Teen comedies were a hugely successful subgenre for Hollywood studios throughout most of the 1980s. Films like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Risky Business," and the myriad works of John Hughes made scads of money on modest budgets. But as with any formula-driven movie craze, people grew tired of seeing lazy variations on the same stock narratives, and, by the end of the decade, had fallen out of mainstream favor.

The target audience for these movies was tired of being pandered to, but the studios didn't know how to place an original spin on the subgenre. It turned out they just lacked the guts to address the angst of Generation X in a frank, darkly comedic way. No studio in Hollywood would touch Daniel Waters' screenplay for "Heathers," but director Michael Lehmann and producer De

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