The (very) dark side of SIXTEEN CANDLES

August 10th, 2009 at 08:39am Will Pfeifer

I was out of town last week, which I why I didn’t post anything about the death of writer/director John Hughes, who had a heart attack Thursday in New York at the age of 59. But while channel surfing last night, I stumbled upon the end of Hughes’ 1984 movie SIXTEEN CANDLES, which Encore was showing as part of some thrown-together tribute to the director. (It was followed by WEIRD SCIENCE, a movie that is, let’s be honest, so bad it’s virtually unwatchable.)

But back to SIXTEEN CANDLES: I caught the last 20 minutes or so, and oddly enough, had been having a conversation over breakfast at a comic book convention about one of those scenes. If you recall, in the movie, the Geek (Anthony Michael Hall) wakes up the next morning in the back seat of the rich kid’s parents’ Rolls. Seated next to him is the rich kid’s girlfriend (Haviland Morris), and after a few minutes of awkward/comedic conversation, it’s established that they’ve, you know, “done it.” The problem is the last time we saw them, she was literally passed out drunk, having been “given” to the Geek by the rich kid, who was (a) angry about her behavior and (b) smitten with the star of the movie, Molly Ringwald.

In other words, this heartwarming, beloved, criticially acclaimed, endlessly-watched-by-generations of teens movie ends with the loveable geek raping the class beauty — and she’s grateful. At the time, no one seemed to notice. Now, watching it a quarter century later, it’s all I could notice. And it gives the movie a creepy, unnerving feeling, no matter how many hits of the ’80s are played over the end credits.

Almost the same thing happens in REVENGE OF THE NERDS, by the way. Clearly, it was a tough time to be the class beauty.

Entry Filed under: Just plain weird