Back in October 2009, somewhere amid my excitement for Zombieland and Where the Wild Things Are, I appear to have missed out on the horror event of the year.
With the sequel due out this October, it is time to make amends.
I am not, as you might expect, talking about the latest installment in the Saw franchise – though I’m pretty psyched about that too – I am talking instead about the sequel to MTV movie My Super Psycho Sweet 16, titled of course My Super Psycho Sweet 16: 2.
I’m not even being entirely sarcastic, I can only wish that I had the imagination to conjure the idea myself. I do, it has to be said, find myself wishing horrors at the TV when I accidentally catch a moment or two of the vapid show.
In an interview with Shock Til You Drop, director Jacob Gentry described how it all came together.
Originally, MTV came to us with the idea of doing a horror movie based on this reality show. I was resistant and thought it was a terrible idea, but then I saw the show, My Super Sweet 16 and realized it was perfect for a horror movie. There’s not anyone that would watch that show and simultaneously be envious of those girls and want them to die. [Laughs] Even young girls that watch the show, they want to be those girls but they also hate them. And I think any good horror movie has good social satire and some central metaphor that relates to its audience.
The goal was to not do anything that spoofed or parodied or camped up the slasher movie, but to be true to it and take it seriously. There was a lot of comedy in the script and some over the top fun stuff in there, but we decided to play it for real and let that humor come through on its own. We tried to strike that balance.
While the original surrounds one shallow sixteen year old as she coerces her father into renovating a haunted roller rink, according to Shock Til You Drop the sequel reunites the survivors with director Gentry for another batch of Rollerdome-based slasher shenanigans.
There is definitely scope for further horror tinged MTV adaptations: The Hills Have Ice Picks and Laguna Beach: The Real Orange Massacre being two I’d personally watch.
