The In Crowd (2000)

If you like murder and dig beachwear, you'll love The In Crowd. Former obsessive Adrien is released from a mental institution (cue ominous music) and her nice psychiatrist finds her a summer job at a snooty country club, apparently reasoning that there's no better place to rebuild your self-esteem. Adrien quickly encounters the rich kids, who mostly run around being rich and beautiful. Rich queen Brittany decides to become Adrien's new best friend. Could it be for (oh, no!) the wrong reasons? Actually, her reasons turn out to be baffling, along with the rest of the poorly thought-out plot and thinly sketched characters. Director Mary Lambert makes a game attempt at building suspense with incredibly dark lighting and generic Spooky Music, but the script doesn't give her any help. The ending involves one of those elaborate, Scooby-Doo-ish plots that require knowing precisely how someone will react and exactly where she will go when she is very, very upset. Nonetheless, the movie presents lots of attractive young people in swimwear and provides an excellent opportunity to play the which-of-these-actors-will-still-have-a-career-next-year game. Enjoy. --Ali Davis Amazon.com

Nothing special makes for a dull and unrewarding waste of time...

I remember when this movie was first released and I was just dying to see it. I was young and stupid and it looked cool. Well, I never got around to seeing it in the theater and by the time it was released on DVD I wasn't too interested in seeing it. Then I saw it in a bargain bin at like Walmart or something and so I bought it thinking that it couldn't be all that bad. I was wrong. Well, okay honestly it's not the worst movie ever made for I sure have seem much worse, but it's nothing worth watching really. There are so many things wrong with this movie, so many things that make it any of the following adjectives:

Stupid, boring, predictable, ridiculous, annoying, irritating, confusing, pointless...

I'm sure there are many more that I could add to this list but I'll refrain at the moment. The thing is that this could have been more than B-Grade movie fluff but it fails to really elevate itself. It borrows everything that was unique about countless films yet it doesn't do any of it justice. In the end it reminds me of a `serious' episode of `Dawson's Creek' or something like that. The tension the film tries to create in scenes is non-existent and the atmosphere of `party-all-the-time, isn't-this-cool' just doesn't really fulfill. It's really just a film filled to the brim with clichéd characters, over-dramatized plot twists that really aren't that dramatic and an ending that fails to really deliver on the goods.

The film follows Adrien, a disturbed young girl who needs to move away and start over fresh, get her past behind her. When she moves to a country club to work she becomes infiltrated into a group of spoiled bratty rich kids whose queen Brittany takes a personal liking to Adrien. Brittany is not all she seems either for her past may be even darker than Adrien's.

It's not that `The In Crowd' didn't have somewhere to go, it just goes somewhere it shouldn't have. The revelations of both girls `pasts' are a bit misplaced. One is way over the top and the other is actually much less impressive and creative then I had imagined. The film seems more interested in making this as teen-attractive as possible with overt sexuality, borderline lesbianism, weird party scenes and a club scene that fails to really deliver anything titillating. In the end they slack off on the script and character development for nudity and amateur sleuthing (I'm not complaining about the Susan Ward boob scene, it really was the highlight of the film).

The directing, editing and most importantly the lighting of the film is atrocious. In one night scene on the beach in particular it's downright impossible to see what is going on. Like I said, the film is nothing more than an extended episode of `Dawson's Creek' or `Saved By The Bell' even, so please don't watch with high expectations. In the end I'm sure there is some enjoyment to be found in `The In Crowd' but nothing substantial enough to really warrant watching the film at all, unless you count Ward's nudity as substantial enjoyment, which I guess technically it could be. October 10, 2007

Everyone Seems To Have Been Hired On The Basis Of How They Look In A Swimsuit

This saga of catfights between gorgeous rich bitches--none of who seem to own a bra--is almost a documentary of how to make an awful movie. With its scantily-clad babes, lurid lesbian come-ons and innuendo-laden lines like "Didn't mean to get you all wet," The In Crowd aspires to Showgirls levels of camp, but while the cast of that much-adored stripper opus did nothing but act, the denizens of The In Crowd couldn't act their way out of a Ziploc.

Susan Ward (straight from her masterful work on NBC's canceled "Sunset Beach") stars as Brittany, the teen queen of a hoity-toity summer resort. Lori Heuring is reformed psycho Adrien, who becomes a cabana girl at Ward's decadent hot spot. Ward takes Heuring under her wing, and soon, Bad Things start to happen. Is any of it believable? Only if you think bisexual teen seductresses exist in the real world. (See WILD THINGS and CRUEL INTENTIONS for further examination of this epidemic.)

Not surprisingly, the whole feminist nightmare was conceived by two men, who, while writing, must have had one hand on the computer and one hand on something else. Meanwhile, Mary Lambert directs as if she is still making Madonna videos: transparently gay actors are cast as womanizers, Ward's lip-gloss plays a supporting role and everyone else seems to have been hired on the basis of how they look in a swimsuit. Politicians will also note how sex, drugs and booze abound in this PG-13 movie totally aimed at teens. Offensive? Nah, just laughably inane. Kudos to Ward, who gleefully dives into her low-rent Basic Instinct-predator role, even if she is woefully ill-equipped to carry it off.

For the DVD lovers out there, there is a hilariously knowing, self-deprecating commentary by Ward and Heuring (who are now our two favorite people in the world) as well as deleted scenes and interviews with the cast (one of whom is clearly on drugs).

It would seem that Warner Bros. studio executives (circa 2000) would most likely rather die than release an edgy, thought-provoking film. Thankfully, they bankrolled this steller Bad Movies laugh-a-thon, which, justifiably, didn't make a plug nickel.

For lovers of unintentional camp and Bad Movies We Love, THE IN CROWD is a must see. A worthy addition alongside such modern day misfires as THE TEMP, THE CRUSH, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE and BASIC INSTINCT 2. All others should stay far away. September 3, 2007

The In Crowd

It's surprising that this movie actually got a theatrical release. "The In Crowd" feels like a sub-par straight to video movie. It feels like the filmmakers couldn't decide whether to make a drama or a thriller. It ends up being neither. The drama parts are uninteresting, the "thrills" don't come until the last ten minutes and by then you've already lost all interest in the movie. The pace is sleep inducing. I'm sorry I wasted my time and I was glad when it was over. Don't waste your time and definately don't waste your money on it. April 4, 2007

Too B-grade for it's own good...

If this film had bi-passed the theater then I may have better things to say about it, for in a B-grade, straight to video kinda way this is a decent thriller, but in the made for the cinema, big budget slasher in the vein of `I Know What you Did Last Summer' meets `Cruel Intentions' it fails miserably.

The first downside would be the cast of relative unknowns, the only real `star' in whatever sense of the word you want to use it is Susan Ward (of Soap Opera fame). It's not that a cast of unknowns is always a bad thing, sometimes it can help propel the careers of the cast (like in the case of Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell & Cole Houser from `Pitch Black') or it can really help keep the focus of the viewers attention on the meat of the material (as in this years `United 93'), but in this case the material was weak and the cast is still careerless to say the least.

The second downside is that important piece of the pie called a plot. The film opens with Adrien (Lori Heuring) being released from a mental institution. For some strange reason they, as some sort of punishment, send her to work at this ritzy summer beach resort where she meets the popular kids, all followers of the queen-bee Brittany (Susan Ward), so despite her being warned she falls into their little circle.

The plot falls to pieces when they shift what could have been a primo baddie roll in the hands of the mental girl and give the sinister role to Brittany she socialite. The problem here is that her reasons for being so evil are completely ridiculous and unbelievable and strip the script of an ounce of eeriness.

Yes Susan Ward is hot but she is far from scary here, in fact in the end when Adrien is running scared from Brittany I'm forced to laugh. The plot tends to contradict itself a lot, one minute Brittany and Adrien are friends, the next their not, and Brittany never really comes off as trying to do anything bad until all of a sudden she flips, as if for no reason, and the film falls apart fast after that.

It could have been a much better movie had the script really been tweaked, but tweaked it was not so good this is not. Like I said, if your into B-grade (or maybe even C-grade) teen thrillers then this serves up enough hot flesh and pointless acting to satisfy, but if you want something smart and the slightest bit engaging then pass this trash up for something better, please. As a side note too, the lighting is terrible in a few scenes here, particularly on the beach at night. You can hardly see anyone or anything its so bad. December 13, 2006

Lori Heuring

Before I jump into this review, let me start by saying Lori Heuring is one hot actress! She's tall, lean and rather sexy.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's proceed into the interview. The In Crowd is a sexy thriller about a misconfirmed psychologically challenged girl (Lori Heuring) who gets a second chance. Starting a summer job as a waitress at a wealthy country club, she soon finds herself in a world that isn't truly what it seems. She is befriended by Brittany (Susan Ward) and introduced to the glamorous life. Adrien soon discovers that Brittany is more than just a pretty face and a deadly rivalry ensues as Adrien finds herself fighting for her life!

This movie isn't as good as Wild Things or Cruel Intentions, but it is still worth checking out if you are looking to waste an hour and a half or so. The cast is very attractive and the plot is decent and well followed for the most part. I wouldn't recommend purchasing this movie but is definitely a decent choice for a rental.
November 7, 2006

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