Duck! The Carbine High Massacre is a 1999 American teen black comedy crime film about a school shooting. Released just over six months after the Columbine High School massacre event, it was written, produced and directed by William Hellfire and Joey Smack, who also starred. After the film was released, Hellfire and Smack were arrested for possession of weapons on school property. The film is said to have helped pay for Hellfire's legal fees.
This film provides examples of:
- As the Good Book Says...: The film opens with a quote from Genesis 4.And Cain talked with Abel, his brother; and it came to pass, that Cain rose up against his brother, and slew him.And now art thou cursed from the Earth which has opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.
- Asshole Victim: Though nowhere near as sociopathic as Derwin and Derick, most of the students weren't particularly sympathetic and several of them get killed during the massacre.
- Axes at School: This is what the film is about. Notably, the filmmakers were involved in a real-life version of this trope, having brought real guns onto a high school campus in order to shoot their movie — which got them arrested, a fact that they proudly boasted about on the film's poster ("the controversial film that landed its filmmakers in jail!").
- Black Comedy: A rare example of a school massacre being played for comedy.
- Conspiracy Theorist: A scientist theorizes that aliens influenced the massacre.
- He-Man Woman Hater: The gun dealer says he finds women to only be good for sex and verbal abuse.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: A group of jocks give Derwin one early on in the film, culminating in one of them carving into his stomach the word "FREAK".
- Ripped from the Headlines: The movie is based off of the Columbine massacre.
- The Stinger: At the end of the credits, two students watch the news footage and consider blowing up their school, knowing that they will get famous off of it.
- This Is a Work of Fiction: The film begins with this text card attributed to the producers:The story depicted in this motion picture is fiction and contains fictitious characters, although it is based on actual historical events. We realize some people may find it offensive, obscene, sacrilegious, and throughly disgusting. However, it was bound to become a motion picture eventually, or even worse, a "made for tv" movie.So we decided to do it first.
- Wire Dilemma: A policeman tries to diffuse the bomb and assumes it's the white one (""It''s always the white one!""). He sets the bomb off..
