the runway. She heads off to her first day wearing some heinous matchy-matchy white on white monstrosity with a built in feather boa. Even worse, she’s wearing FROSTED LIPSTICK. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA, DREW? KILL THEM! SERIOUSLY!

It’s Drew’s first day, and she’s already managed to look like a total spazz by showing up in David Arquette’s shitty car and her crazy outfit. Everybody has to walk through a metal detector on their way in to school. Unforunately, Drew is too busy thinking about turtles or pocket protectors or something to notice, so she walks right into Andrew Wilson who is basically playing a slightly sterner version of Coach Beck from Rushmore here. He searches her bag and finds, among other things, her top secret spy dictaphone:



Because it’s her first day and she doesn’t know where she’s going, Drew is late to her first class. Her wacky, menopausal teacher cannot grasp the logic behind this and forces her to put on the “late sombrero” and then makes her introduce herself to the class. The popular girls waste no time in mocking her outfit, which, fair enough. Also mockable is the fact that in the middle of telling the class where she’s from, she hallucinates that the d-bag of her high school dreams walks in and therefore says she’s from “Billy.” The guy is actually Guy, who looks absolutely nothing like Billy but apparently is “hot.” Drew covers up her mistake by telling everybody that she’s from Bali, which is totally believable because of her tan. Or not.

After class, “Cool Magnet” by Local H plays in the background which is awesome because that song rules and is like, appropriate to the situation or whatever. Totally unrelated side note: whenever I make a girly cocktail I get this song in my head because that album came out when I was 13 and I didn’t know anything about the demon alcohol, and it was therefore the first time I heard of Triple Sec. I digress! Drew tapes over her bulls’ balls affirmation with a sombrero death threat.

It’s time for English class! And guess what, guys? Her teacher is a stone fox. Like, off the charts hot.



His name’s Mr. Coulson, but you can call him Sam because he is hip and young and wants to defy authority with their silly, arbitrary rules about appropriate relationships between teachers and students. And you’ll never believe what they’re studying this semester: Shakespeare’s As You Like It! Do you think there might be some like, thematic parallels about disguise or something? Nah, too farfetched. Also, I think I just realized why teen movies were so much better in the 90s. They were all secretly based off of classic literature (see also: Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You)!

I have to warn you guys, you’re going to be shocked by how nerdy the girl who offers to share her book with Drew is. She’s tall, thin and beautiful, but GASP! She’s wearing GLASSES and a HEADBAND (actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Blair Waldorf wearing that very same headband; my how times change!) and her hair is in a dowdy PONYTAIL. It’s making me sick just to look at her.

Mr. Coulson asks if anybody knows what “pastoral comedy” means, and this chick who is apparently on the low end of being functionally retarded answers “Oh, yeah, that’s what they do to milk!” and when told that she is thinking of “pasteurized,” desperately responds “PARAKEET?!?”

Being a top notch undercover reporter, Drew has no qualms about reciting the entire Oxford English Dictionary entry on “pastoral” which totally gives Mr. Coulson a strange feeling in his pants, because he's a nerd like that. Knowing how stupid kids today are, Mr. Coulson asks Drew if she’s sure she’s 17. I mean, maybe she doesn’t know! It’s not at all a stupid question.


Drew goes to lunch and is appalled by the cafeteria food. Like, I’m so sure that they were serving gourmet cuisine at her Canadian high school in 1992.

She bravely decides to dive right into the lions’ den and sits herself down at a table with Jessica Alba, Marley Shelton and some brunette chick who never did anything else with her life. Being ever so slick (not to mention fantastic at investigative journalism), she asks them what their hopes and dreams are, and she finds the question so exciting that she manages to spill chocolate milk all over her white pants. Now, that doesn’t need any fancy camera tricks to be embarrassing!

Guy comes up to the table and because apparently 17 year old boys are supposed to be attractive to 25 year old women, Drew completely loses her shit and says some accidental rhyme about what a babe he is, or something. It’s just wrong. He asks if she’s in special ed, to which I say if Parakeet Girl isn’t in special ed, they probably don’t have it at this school. Anyhow, everybody indulges a hearty chuckle at this accidental hilarity and Drew sheds a single solitary tear, in her mind. If this movie were made today, she would have somehow ended up accidentally topless in front of the whole school.

She tries to make a dignified exit, but some dork ruins it by answering her rhetorical “HOW OLD AM I?!?” He gets a D+ for accuracy, and somewhere Mr. Coulson is saying “See, I knew she didn’t know!”

Because this is movie world, and everything that could possibly go wrong always goes wrong in the course of one day, Drew leaves school only to find that David Arquette’s shitty-ass car was stolen. She of the Dorky Headband and book-sharing tendencies, Aldys, tells her that the cool kids stage reenactments of Gone in 60 Seconds during passing period or some totally unbelievable shit. Even more unbelievable is the fact that we’re meant to believe that high school kids in the late 90s have never heard of Josie and the Pussycats, which we discover when Drew tells Aldys what she was named after. Please! They made an entire popular feature film about it like one year later. Get your topical references in order, writers!

Drew practically weeps with gratitude when Aldys offers to go get some coffee with her. But seriously, can’t you console yourself by remembering that you are a grown-ass woman with a sweet job? Get it together, Drew!

Aldys is such a dork that she doesn’t find Drew’s non sequitur questions about her hopes and dreams at all strange. And she also has the most ludicrous, ADD hopes and dreams of all time: “I want to be a professor of medieval literature, I want to be a novelist, I want to be a weekend flautist, I want to be a potter, I want to be a painter, I want to be an architect… and I want to go to Northwestern!” I think she left off astronaut and racecar driver, but she pretty much covered everything else.

Drew gets a call from JCR, who is knitting while he talks to her. Apparently she thinks she’s found the story of the century: The Terrible Truth About Coleslaw. JCR wisely says that “unless some kid just killed himself because he was getting paid to have sex with the school mascot in a big vat of that coleslaw, you’ve got nothing!”


Drew and Aldys find David Arquette’s car in the middle of the football field. Great job hiding it, Guy & Co. How ever did they find it there? We get a better look at Aldys’s outfit: patterned leggings, some kind of plaid baggy strapless dress and a button down pinstripe shirt. Seriously, that shit is straight off the 2010 runways. Fashion pioneer!

Aldys invites Drew to join the Denominators (their school’s version of Mathletes), which is totally cheating. She’s a ringer! Although, howtf does she remember calculus after all these years? That disturbs me. But Drew is happy because she’s finally found a clique.

Back to Mr. Coulson’s class! Thank goodness! He gives a lecture about how being in costume is liberating. GET IT, DREW?!? Mickey from 2gether is humiliated because Mr. Coulson points out that he touches other guys’ butts on the football field. What a dick!



But he says it’s ok, because of the uniform. According to Mr. Coulson’s very special story from his youth, it is also ok to assault people if you are wearing a special hockey helmet.

Mr. Coulson has Drew read a passage from As You Like It which causes her to have a spontaneous 80s flashback. Seriously, did she spend all of the early 90s on LSD or something? Anyway, she remembers reciting a really bad love poem about Billy in front of their class. Later, in the library, her dorky friend tells her that she heard Billy is going to ask her to prom. She thinks he liked the poem and basically shits herself.

Back in the present, the class president comes on the intercom and reminds everybody not to go to the library because of the “little asbestos problem” which is actually like, totally true to life. When I was in junior high in the late 90s, they had to cordon off a whole wing of the school because some punk kid spilled mercury in the hall and they had to pull up the tiles to get at it and they pulled up all of this asbestos. This movie is like my life!

Anyhow, she goes on to announce that the prom theme chosen by the students is the Millennium. Everybody goes nuts, and Aldys explains to Drew that their school competes with some other school for best prom every year, so the theme has to be totally unique. So that’s a big fail on their part. I’m sure no other school could possibly think of the Millennium as a theme in the year 1999. I’m beginning to think this whole school is special ed.

Guy declares that the prom is going to be “totally Rufus,” which is his new hip word. Stop trying to make Rufus happen, Guy!

That night, Drew and Aldys are driving around with some random unidentified 11-year-old who I guess they must have picked up on the side of the road, listening to “Free to Be You and Me.”



They pass the old drive-in, now called the Court where the cool kids hang out, boozing and schmoozing. They slow down to stare at it and Guy comes up to tell them that they’re not cool enough to hang out there. They drive away and call it lame about seven times and then start laughing hysterically.

Meanwhile, back at the office, JCR is pissed because the Tribune ran an expose about the Court which means that Drew is failing at her job. He tells her that she has to be friends with the popular kids because that’s where the stories are. He says something about her “getting jiggy” with them, but I think it might not be entirely professional to participate in a high school orgy, JCR. You might want to rethink that statement!

Drew is distressed because all she wants to do is hang out with her nerdy friends, never mind that they’re teenagers and she’s supposed to be actually doing a job.


Drew comes home to find that David Arquette has broken into her apartment to watch baseball. It’s perfect timing, though, because she’s in desperate need of a pep talk. He has her yell “I’m not Josie Grossie anymore!” and it seems to be very cathartic. He advises her that all she needs to do is get one person to think she’s cool, and then everybody will like her.

Because she is a total spazz and her coworkers rightfully don’t trust her to get the story herself, her employers have sent somebody to monitor her from a creepy kidnap van outside the school. From now on she has to wear a hidden camera so JCR can watch the tapes and tell her what her story is. Because her kidnap van coworker, George, is black and has dreadlocks, he gets to say fun things like “Damn! They didn’t look that good when I went to high school!” while Drew walks behind the popular girls.

Today in English class, Drew gets to read her essay on As You Like It out loud to the class. How long have they been studying this damn play anyway? And since when do they make you read your essay out loud in high school? Mr. Coulson gazes at her lovingly while she reads about how Rosalind can see through the disguises of others and fall in love and blah blah blah. It’s all very thematic.

Molly Shannon is watching back at the office and it gets her thinking that she wants to “do it” with JCR, apparently, because when he walks in she starts asking him leading questions about whether he’s ever been in love and if he wants her to stay late to help him with his work tonight. If this movie were made today, they would have sex on his desk and Drew would walk in on them.

In the hallway, Aldys gets on Drew’s case about not wearing her Denominators sweatshirt and Drew promises to meet up with her after school. But then Drew gets distracted by Guy talking about going to see some reggae band, which James Franco says will be “Rufalicious.” Because nothing says cool like a bunch of white teenagers going to a reggae show at an all ages club! Anyhow, Drew is like “Fuck my nerdy friends! I’m going to listen to some reggae!”

In one of the more labored and awkward setups for a future gag, Drew tells the door guy at the club that she won’t be drinking because she’s only 17, and he stamps “Delloser” on her hand, which is the name of the club. I’m not sure what kind of club stamps your hand when you’re NOT allowed to drink. I’ve sure never been to one. Side note: for years after seeing this movie, I though “delloser” was a word for somebody who didn’t drink.

Because this is a movie, not only are all of the cool kids from school there, but Drew’s creepy assistant and Mr. Coulson are there as well. Mr. Coulson’s bitch-ass girlfriend is also there, doing nothing but complaining about how gross the club is and shitting all over everything he likes. She tells Drew that Mr. Coulson will be moving to New York to be with her pretty soon and Mr. Coulson is like “Kill me now.” If one character deserves to have her grammar corrected by Drew, it’s this bitch, but for some reason it doesn’t happen. Drew does a jealous frowny face for one second before bopping around the room looking for someone to impress with her coolness.

Unfortunately the popular girls don’t respond well to her cloying compliments on their dancing, so she sits at a table full of Rastafarians and they feed her a pot brownie. The pot brownie causes her to get up on stage and do a humiliating dance involving spanking herself and doing the splits. James Franco is the only person making the appropriate face in reaction to this.



Mr. Coulson watches from the balcony and chuckles to himself like “Oh, these kids!” but he’s totally into it.

At home that night, Drew eats an entire pie and gushes to David Arquette about how cool she was. She falls asleep with her face on her hand and wakes up with “loser” stamped on her forehead. Apparently she didn’t feel it was necessary to change her outfit for school, and walks down the hallway to jeers of “loser!” I think last night’s clothes were probably reason enough for the jeering on their own.

When she discovers the stamp on her head she feels the need to vomit again. Apparently vomiting makes her feel very sentimental because she has yet another flashback. It’s prom night and she’s wearing a ludicrous dress.



Billy pulls up to her house in a limo and throws an egg at her head while his actual date cheers.



She’s so upset by these memories that she literally runs down the hall crying and is stopped by a door opening in her face.

David Arquette is here! He’s decided to go back to high school too. He admits straight off that he just wants to play baseball. On a high school baseball team. At the age of 23. Apparently the Gellars have no qualms about being ringers. Anyway, he figures that as long as he’s around, he may as well help Drew become cool by becoming popular himself.

How does he accomplish this? By beating Mickey from 2gether in a cole slaw eating contest, of course. And because nothing says hot like being covered in cole slaw, a 16-year-old gymnast named Tracy immediately latches on to him. Because it wasn’t bad enough that we had a grown man falling for what he thinks is his 17-year-old student. We have to have this shit now. INNAPROPRIATE! If this movie were made today, though, this would all be gender reversed and it would be touted as a cougar comedy.

Aldys is like “Wheretf were you last night?!?!? You were supposed to do calculus with me!” and Drew is like “Dude I was tripping balls and slapping my ass on stage at a reggae show” and Aldys is like “Well, fuck you, then” and shuns her from the nerd table in the cafeteria.

It’s time for the senior carnival! Mr. Coulson throws a pie in Mickey from 2gether’s face to raise money for the prom. Drew get on the Ferris wheel and the operator, when he finds out she’s alone, starts yelling about there being a lonely ride in bucket five. Now comes the most problematic scene in this entire movie.

Mr. Coulson sees Drew sitting pathetically by herself and joins her. He is terrified of Ferris wheels, but he wants to fuck his apparently 17-YEAR-OLD STUDENT so much that he is willing to go on one just to be alone with her. You think that’s creepy? It’s about to get a whole lot worse. From the bucket in front of them, Jessica Alba’s douchey boyfriend, who has a ridiculous bouffant hairdo, then utters what is probably my favorite line in the whole movie for reasons I cannot fully explain: “If the bucket’s a rockin’, don’t come a kn-kn-kn-kn-knockin’! Mr. Coulson rocks my world!” It’s just so fun to say. Really. Try it.

Anyhow, Mr. Coulson is like “Boys!” all rolling his eyes and stuff, like he’s thinking “What you need is a MAN! Preferably one who likes hockey and Shakespeare.” He then segues into dishing about his relationship problems. TO HIS STUDENT. He’s all “My girlfriend of five years wants me to actually commit to her by living in the same state, but then how would I get away with hitting on my students all the time? She is trying to take my freedom away!” and Drew is like “What a bitch!” and then Mr. Coulson is like “Oh, LOL, I guess I probably shouldn’t be telling you this shit since it’s completely inappropriate” and Drew is like “It’s nice to have somebody to talk to!” and he’s like “LOL ME TOO!” and then I have to type this next part word for word so you know that I am not exaggerating the creepiness:

Mr. Coulson: Well, all I can tell you is that when you’re my age, guys will be lined up around the block for you!
Drew: You have to say that because you’re my teacher.
Mr. Coulson: Actually, I shouldn’t say that because I’m your teacher.



Let me clarify that the first thing he said isn’t completely terrible. It’s probably inappropriate but on its own it’s harmless. But by saying he shouldn’t say that because he’s her teacher, he’s basically admitting that what he means by it is that he wants to fuck her. But of course it gives Drew one hundred warm fuzzies.

At school, David Arquette starts spreading ridiculous stories about Drew to make people think that she’s cool, one of which is that she used to date the drummer of the Big Bad Voodoo Daddies which is a hilariously dated reference. In science class, one of the popular girls stares at a skeleton and declares “Just water and Ex-Lax until prom.” David Arquette tells her that Drew’s dad invented Ex-Lax (at least he didn’t say Post-It Notes) and that she spends every summer in the south of France. Apparently these things are supposed to make her cool, but people aren’t totally convinced until David Arquette says that he and Drew used to date. Seriously, it’s like the writers tried to come up with the creepiest things possible to put in this movie.


Apparently South Glen South doesn’t have an actual health class, because Mr. Coulson is in charge of supervising sex-ed day. Molly Shannon has popped by to say hi to Drew and is mistaken for Pam, the speaker for the day. Hilarity ensues. I remember watching this movie on VHS with my parents after it came out and being SO embarrassed to watch this scene with them. I might have even fast-forwarded through it. Fast forward to my college years, and I started watching things like Entourage and Wedding Crashers with my mom without batting an eye. My, how times have changed!

Anyway, Molly Shannon actually does a passable job of teaching the kids to please not have sex, but wear a condom. Tracy tells Drew that she thinks she’s ready to have sex, despite the fact that she is failing miserably at putting a condom on a banana. Drew is understandably horrified and tells her about penguins who mate for life and then accidentally hits Mr. Coulson in the face with a condom. Drew wants to crawl in a hole and die, but Mr. Coulson is probably just turned on.

The class president comes on the intercom to announce the most shocking news of all time: East Glen East has chosen Millennium as their prom theme! OMG, do you think they have somebody undercover at South Glen South, too? There’s no possible way this could have happened otherwise! Everybody panics, except Mickey from 2gether who just happily eats his penis banana.



Guy decides that to prove her coolness, Drew can choose a new theme. She suggests “Meant for Each Other: Famous Couples Throughout History” which is actually not a terrible idea, if you don’t mind prom being a costume party. Mr. Coulson is wondering whether he can convince Drew to go with him as Woody and Soon-Yi.

Drew is officially one of the Plastics now. She walks down the hall holding hands with Jessica Alba and Marley Shelton and brunette chick (actually, I just looked up the brunette chick on IMDB and she’s Cheryl Ladd’s daughter and has done a lot of acting since this movie, apparently; I just haven’t seen any of it!) and goes to the mall with them, which means they’re basically BFF.

For some reason Drew and Mr. Coulson are painting a sunset backdrop for something and they get super inappropriate with each other. Like if an actual teacher behaved this way with a student he would absolutely be fired. They giggle and flirtily dab paint on each other’s faces and shit. If this weren’t so creepy, it would be adorable. Back at the Sun Times, everybody is watching the live feed from JCR's office.



At the mall, Drew tells JCR another stupid story idea and then suggests to her new BFFs that they all buy the same ugly cardigan. I have seen this movie probably at least 30 times, but this is the first time I ever noticed that the popular girls are now all wearing wing pins like the one Drew has her hidden camera in! When they pass by Aldys on the escalator, she (rightly) calls them all lemmings. Drew looks hurt, but the other girls are just trying to figure out if that’s an insult or not.

At baseball practice, Coach Oblivious tells David Arquette that he’ll be starting in the state championship and that there will be scouts there. Seriously, how has nobody noticed how old this guy is?!? The girls watch baseball practice from the bleachers and Guy sits nearby playing his acoustic guitar and gazing lovingly at Drew.



The girls tell Drew that she has “transitioned” and that Guy is “totally crunching” on her. I’m pretty sure that that’s not something anybody actually ever said, even in the 90s.


Drew’s newfound popularity has turned her into even more of a weirdo than she already was. She wears stupid outfits to work, says Rufus in a staff meeting and basically has regressed which is apparently supposed to show us that she’s been liberated from her mundane existence as an intelligent and successful young woman. Buzzkill time! Garry Marshall says that he wants her story in two weeks or else she and JCR are both fired. SO not Rufus! I can’t believe what a hardass this guy is. He sends somebody to do an undercover piece and expects her to actually do something other than find herself? What a dick!

David Arquette decides to throw kegger at his parents’ house. Which is also his house. This guy is twice as pathetic as his sister. Even worse, Tracy tells Drew that David Arquette just asked her to prom. Drew points out that she’s 16, and he’s just like “I know; score! Plus she’s a gymnast so she’s going to be GREAT in the sack.” I swear, this movie is like, 20% romantic comedy and 80% cautionary tale about statutory rape.

Guy asks Drew to come upstairs with him so he can ask her to prom. She is really excited and says yes. I guess she and Mr. Coulson are perfect for each other; they are both going to end up on To Catch a Predator someday. Strangely, despite the fact that he just brought her into a bedroom at a keg party and asked her out, he doesn’t try to make a move, which is a relief. If this movie were made today, they probably would have “done it.”

The next day at school, Drew and David Arquette walk down the hall smiling like fools because they’ve both managed to achieve their dream: being a popular kid in high school. This is just depressingly pathetic, guys.

Mr. Coulson pulls Drew aside to tell her that he got her a meeting with the “admissions guy” from Dartmouth (because clearly, there’s only one for the whole school) and she’s like “Uh… I wasn’t going to go to college” and he’s like “But you have to; you’re so brilliant!” and she’s like “OMG, you believe in me! Swoon!”

JCR watches the tape of this conversation and finally picks up on the fact that Mr. Coulson is the most inappropriate teacher of all time. He tells Drew that this is her story: Pedos at Large in Our Education System. She’s all like “LOL JCR, you are sooooo wrong about us. Sam and I are just pals... I mean, teacher and student! I mean, he didn’t even respond to my ‘Do you like me? Check yes or no’ note!” JCR lays down the law. If she doesn’t write this story, they both get fired.

Prom night! Drew is wearing a boob-tastic Renaissance Faire-looking dress and David Arquette is dressed as Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Because the only thing that could make the 23-year-old taking a 16-year-old to prom thing even worse than it already is is to take pants out of the equation. But Drew just LOLs, because she clearly has no creepy radar.

Guy pulls up to the house and for a second Drew thinks she’s going to get egged again, but he’s holding a white carnation. You couldn’t spring for a rose, Guy? Somebody’s not getting laid tonight!

Prom is looking more like Halloween than prom, with Mickey from 2gether and Parakeet Girl dressed as the tortoise and the hare and all of the popular girls dressed as different iterations of Barbie. They are totally baffled by Drew and Guy’s costumes (Rosalind and Orlando) even though As You Like It is apparently the only thing they studied in the entire last semester of English. Guy tells them that he gets to carry a sword, and then they’re all on board.

Back at the office, apparently the presses have stopped as every employee of the Chicago Sun Times is watching the South Glen South prom from the point of view of Drew’s left breast.

David Arquette dances with his Jailbait Date who is clearly drunk. They sit down and she puts her leg over her head and propositions him. David Arquette finally realizes how inappropriate this entire situation is and gently shuts her down.

The Denominators arrive, and they’re dressed as DNA. Cheryl Ladd’s daughter is like “THEIR MERE PRESENCE HAS DESTROYED MY ENTIRE PROM!”

Mr. Coulson and Miss Knox (apparently the only two teachers at the entire school) get on stage to announce the prom court. I bet we’re all about to be really surprised in a minute. The prom “princesses” are Jessica Alba, Marley Shelton and Cheryl Ladd’s daughter. OMG, I wonder who the prom queen could be? I bet it’s Parakeet Girl. The prom “princes” are Bouffant Hairdo Guy, James Franco and David Arquette. BTW, James Franco is wearing a pink suit to prom, which is amazing. The prom king is Guy! Who would have guessed!

With a lascivious twinkle in his eye, Mr. Coulson announces that Drew is the prom queen! I guess she can probably die happy now. Everybody is very happy for her, though, and even Aldys claps which is sweet. As he gives her the crown, Mr. Coulson also checks out her rack.



The prom king and queen have their first dance to “Erase/Rewind” by The Cardigans (which ended up on pretty much every mix CD I made for the two years after I saw this movie). Guy is like “LOL, Drew, U R so awesome. What R U thinking about?” and she like quotes an entire verse of Shakespeare and he’s like “I just lost my boner” and she’s like “What are you thinking about?” and he’s like “My sword.” She finally realizes that her high school paramour is a HIGH SCHOOL BOY and is like “LOL my bad.” Mr. Coulson watches them dancing and looks forlorn.

Drew goes to get some cake and is accosted by Mr. Coulson and he’s like “OMG, Drew, you make a beautiful prom queen” and she’s like “OMG, Mr. Coulson, you too! I mean you make a really beautiful sexual predator! I mean… cake?” So then Mr. Coulson is like “I feel like I’m at my own wedding in this suit. Wanna dance?” Meanwhile, Guy is asking Aldys to dance as a way to put aside their differences and be adults. Under her coverall, Aldys is wearing a skintight, electric blue catsuit. She is seriously better looking than any of the popular girls. Movies are so dumb, sometimes.

So anyway, “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths starts playing. Seriously, what kind of prom was playing any other Cardigans song than “Lovefool” or any Smiths song at all? I call bullshit.

Drew and Mr. Coulson are dancing and Mr. Coulson is like “Prom makes me sad because all of my hot students are leaving and I can’t sexually harass them anymore” and Drew is like “Is your GF here?” and he’s like “LOL no I dumped that bitch, she was too old” and Drew is like “LOL did you know ‘prom’ comes from ‘promenade’ and you totally can’t promenade alone!” and Mr. Coulson is like “OMG I could listen to you talk about stupid word origin shit for days.”

Then Drew is like “Oh, BTW, I have something I have to tell you” and she disconnects her camera and everybody in the office is like



and Mr. Coulson is like “I have something to tell you too” and I’m like



I mean, seriously, at least wait until after graduation, dude! AHHH! Luckily, Drew becomes distracted by the smell of dog food, which is about to be thrown onto Aldys by the popular kids. She has another flashback to getting egged and is like “NOT ON MY WATCH, BITCHES!” and runs away from Mr. Coulson before he can confess his love. She deflects the flying dog food in midair so that it falls all over the popular girls. They are like “AGHHHHHHHHHHHH! YOU ARE A LOSER DREW!!! YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE PROM QUEEN!”

Drew takes off her crown and throws it on the ground, preparing to embark on a big motivational speech. She basically says “LOL, I don’t give a fuck about being prom queen you d-bags! I’m 25 and I’m an undercover reporter for the Chicago Sun Times!” and as soon as he hears the 25 years old part Mr. Coulson runs out of there like lightning. Then she’s like “You guys are dumb. You only liked me because my brother David Arquette told you to, BTW he is not a high school student. Also, you are all bitches and Aldys is cool and will be far more successful than you in life because you guys suck. Peace!”

David Arquette is like “Woah guys, that was just like Carrie” and everybody is just like “WTF dude, get out of here” and he leaves.

Outside, Mr. Coulson is sitting by himself looking emo. That’s what happens when you play The Smiths at prom! Anyway, he overhears Drew telling George that she didn’t get the story and he’s like “Please tell me you got something on Coulson!” and Mr. Coulson is like *tear* :(

Drew sees him and is like “Surprise!” Literally, she says that. And he’s like “Did you think that I would be happy that you’re legal? I’m only into underage girls!” She’s all like “But you were attracted to me?” and he’s like “YOU SET ME UP!!! EVERYTHING WE’VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER WAS A LIE! I DON’T KNOW YOU AT ALL!!!” Drew is all frowny face, like “But we can spend some time together and you can get to know me!” and he’s like “I can’t look at you the same way anymore, now that you aren’t a pure and innocent 17-year-old. Begone!”

David Arquette is waiting for Drew at home to bitch her out about ruining his stupid plans of becoming a pro baseball player through lies and deceit.


At the office the next day, JCR shows her a story the Tribune ran about her blowing her cover, but she’s like “We’re not screwed, JCR. I’m gonna write an amazing story!”

Drew goes back to South Glen South in a sensible pantsuit and brimming with confidence. She walks through the boys’ locker room and is like “Cover up your bits, boys; independent woman coming through! P.S. Remember how I was in your English class yesterday?” She goes up to Coach Oblivious and promises that she’ll get all the big shot reporters to cover the state championship in exchange for an unspecified favor.

Then she goes home to write her article, which is basically a recap of everything we’ve seen in the movie: she was a loser who got dissed by the cute boy in high school, she’s never really kissed a guy, and she went undercover at a high school and discovered that it’s exactly the same as the 80s/90s/whenever the fuck she was in high school. But OMG, she also hurt a certain teacher who she thinks she’s in love with, so could he please come give her her first real kiss on the pitcher’s mound at the state championship?

While we listen to Drew read her article aloud, we see that everybody in the entire city of Chicago is reading her article, except for Mr. Coulson who is packing up his apartment. He’s wrapping his old hockey trophies in newspaper… the very issue containing Drew’s article! OMG, what if he doesn’t see it? I’m on pins and needles :(

It’s the night of the game, and OMG, Drew is wearing the pink dress from the beginning of the movie. We’ve finally made it to the end. Molly Shannon and Aldys are like “You can do it! This is so romantic and not at all weird!” Coach Oblivious is like “Way to go, Drew! You got all the reporters to come! Now go out there and get ‘im!” and then he slaps her ass.

She takes the field and the crowd goes wild. The popular kids are like “Drew, we love you!” and I’m like WTF, I thought you hated her because she spilled dog food on you at prom and then told you you were a bunch of worthless bitches in front of the whole school. Whatevs. There are five minutes on the clock.

When it gets down to 15 seconds people are like “Oh crap, this is about to get awkward.”


Time runs out and everybody’s like “Uh… that sucks.” Jessica Alba is like “That is so wrong!” I’m so glad somebody finally realized that this entire situation is creepy and wrong!

Drew is super bummed, but suddenly the crowd goes wild. Mr. Coulson comes bounding onto the field as “Don’t Worry Baby” by the Beach Boys starts playing which is really a great song choice for this scene. “Well it’s been building up inside of me for oh I don’t know how long” – 25 years, right Drew? So Mr. Coulson goes right up and kisses her and the crowd gets blurry and he’s like “Oh BTW, sorry I’m late. It took me forever to get here!” and Drew is like “Imagine how long it was for me; I was just humiliated in front of all these people!” but then he kisses her again and she is like “ILU 4ever.”



Inspired by their love, everybody in the crowd starts making out with each other: JCR and Molly Shannon, Jessica Alba and Bouffant Hairdo Guy, Drew’s creepy assistant and some mousy chick from the office. David Arquette is in the dugout wearing an “Assistant Coach” jacket so I guess Drew decided to help make his life slightly less pathetic, although I strongly doubt he’s going to be able to leave the Tiki Post or move out of his parents’ house as result. Baby steps.

The team runs out on the field, but Drew and Mr. Coulson aren’t done making out. I sure wouldn’t want to be the one to shoo them off the field. Fade out, and the end.

And now, the more appropriate movie poster:

Gothika

So, I'm not very good at keeping promises, am I? Sorry about the long break. Yentl really broke my spirit, but the magic of Gothika has given me back my desire to recap and LOL.





Eerie music. A heartbeat. A voice! “He came back again last night and tore me like paper. He opened me like a flower of pain and it felt good.” Who knew Penelope Cruz could be so creepy? She waxes poetic about rape for a while longer to an impassive Halle Berry, her psychologist.

So apparently Penelope is always telling Halle that the devil is raping her, but Halle just wants to talk about how Penelope killed her stepfather. Penelope has this to say: “I cut his Adam’s apple in half like a piece of fruit on a summer day.” Adam’s apple… piece of fruit… I see what she did there! A single solitary tear of joy runs down her face as she talks about watching him die. This movie is dark shit, man.

Penelope is frustrated because she doesn't think Halle is listening with her heart. Somebody needs a visit to Grandmother Willow! Penelope whines that Halle doesn’t trust her. Halle says Penelope needs to trust her too. Penelope counters “You can’t trust someone who thinks you’re crazy.” Hmm… do you think that line might come back to haunt us?

The session ends and Halle walks through the dark and ominous looking looney-bin/prison. In case the cells and guards didn’t tip you off and in case the employees are morons, this sign hangs on the wall:

Produced by Susan Levin, now Susan Downey. Lucky. Unrelated, does anybody else always want to call her “Susan Downey Jr.” or is it just me?

Halle walks into an office where a bearded old British dude in a sweater worthy of Taylor Doose is looking over some paperwork. She tries to set up a meeting with him for the next day and leaves. This scene is completely pointless. Seriously.

As the credits tell us that the movie is directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, better known as Nino Quincampoix from Amelie, better known to me as “Nino Chickenpox,” Halle walks into another office. She tells the man in it, Doug, that she needs to talk about Penelope who is “embellishing her rape story again.” That’s one way of putting it. So she starts psycho-babbling about remorse and repressing feelings and shit so we know she’s a super brilliant psychologist, in case the boring hair and frumpy outfit didn’t already clue us in to that. She describes Penelope’s rants as “satanic meanderings” which in addition to being a much better description would also make a good name for an emo metal band. If such a thing exists.

Halle tries to argue that they shouldn’t pump Penelope and the other prisoners so full of pills and we get an example of some truly great screenwriting:

Doug: Chloe’s mind only runs on one track.

Halle: Well right now my mind is running on empty!

Masterful.

Doug calls her over to the mirror and tells her she has a brilliant mind. Then he says some weirdass riddle about Penelope being a distorted image and Halle being a mirror and himself being God. It’s dumb. So then he eats her face which is how we learn that they’re married.

Then Robert Downey Jr. walks in on them making out. Awkward! Doug says he and Halle were talking about repression as a survival tool. RDJ smartasses about wanting to repress the memory of a bad date. What a charming, roguish guy!

Doug starts to leave, saying he’s going to some place called Willow Creek to meet a contractor. He tells RDJ to keep an eye on his wife and gives him a cigar. OMG, phalluses and shit! Freud! Psychology! He cuts off the end of RDJ’s cigar and refers to it as “circumcising it” for him. WTF. How emasculating! He says “Smoke it tonight, while it’s fresh.” RDJ wants to smoke Halle tonight, while she’s fresh. He communicates this with his eyes because he is a great actor.

As he walks away, Doug calls out “Goodnight, kids!” which is an uber-creepy thing to say to your wife.

RDJ charmingly tries to get Halle to share a pizza with him but gets shot down. RDJ says she has to eat and she giggles and tosses her hair joyfully and sing-songs “Not with you!” It’s like the second grade. Poor RDJ closes with “Come on, we’re supposed to celebrate! I just got… circumcised.” He is the only bright light in this creepy dungeon. I will get some pizza with you, Dr. Graham!

Halle walks to the hospital part of the prison and talks with some nurse about how they upped somebody else’s meds. All right, Nino Chickenpox, we get it; the prisoners are all high as kites! Halle doesn’t approve.

She goes into her office and starts working away while a thunderstorm rages outside. Eventually the power goes out and she says “Damn the generator! Not again!” I think the generator is on as many drugs as the patients because as Halle walks through the building, the lights keep flickering on and off. Last I checked that’s not what happens when the generator breaks, but whatever. It’s oh so creepy. A nurse passing by actually says “This electric system’s gonna give us some trouble!” OMG, I wonder if that’s like, foreshadowing or something. Probably not.

Halle tells the nurse she’s going to go for her swim. What kind of looney-bin/prison has a pool? And who goes swimming when the electricity is acting up? Brilliant!

As she leaves the building she has a friendly chat with the security guard about how many laps she swam. She gets outside and seems surprised that it’s pouring rain even though it has been for pretty much the entire day. Nino then tries to freak us out by having RDJ suddenly open an umbrella right behind her. She is scared, but the rest of us are just pleasantly surprised. They make small talk about some date he went on that sucked. He pointedly says something about “when you know, you know” and then offers to follow her down the hill I guess because the weather is bad or whatever. It’s cute.

She drives up to a road block and chats familiarly with some cop who tells her there’s a sinkhole and that she should take a detour to a bridge where he fishes with her husband sometimes. The bridge is predictably creepy. She calls Doug to tell her she’s almost home but loses the connection, right as a creepy blonde in a nightie appears in the middle of the road. Halle screams and crashes the car into a ditch. She climbs out of the car to see if the creepy blonde is okay. She is, but unfortunately when Halle comes up to her she bursts into flames and lunges at her.

Halle wakes up with a start and OMFGWTFWTF she’s in the very looney-bin/prison where she works! Quelle horreur! She’s wearing an extremely short hospital gown that’s falling off one shoulder and her hair is a mess. She does look hotter, though, which was probably the point.

RDJ walks by the cell and she screams at him that he better tell her why she’s in there. She’s suddenly become slightly ghetto. She kicks the wall and shouts “BRING YOUR ASS IN HERE!”

He obeys and goes into her cell. He looks bummed even though she’s now sitting on a bench with her legs open. Didn’t her mom ever teach her how to sit in a skirt? He says something about it being awkward and how he technically shouldn’t be treating her. No shit! But he just wants to help. He can barely even look at her, though. Or maybe since her junk is pretty much on display he’s just trying to be a gentleman.

He tells her she’s been there three days and that she was all kinds of crazy for a while and then catatonic for a while and it’s the first time he’s seen her lucid. She’s still all “Whytf am I in here?” but RDJ is evasive. Halle wants to talk to her husband. Where is he? Why, that’s a great question! RDJ ignores it and says she’s the most logical person he knows and then starts helping her to psychoanalyze herself or something. Her gown is really riding up now. In the immortal words of Nigel Barker, "Legs-a-million!"

RDJ wants Halle to try to remember what happened. She remembers talking to Penelope, getting her face eaten by her husband, swimming, driving home from work, etc. Then it gets hazy. RDJ says “I wonder what else happened? Try to remember” which is a really strange line which RDJ delivers as though he were a robot (but in a good way). Halle skips right over the whole flaming chick car accident thing and says she remembers getting home and seeing Doug on the couch smoking a cigar.

She tries to remember what happened next, and suddenly remembers the accident. She tells RDJ that there was a bloody girl and he’s all “Uhh… no there wasn’t” but she gets up and says there was a girl by the bridge and some sort of accident. RDJ is majorly WTFing at this point and asks her what the last thing she remembers about her husband is and whether there was any trouble in her marriage and she’s like “No, whytf are you asking me this and whytf are you using the past tense?” and RDJ is like “Dude you killed him, remember?”

She starts screaming and flipping out so he pins her down while the nurses sedate her. She keeps whimpering that she didn’t do it. As they pump her full of drugs RDJ is like “I’m on your side!” but he is clearly a bit perturbed about the whole murder thing.

Halle then has some kind of ADD acid trip flashback of the walls of her house all covered in blood and her husband writhing around and the freaky girl on the street. Then she wakes up in her cell again.

Later Penelope comes to talk to her in some sort of rec room. She tells Halle that she’s one of them now and Halle says she doesn’t belong there. Penelope’s not having any of it and tells her that even when you tell the truth there nobody believes you because you’re crazy.

In another example of screenwriting mastery, Penelope asks Halle if she’s scared and she says no, but Penelope says “You should be.”

For the third time in two minutes Halle wakes up all freaked out in her cell. The lights are blinking again. Damn the generator! Some invisible person breathes on the glass door and starts writing a message in the fog. Unfortunately the ghost writes it so that it’s backwards to Halle, but luckily she’s so brilliant that she can read it anyway. It says “NoT AlOnE.” How eerie! She tells herself she’s dreaming, but now might be a good time to remember that she’s probably high off her ass like all the other prisoners.

Apparently she spends the whole night crouched in the corner saying “I’m not crazy” into her hands because suddenly it’s day and a nurse is like “Rise and shine!” even though she was clearly already awake. This nurse is probably more terrifying than the flaming girl. Halle is like “I want to see RDJ” and I’m like “Me too” but she’s like “Have some breakfast first!” and gives her a bunch of pills.

Halle takes the pills and the nurse is like “Good girl!” She’s not a dog, you creepy-ass bitch.

Shower time! As Halle goes into the huge creepy communal shower the terrifying nurse whispers “Come on, honey, time to wash away your sins!” I should mention that she says everything super cheerfully. I seriously would not be surprised to learn that she’s the bad guy. Halle strips off and joins the other way less hot naked women. As she gets under the water she starts tripping again. Penelope spits some water in her direction and she hears creepy whispering voices. Then suddenly she sees the creepy blonde chick who starts slashing at her arm.

Halle gets stitched up and creepy nurse not-so-cheerfully tells RDJ that she only looked away for a second. He says it’s not her fault and that patients always find a way to hurt themselves. The doctor tells RDJ that Halle is a mess and he’s never seen someone lose it so quickly before.

RDJ comes in to talk to Halle. She asks if he thinks she did this to herself. She tells him she didn’t and he clearly doesn’t believe her. He’s all “You’re on drugs and don’t know what’s real and what’s imaginary” and she’s like “Something is really happening to me!” He says he wants to increase her medication and she says she wants a new doctor. RDJ is like “Huh? What?” She says that since she’s hallucinating and can’t remember shit, maybe he can help her out. Did they have an affair? No. Did he want to? Yes. Did he think she wanted to? Yes. Why didn’t they? She was married to the boss. But not anymore! She suspects him of fishery.

Say what you will about this movie and yes, I do believe that it mildly blows, but RDJ is awesome. He’s clearly heartbroken and is like “I’m just trying to help you! Why don’t you trust me?” And what do you think she says in response? “You can’t trust somebody when they think you’re crazy!” You could knock me down with a feather.

The prisoners are let out into the yard. It’s actually sunny outside for the first time in this entire movie. Where is this taking place anyway? Forks? Pointless British guy from the beginning of the movie (Phil, apparently) is conveniently right outside the gate and Halle flags him down. She tells him that she doesn’t want RDJ to be her doctor anymore. Phil basically says that now that Doug is dead and Halle is a nutjob, RDJ is the best doctor he has. Poor RDJ.

Halle sees RDJ creepily spying on her from a window which is such a red herring. Nino clearly wants us to think that he might be behind it but unfortunately RDJ is such a good actor that I believe that he just loves her and feels all torn up inside about the whole thing, especially now that she is suspicious of his motives.

Halle’s lawyer, Teddy, has come to visit and tells her there’s going to be a hearing in a week and she’s like “That’s hella soon, WTF?” He says that there is a shit ton of evidence against her and that she clearly did it.

Halle Berry then goes on a heinously acted rant about how it might have been one of his former patients and that maybe she was there but she was in shock etc etc and I’m sorry to make another Twilight reference, I truly am, but the last time I saw acting this bad was when Edward Cullen came to visit Bella in the hospital and told her they couldn't be together because he was too dangerous (If you know what's good for you, you will visit this URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTEIwzm4ljI). I'm sure Halle Berry deserved her Oscar and everything but her acting in this movie is truly hideous.

Anyhow, Teddy says their only hope is an insanity plea but even that will probably not work.

The sheriff is here to talk to Halle. We remember him as the cop she talked to about the sinkhole or whatever at the beginning of the movie. He’s Doug’s fishing buddy so he’s obviously pissed. He’s also wearing something that looks suspiciously like a mountie hat. RDJ is hovering in the background watching over proceedings. Sheriff Bob starts to tell her how they reconstructed the crime but breaks down halfway through and goes “How could you do that to Doug? He loved to eat your face! You’re in some trouble!” RDJ is like “Okay, buddy, time’s up, let’s go.” He’s being very protective. It’s cute. What’s not so cute are the crime scene photos Bob whips out now. Blood galore!

Halle’s arm wounds from before start spontaneously bleeding through her bandages. It calls to mind the scene in I Know Who Killed Me where Lindsay Lohan’s finger starts spontaneously falling off. Anyhow, we see that her cuts say “NoT AlOnE.” And not only that, but one of the crime scene photos shows that she wrote “NoT AlOnE” in blood all over the walls! OMG CREEPY! But like, why didn’t the doctors find that at all curious? The nurse said she only looked away for a second, but it would have taken a while to actually cut words into your arm, I’d think. And why does nobody think it is at all curious that her wounds started bleeding again for no reason? But look at me, trying to introduce logic into this equation! Teddy makes a really great WTF face here.

Halle is in a hospital bed and starts having acid flashbacks about the murder again but this time she sees herself doing it, in reverse. Sorry, Nino, but Memento this is not. It all comes back to the freaky blonde in the road. We see now that when she set on fire, she actually proceeded to possess Halle. As she’s being possessed, Halle just looks like she’s going to vomit. It’s her hottest moment ever.

RDJ escorts Halle to Phil’s office. She says that she realizes now that she was there when Doug was killed, but she wasn’t alone. That’s what NoT AlOnE means! Phil knows that she has no family and that he and RDJ are her family now. They’re going to do everything they can to help her. She isn’t paying attention because she sees GASP a picture of freaky blonde before she got all creepy. She’s like “WHOTF IS THIS?” It’s his daughter, Rachel, naturally. Halle wants to know where she is and he’s like “Uh, she died four years ago, you dumb bitch.”

That night, damp footprints start appearing of their own accord in the hallway outside Halle’s cell. Shit’s about to go down. The lights are on the fritz again. Halle gets up and says, apropos of nothing, “I’m a rational person. I believe in science. I don’t believe in the paranormal, and I don’t believe in ghosts. But if you are the ghost of Rachel Parsons, then you would let me out of this cell.” Despite the dubiousness of that grammar, the door opens. She runs out into the hall and sees Rachel’s ghost. There are guards and janitors all around so she heads toward her office. The office has crime scene tape on the door even though no crime was committed there, but whatever. She breaks into RDJ’s office instead. Incidentally, it takes her about 1.5 seconds to pick his lock with a screwdriver. That’s likely.

She goes into his drawer to get a set of keys but stops when she sees a photo he keeps there of them together. She looks bored and he looks like he’s doing a Jedi mind trick on her, but her heart is warmed nonetheless.

Rachel is a very tech-savvy ghost and starts up RDJ’s computer which has an article about her death already pulled up. That girl googled herself at the speed of light! The article says Rachel killed herself. Suddenly, a surveillance video pops up on the screen, showing Rachel’s ghost at a rave. Well, it’s just the lights in the hall flickering like crazy again, but still. She’s by the solitary confinement cells which for some reason makes Halle forget about her own problems and decide something bad must be happening to Penelope, who we haven’t seen since she sassily spat water in Halle’s general direction mere moments before the ghost knife fight.

She gets to Penelope’s cell and SURPRISE! Penelope’s face is pushed up against the window and then we get a glimpse of a fat tattooed chest. Halle seems to have forgotten that she is trying to keep her cell escape on the DL and starts running through the halls screaming. Two male nurses come out of nowhere and take her down. She screams at them to check on Penelope since there seems to be some Satan rape happening after all.

I think it’s possible that if Penelope just straight up said “Hey guys, some tattooed asshole is raping me in my cell at night” instead of “The devil opened me like a flower of pain and it felt good” somebody might actually look into it. Again with the logic!

RDJ comes to have another chat with Halle. She’s all “Hey, did you find out whotf was raping Penelope?’ and RDJ is like “Nobody raped anybody, dumbass.” She describes the dude’s tattoo to him and for some reason he actually immediately knows that she’s talking about the “anima sola.” He’s all “Oh yes, it’s an archetypal image… a woman in chains” and she’s like “Bitch, please. I’m not talking about archetypal images. I’m talking about an image tattooed across a set of man-boobs.”

He thinks her crazy mind is just inventing all of this nonsense, but he wants to know what she was doing googling dead teenagers in his office. She says that she’s been seeing Rachel’s ghost and that she didn’t kill herself. Understandably, RDJ is getting tired of this shit. She keeps yelling at him about murder and ghosts and he starts yelling diagnoses of mental illness at her and then he leaves in a huff. But not before transferring her to the psych ward with a threat of solitary confinement, AKA a trip to the Rape Shack. To his credit, he looks pretty broken up about things as he’s walking away.

Back in the yard, Halle goes to talk to Penelope. She’s like “My bad; you weren’t crazy after all! Sorry about all the rape! BTW, whotf has been raping you?” and Penelope says it was the devil. They hug. It’s all very touching until Penelope whispers “He said you’re next!”

At night, Halle hears footsteps outside of her new cell and the lights start blinking. Rachel’s ghost pops out of nowhere and starts throwing Halle around the cell so that she’s literally flying through the air and smashing into cabinets. I really don’t know what she hopes to accomplish by this since it’s only going to make her look even more nuts to everybody else if they come in her cell and she’s covered in bruises and all of her shit is broken.

Two security guards are dicking around watching sci-fi movies but eventually notice that some crazy shit is happening in one of the cells. The screen shows Halle flying around the room of her own accord and one of them deduces that she’s trying to kill herself. Brilliant! They bust into the cell and are like “What a mess!” Halle seems to be unconscious but then she kicks their asses and runs out of the cell with the nurse’s keys. Guards start chasing her through the hospital but she is a hide and seek champion. Also, the electric system is giving them some trouble. Damn the generator! They have to search for her by flashlight.

She eventually makes it to the pool where she finds herself cornered. Even though she has the keys, she’s stumped by a locked door for the second time so instead she slowly lowers herself into the pool. A couple of dumb guards shine lights into the pool but for some reason don’t see her. We hear bits and pieces of the guards’ conversation like “There’s no way she can escape!” and, weirdly, “Professors always nail their pretty students.” I guess they could be talking about her marrying the boss, but it’s really weird and random.

Halle’s gotten to the front desk and the security guard from the beginning is there. The lights come back on and he sees her crouching by the desk and really loudly says “Oh, shit!” even though there are several other guards in the room. They’re like “Did you see something?” and he’s like “Uh…” Halle shakes her head at him and he decides to cover for her by saying that he saw something flash in front of the camera in one of the hallways. He’s obviously out of his damn mind because he gives her his car keys and tells her to go.

She drives off in the loudest, screechiest way possible and starts speeding like crazy. She’s really good at the incognito escape tactics, I must say. She sees Rachel’s reflection in the rearview mirror and tries to brake but the car just keeps speeding up. Rachel is such a backseat driver. Finally, after nearly being smashed by a semi-truck and crashing into some roadwork signs Halle is like “WTF DO YOU WANT FROM ME YOU DEAD BITCH?!?!?”

Halle pulls up to her house, surely the last place the police would look for her. The lights all turn on in the house so she knows that Rachel wants her to explore. Halle calls out “Doug?” which is one of the more retarded things she’s done so far in this movie. She follows bloody handprints up the stairs and has a vision of a bloody Doug screaming and begging and then herself coolly walking up with a bloody axe. Axe-wielding Halle says “I love you,” screams and then starts chopping him up.

Let me back up a second and ask why there’s crime scene tape on Halle’s office but not on the house where the murder actually took place? Logic! Agh!

Halle goes into the bedroom and hears dripping water, so she goes in the bathroom and sees her axe-murderer self in the tub washing off the blood. Bathing Halle starts screaming and her face changes between herself and Rachel and then finally Rachel’s ghost leaves her body. Then the hallucinations stop again. Halle sobs since she now realizes that she actually did kill her husband. She comically goes “Why???? WHY???????” while gazing at old photos of them together.

She gets a one second long nosebleed that drips on a picture of them standing in front of a cabin. Suddenly she’s all “Willow Creek! A clue!” Because remember, at the beginning of the movie Doug said he was going to go talk to some contractors there. Clearly the blood droplet is a sign! It’s dubious logic at best, but Halle drives out there in the early morning anyhow.

She breaks one of the cardinal horror movie rules and goes into the dilapidated barn by herself. The barn looks as though it was previously occupied by Leatherface. She looks around for a minute and then starts to leave, but then she sees the box for a video camera and stops. Out of all of the junk in that barn, the video camera box is what catches her attention? I’m so sure.

Halle goes downstairs and pulls back a tarp to reveal a video camera and some big lights set up around a bed. Kinky! Rachel turns the camera on and Halle watches the tape that’s inside. She sees her beloved husband attacking a chained girl on the bed. He goes up to the camera and says “It’s good to be God! I love you.” This is possibly the dumbest line in the entire movie. Doug would have to be assuming that Halle would eventually watch this video to say that and clearly this is a habit he would not want her to find out about. Nino just wants to make a callback to their weird mirror conversation at the beginning of the movie but it really doesn’t make any sense.

Halle hears creaky footsteps and grabs a knife. It’s a cop. He yells “Drop the knife!” and she yells “Drop the gun!” and they would probably keep going on like that forever but then some bloody arms reach through the stairs Halle’s standing on and grab her head. It’s the naked girl from the video. She wants help. Duh.

Cut to the police station where Sheriff Bob is talking to reporters. RDJ and Phil are at the station and RDJ tells Bob that he needs to take Halle back to the hospital and Bob is like “Bitch, please.” Teddy is also there and says that in light of the discovery of Doug’s sadistic douchebaggery, maybe they should put Halle under temporary house arrest instead of jail. It’s sweet how they’re all trying to help Halle and don’t give a fuck about the random barn-rape victim. There is so much rape in this movie; it’s insane.

Bob is like “You do realize this lady just attacked a nurse, escaped from a mental institution, stole a car and-” RDJ interrupts here to say “And saved a girl’s life!” Bob points out that this was probably by accident since how could she have known the girl was there. Teddy’s like “Who gives a fuck?” Bob wants answers because once the press gets ahold of this it’s going to get ugly.

Phil goes to talk to Halle. He’s all “It’s hard to believe Doug was such a rapey douchebag” and Halle is like “I know, right?” Phil gets to the point and asks if she thinks Rachel might have been one of Doug’s victims. Yes. She thinks that that is what “NoT AlOnE” means: that she was not his only victim. Phil tells her that after Rachel died he had a recurring dream about her where she was on fire. Halle’s like “I saw her on fire too! What does it mean?” Phil thinks it’s just a delusion. One that they both share, Halle points out.

Halle calls RDJ and tells him that she’s been wrong about everything. She really does sound like a crazy person, the way she’s talking. Her voice is all high pitched and she’s talking really fast. Things are clear to her now. She tells him that the man who’s been raping Penelope is connected to Doug’s rape circus and it all comes back to the tattoo she saw. He’s not having any of it. Every time people start taking her seriously she starts busting out the crazy delusions again. They then have this exchange:

Halle: I’m not deluded, Pete, I’m possessed!

RDJ: I don’t believe in ghosts.

Halle: Neither do I, but they believe in me.

Best original screenplay, guys!

RDJ hangs up on her and a cop puts her back in a cell. She says she needs to talk to Bob and that it’s important.

RDJ goes to his office and is like “Fuck it, I’ll do some googling.” He searches “anima sola tattoo” and finds a web gallery of freaks with anima sola tattoos. That’s surprising. I would have thought it would take him to youtube videos of talking cats!

Back in prison, Bob comes to talk to Halle. She tells him that “NoT AlOnE” means that Doug wasn’t acting alone in his rapetivities. Didn’t she just say it meant something else like five minutes ago? Make up your mind! Halle’s like “Phil and I both saw a burning chick and then some guy was raping chicks at the jail and he had a tattoo of a burning chick. GET IT?” She says that RDJ told her it was crazy and he’s like “YOU TOLD RDJ???” Suspicious! He doesn’t think she’s crazy and doesn’t understand why anybody else would. I guess he didn’t hear her say that she’s not deluded, she’s possessed!

Bob is like, let’s find out who this other guy is! Build me a psychological profile, Halle! She says that he probably grew up with no father, got obsessed with his mom, got off torturing small animals as a kid and now is really sexually confused. He’s like “Well that’s messed up.” He warns her that if there is a second killer she might be in trouble because he’s trying to cover his trail. She wonders why the guy didn’t go finish the job at Willow Creek after she killed Doug. Bob says returning to the crime scene is a good way to get caught. But now the guy must be desperate. Halle’s like “Desperate enough to talk to me?” Uh oh. Bob says he fits the profile except for the part about torturing animals. Then he attacks her. In the prison. Really smart.

Just in case his outright confession wasn’t enough, she rips open his shirt to see his stupid-ass tattoo. She’s like “You can’t kill me!” and he’s like “I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to drug and rape you.” The lights start going crazy which distracts Bob enough that Halle can inject him with his own liquid roofie and run away. He tries to shoot her but accidentally shoots a pipe that starts leaking gas. Oops.

Halle tries to escape but the door is locked. Bob chases after her, now randomly shirtless. He says that Doug killed a girl when he was 15 and he helped him bury the body. BFF! After I typed that he seriously actually said “What are best friends for?” At this point he’s just shooting random stuff in his office hoping to accidentally hit Halle. She’s hiding under the desk. He’s getting all creepy about the taste for young girls never going away and “sweet Rachel” being too hard to resist but meanwhile Halle has noticed a gun conveniently taped right above her head. He’s like “We had the time of our lives at Willow Creek, and we would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”

He thinks he sees her pass by the door and chases after her. But then he sees Rachel’s ghost and thinks it’s Halle because her face is reflected in the glass door in exactly the right spot. I guess he didn’t notice the blonde hair? He shoots at the ghost and now the roofie starts kicking in and he yells “This isn’t logical!” and tries to shoot her again. He blows up a computer instead and it ignites all the leaked gas in the air so he catches on fire. Oops. Then Halle shoots him in the head and the fire randomly goes away. Halle says “Logic is overrated.”

RDJ runs up to the door of the station to try to belatedly rescue her.

One year later, Halle and Penelope are out of jail and strolling along the street together. Penelope is taking a train somewhere that leaves in a half hour so Halle calls her a cab. She wishes her luck with her job and Penelope thanks her for her help. Halle’s like “No, thank you! You taught me to listen with my heart!” Penelope gets in the cab and as Halle walks down the street she sees a child in the middle of the road. He’s a ghost! He was pointing at a missing child poster. Poor Halle, I guess she’s the ghost lady now! Some emo sounding Limp Bizkit song starts playing and the credits roll. But what about RDJ? Even though you said crazy nonsensical shit to him, he still came to save you! Whatever.

I have bigger problems with the ending, though. Namely, how did these two women get out of jail? I can kind of see a jury letting Halle off since Doug was a rapey murderer, but she still killed the guy. And yeah, Penelope was getting raped in her cell after all, but she still killed her stepfather and cut his Adam’s apple in half like a piece of fruit on a summer day. Logically, she should probably still be locked up. But I guess logic is overrated.