Screen treatments of high school shootings in the wake of the 'Columbine Massacre' range from TV movie tearjerker splatter. Niall Kitson investigates the various manifestations of the very contemporary theme, and the various levels of understanding displayed by the filmmakers.

The story depicted in this motion picture is fiction and contains fictitous characters, although it is based on actual historical events. We realise that some people may find it offensive, obscene, sacriligious and thoroughly 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. God Bless America!
– The producers of Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (1999)

On April 20th 1999 America was rocked when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School in Denver armed with pipe bombs and automatic weapons, killing 13 people and wounding 25. Unprecedented in their ferocity, the actions of VoDKa/REB [1] forced a national debate on the roots of teen violence and the availability of firearms. The question of what exactly it was that prompted two eccentric nerds to take up arms against their peers led to an indiscriminate blame game, with Doom, Marilyn Manson and The Matrix all taking heat. What every side-issue solution, be it gun control or prohibiting the entire KMFDM [2] back catalogue, failed to address was the system of values inherent in American schools seemingly creating murderers from the inside out.

Stranger than fiction
With achievement and attractiveness, the currency of social acceptance cliqueness and alientation are par for the course, but the psychology of the 'school shooter' remains ephemeral despite the efforts of the mental health community and federal law enforcement. What better laboratory to examine the issue than fiction, and in particular the preferred medium of the young: cinema? When explored from every angle, be it nu-documentary, art film, TV movie or satirical no-budget explo, what we are learning is not so much that 'the kids aren't alright' but that now they've got the firepower to prove it.

1. VoDKa is Dylan Klebold (DK being his initials), REB is Eric Harris – short for Rebel, apparently.
2. KMFDE is an industrial rock group. The name is an acronym for the nonsensical German phrase 'Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid', which roughly translates as 'no mercy for the masses'. The media made much of the 'connection' between the band and Columbine massacre, as Eric Harris has posed some of their songs on his webpage.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 112.