Tragedy Girls (2017)

 Two teenagers, Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand; "Deadpool" and "Deadpool 2") and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp, a few X-Men movies), are serial killers who want to learn from the Rosedale Ripper, a notorious psychopath they have been keeping tabs on, making sure he had a teenage honor student available to stick a machete in the head of -- not dead, Sadie made sure to suffocate him and finish what the Ripper, Lowell (Durand) started! Sadie and McKayla are later revealed to be the murderers of the sheriff's (Timothy V Murphy) wife and Jordan's (Jack Quaid; "5cream" (2022) mother. Jordan is very good at editing videos for social media and Sadie has a bit of a crush on him while McKayla sees Jordan as a threat to her lock-tight bond with Sadie. To show Sadie she is willing to go all the way and kill someone she "loves", McKayla makes sure her ex-boyfriend (Josh Hutcherson; "Hunger Games" series) dies after they set up a ghoulish motorcycle crash with road spikes. So Sadie and McKayla's main passion (and obsession) is getting their "brand" popular on social media, sort of exploiting crimes (they commit in secret) in their area for clicks, likes, and (hopefully) financial appeal. I found that rather amusing since a lot of these people act like psychos on social media, so the prospects of two of them being narcissistic, selfish, obscenely self-promoting serial killers doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch in credibility. Kidnapping the Ripper and keeping him in an old industrial building (with a dusty fan overhead), with a camera in position to keep an eye on him, along with an app on McKayla's phone to also monitor him, the two teenage sociopathic monsters, gleefully choosing human targets to murder while their town is up in arms with finding "the killer", try to gain attention their way.

While it was fun to see Quaid in the reverse of what would be revealed in the fifth Scream film a few months back, Hildebrand and Shipp have a field day as the enthusiastic, all-smiles psychopaths seeing how their handiwork is viewed by the public and those in the school. Along with Hutcherson in a cameo (he tells Shipp that if anyone was to murder him, he was glad it was her!), Craig Robinson ("The Office") has a memorable role as a local vowing to help find the killer(s), not realizing he, too, is on the execution list, nearly choking the life out of Sadie after tossing McKayla into a wall mirror, shattering the glass. The use of a weighlifting bar lands on Robinson with quite a "crushing blow". There is some real eye-opening gore, so the film doesn't get squeamish, since McKayla slices the throat of a teacher, the Ripper "updates" one of the most notorious punishments from "Cannibal Holocaust" using a flagpole on the mayor, and the head cheerleader and popular It girl in school tries to fend McKayla and Sadie off while getting her foot caught accidentally in a chain inside shopclass that lifts her off the floor and head-first into a running table saw! And the prom burning down with all the class inside as Sadie and McKayla had purposely locked all the students in the room as their hands bang on the windowed door while they celebrate afterward does sort of give us a shocking ending, if Jordan's departure after too much trust in Sadie doesn't already do so.

I don't think the ending is any surprise: McKayla and Sadie are just dedicated in making their social media presence into something substantial. The film does take a detour about 50 minutes in where Sadie saves Jordan from being killed by an escaped Ripper while the sheriff was asleep on the couch. Much like McKayla had done with her ex-boyfriend, Sadie was expected to stab and kill Jordan due to taking McKayla's phone. The film really does establish a rivalry between Sadie and McKayla, but, ultimately, I don't think too many viewers will expect, by the end, for the two girls not to be ride or die. Especially since Jordan and "normie life" bored Sadie completely. If anything, Sadie's momentary lapse into popular prom queen just makes her realize that being outside of that is preferred...Sadie and McKayla might be dreaming about gaining popularity and attention on social media, but just a minor memory in high school is just not what these two are about. So as they ride off to a bright future, we are left to wonder just how many more lie ahead for them to stab and slay in ways that give them that fresh thrill they will obviously want to replicate.

This is very much in the Heathers/Scream vein, modernized for the social media age. The craving for attention, for millions to give the killers all that presence, and to have such an audience devoted to their every activity; this is punched home quite significantly. I can only imagine that with all that extra attention, the need to go further will be there. These two have quite a blood-thirsty appetite.