Product Details

• Actors: Josh Hutcherson, Shanley Caswell, Spencer Locke, Dane Cook, Alison Woods
• Directors: Joseph Kahn
• Writers: Joseph Kahn, Mark Palermo
• Producers: Josh Hutcherson, Clayton Reaser, David Kang, Greg Tharp, Jennifer Krobot
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Chinese, English, Korean
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: July 31, 2012
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0081FSMNI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,481 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Detention" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Though marketed as a horror film, Joseph Kahn's Detention actually belongs to no particular genre, as its hyperkinetic structure borrows from a wide variety of styles, tropes, and influences in telling a story that appears to be about the confusion and chaos inherent to high school life. Shanley Caswell is Kahn's nominal heroine, a terminal outsider whose crush on the popular Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) is blocked by former best friend Spencer Locke. Their triangle is complicated by the presence of a stranger tricked out like Cinderhella, the villain from a popular series of violent slasher pictures. The murders that follow in his wake eventually become part of a larger, weirder canvas that includes aliens, time travel, genetic mutations, and a dizzying array of '90s-era pop culture references. Veteran music video director Kahn, who also helmed the genre-bending 2004 action pic Torque, will undoubtedly polarize audiences with his approach, which takes meta-storytelling à la Scream to unheard-of levels while pitching the action and dialogue at a vertiginous speed. The picture's self-reflexive nature and ADHD pacing does, at times, approximate the bewildering barrage of information slung at high school-age culture consumers, and at times, the absurdity of the subplots, especially the complicated time travel/body-switch storyline, plays like a broad parody of the surrealism inherent to teenaged social interaction. Whether that adds up to an entertaining movie experience will vary from viewer to viewer, but one can't fault Kahn for not trying to provide a unique experience. The DVD offers an all-in-one commentary track and behind-the-scenes featurette in Cheat Mode, a full-length, picture-in-picture discussion of the film featuring members of the cast and crew. --Paul Gaita

Product Description

Josh Hutcherson, Dane Cook and Spencer Locke star in Detention, a hipster, teen horror-comedy where the local students of Grizzly Lake must survive their final year of high school. Standing in their way is Cinderhella, a slasher-movie killer who has seemingly come to life and is preying on the school's student body. As the clock ticks and the bodies pile up, the likely suspects are embroiled in a race against time to stop Cinderhella and ultimately save the word... if only they can get out of detention.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Exhausting little horror-comedy is well worth seeing August 8, 2012

By S. Boone

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

There's a lot packed into the run-time of this movie, in fact, so much it probably bears watching more than once to catch everything as it zips by. The basic storyline seems to be that this supposed movie character, Cinderhella, is killing teens, but there's a lot more to the film than just that. Screwed-up teenage relationships, a jealous ex-boyfriend jock who was mutated by a meteorite as a child, a high-school mascot (a stuffed grizzly bear) that has been modified into a time machine, time travel back to 1992, etc. The humor is often gross but a lot of it is deadpan, which makes it even better, in my opinion. This is refreshingly goofy & bizarre, and is a good slam-dunk of overpriveleged teens & high school clique antics, but it's also a lot more than that. I enjoyed the first "Scream" (but not necessarily its sequels) but this is not quite so obvious as that film. Well worth seeing, not perfect but pretty damn close. May be a future cult classic. 4 out of 5.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST MOVIE SINCE VOLCANO! August 20, 2012

By Michael TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

This is a fast paced "Student Bodies" meets "Scott Pilgrim" type of movie. The humor comes at you quick and you must pay attention. It is a teen slasher spoof film, but also tosses in a few aspects of other films. There are clues as to what is going on, but don't worry about trying to catch them and figure out the film, just enjoy the scenes.

Some lines that come too mind:

"Pregnant teens are never funny." A clear slap at "Juno."

"I only eat baby animals."

"Pain don't hurt."

"Where did you learn to make a snuff porno? Lady Gaga?"

"Gnawing through boyfriends like an unfed piranha."

"This human conversation thing isn't working. Let's do texting."

The production incorporates numerous obscure 1980's references, some of which are explained. The film is done in a modern quirky "Scott Pilgrim..." style, but knowledge of 1980s movies is helpful in order to enjoy the feature.

There is a slasher at school. Meanwhile Ione (Spencer Locke), the cute air headed blond likes under achiever cool guy Clapton Davis (Josh Hutcherson). She has given up her jock boyfriend Billy Nolan (Parker Bagley)for him. He wants to beat up Clapton over her, and he is willing to fight for her because she is deep and likes Sting. Meanwhile Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) has a crush on Clapton and becomes a third wheel.

PARENTAL GUIDE: F-bombs, brief sex and brief nudity.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars COMEDY/HORROR MIX WITH EMPHASIS ON COMEDY August 28, 2012

By Mark Turner

Format:DVD

Ever since Mel Brooks first began making fun of movie genres it seems that form of comedy has taken hold. What started out hilarious though ended up becoming stale and some truly bad examples were made (think of the movies made by the group behind EPIC MOVIE). Rare gems came out like SCARY MOVIE that then slacked off as well. So when a parody of a genre comes out that offers something original and whacky, I'm ready to give it a watch. With DETENTION I'm glad I did.

The movie begins with a form that hasn't been used before that works well here. The characters now and then talk to the fourth wall, the audience, and guide them through things happening in the film. It opens with the most popular girl in school (and of course the bitchiest) telling us all about her high school and the kids there while she gets ready for her day. This is one of those girls seen on SWEET 16 who complains about not getting the correct car on her birthday. She mentions the release of a new horror film with a killer known as Cinderhella who then promptly shows up and dispatches of our narrator setting the stage for the killer on the lose.

The kids at school of course do nothing but talk about her death as we introduce them here. Riley is the odd girl out, the different girl who talks about being a vegetarian and supports other groups yet isn't on the popular list of school kids. Her best friend Taylor is though. Taylor's boyfriend (the guy Riley wanted to ask out) Clapton Davis is a neer do well teen complete with skateboard and loved by all...except the school jock who wants to do nothing more than pound Clapton into the ground.

As the film progresses we get glimpses of the killer here and there, several in failed attempts on the lives of our main characters.... We also get tons of laughter inspiring moments that are too many to count and too fast to catalog. Yes, this film moves at a frighteningly fast pace but not so much that it can't be enjoyed. And the film doesn't leave itself in the horror genre alone, skipping along occasionally into sci fi alien invasion or time travel storylines that tie into the main one as well.

When the group finally makes it to their actual detention during the high school prom, things happen that are completely off the wall and absurd. And yet it totally works. A killer in the room with them and they never see the murder happen? A student who's been in detention for decades and yet never ages? The reveal of how it all began years ago? Yep, it works here.

There really isn't a true category to place this film in. It's more original than most and offers so much at that rapid pace that you might find yourself clutching the remote so you can pause to finish laughing while the next joke or set up is being offered. I wasn't sure what to expect from this film but was pleasantly surprised as it played out. I was left wanting more and finding myself hoping that those behind it are given a bigger budget and the chance to make more movies. Anything they can come up with will far outrank the EPIC MOVIE group who still lay claim to what little they did on SCARY MOVIE. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars See it early and often January 24, 2013

By Kevin Killian HALL OF FAME

Format:DVD

I watched this picture because of the critic Steve Shaviro, who said that it (and The Cabin in the Woods) represented between them the "future of horror"--no wait, maybe the "future of cinema," some grand claim, exactly the kind I have a hankering for, and I enjoyed Cabin in the Woods a helluva lot, so I went in thinking, maybe this will be one of those sorts of movies the kind I like, that rip through genre like so many jungle fronds in a machete movie. And so it was, on a rather different scale than Joss Whedon. Whedon is a humanist, whereas I get the picture that Joseph Kahn, who directed this highly entertaining horror comedy, is no such thing, despite the sentimental flourishes with which his movie concludes (sappy voice over that says, basically, "but underneath it all we're just people, and we all need love.")

Kahn made two epic videos with the pop singer slash actress Kylie Minogue. In one, the charity single by "Helping Haiti," he blended shocking real-life footage of hurricane devastation in Haiti, with hideous footage or pop stars from Rod Stewart to Westlife and beyond, all lip synching the old R.E.M. classic "Everybody Hurts." For Kylie's 11th solo album, APHRODITE, Kahn turned the first single, "All the Lovers" into a giant orgy of models, male and female, stripping to pristine white underwear in the middle of downtown LA in front of the Gehry Disney Concert Hall, to worship a giant goddess Kylie. Made in the immediate aftermath of DETENTION, you can see Kahn trying to work out ideas he didn't manage to articulate during its filming. Josh Hutcherson, the executive producer of the film, plays the hero part, but he's sort of a sad sack, and he's named after a pair of heritage rock artists (in joke?) In general the acting's not great in DETENTION, but who cares?... In CABIN IN THE WOODS, the whole movie slides by on the Whedonesque charm of the actors and the witty dialogue, and here the dialogue and the acting is just one jab after another, like an attack of fire ants. If like me you thought of abandoning Detention before the second murder, my advice is, keep up with it if you can, because you will be amply rewarded throughout. The characters start making sense, they become sort of lovable, even the awful ones and though I never did figure out why the boy had to wear a TV on his wrist growing up, I enjoyed myself immensely and, if this is the future of cinema, it's in safe hands. Read more ›