Starring Jürgen Prochnow, Michael Pare, Brendan Fletcher, Elisabeth Moss, Clint Howard and others, the film follows various students/teachers and their dilemmas on the final day of school, culminating in a school massacre loosely inspired by Columbine.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Daniel's father Artie is shown to be more of a verbal/emotional type, at best trying to rope his son into a job after finishing school without the boy's consent and at worst cursing at/threatening violence and even being uncaring to his son getting picked on at school (for added vileness, calling him a "pussy").
- Asshole Victim: Ricky and two other bullies (Paul and Jeff) are the first three to be killed by Daniel.
- The Bully: Ricky Herman and his cohorts, who torment other students (especially Daniel and Barry) for kicks.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: English teacher William Pratt apologizes to his students on the last day for how harshly he treated them when it came to grading and critiquing their Creative Writing work. This is ultimately rendered moot by Dara shooting him dead in retribution for getting this treatment from him long before.
- Monochrome Past: Every single flashback is shown in black and white.
- School Is Murder: Given the film's premise, this is inevitable.
- Tempting Fate: Whilst being grilled by the guidance counselor, drug dealing student Wex asks "What's the worst that could happen?", just as the camera pulls back to show his most recent customer Dara on the school rooftop. Needless to say, it's safe to guess his dealings may have contributed to her involvement with the school shooting that same morning.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Downplayed (if not subverted). Daniel tries to convince Barry to tag along with his plan to shoot up the school on the last day, citing the pain both endured from Ricky and his gang. Barry ultimately decides to opt out of participating in the massacre, finding there are better ways to deal with the abuse he had suffered.
- Villain Protagonist: Daniel is one of the focal characters, who plots a school massacre out of vengeance for getting bullied nonstop.
