Prep School

2016 • 85 minutes

About this movie

At a prestigious Northern California prep school, a campus activist (Carly Schroeder) and her intense relationship with a troubled rugby player (Stephen Brookins) triggers an all-out war between rival students. At turns humorous and savage, director Sean Nichols Lynch's debut feature is a searing tale of adolescence, heartbreak, and revenge.

Ratings and reviews

"I know what secular means." Prep School is a low-budget drama/thriller that focuses on a cabal of angsty teens, psycho bullies, enabler faculty members, and even one or two likable characters thrown in for good measure. This is not a "nice" movie. It is a mean film filled with mean people and mean things happening to them. The humor is relentlessly dark and the final 20 minutes is almost hilariously fatalistic and bleak. That happens to be exactly my kind of flick, but those looking for a private school film that's a lot less cynical with higher production value will be better served by watching Scent of a Woman or something.

It opens with a shaky-cam rugby game that feels like a battle scene from a war movie, only to give way to a moving (and rather disturbing) spin on the private school genre (Dead Poets Society, School Ties, etc). Acting and camera work are very good. Music is also very effective. The ending left me with questions, but that was likely the intent. Would watch again.