[8][9] The film stars Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker, and Penelope Milford.

Its plot portrays four teenage girls—three of whom are named Heather—in a clique at an Ohio high school, one of whose lives is disrupted by the arrival of a misanthrope intent on murdering the popular students and staging their deaths as suicides.

Waters intended the film to contrast the optimistic teen movies of the era, particularly those written by John Hughes, by presenting a cynical depiction of high school imbued with dark satire.

The community regards Chandler's apparent suicide as a tragic decision made by a troubled teenager, making her even more worshipped in death than in life.

proposes that he and Veronica lure the boys into the woods, shoot them with tranquilizers, and humiliate them by staging the scene to look like they were lovers participating in a suicide pact.

finds her and, assuming she is dead, gives a monologue revealing his plan to blow up the school pep rally and make it look like a mass suicide.

After a number of failed attempts to get the script to Kubrick, Waters approached director Michael Lehmann, who he met through a mutual friend.

successfully blows up Westerburg High, and the final scene features a surreal prom gathering of all the students in heaven.

[20][21] Daniel Waters has stated that he had not seen Massacre at Central High at the time he wrote Heathers but that he had read a review of it in a Danny Peary book about cult movies and that the earlier film may have been "rattling around somewhere in my subconscious".

[19] Winona Ryder, who was 16 at the time of filming and badly wanted the part, begged Waters to cast her as Veronica, even offering to work for free.

[25][26] Christian Slater reports throwing a "big tantrum" and tossing his script in the trash after assuming he'd bombed his audition.

[19] 17-year-old Shannen Doherty wanted the role of Veronica, but Ryder had been cast, so the producers asked her to audition for Heather Chandler.

[30] Michael Lehmann has called Doherty "a bit of a handful" on set, in part because she objected to the swearing in the script and refused to say some of the more explicit lines.

[36] Heathers premiered in Milan, Italy, in the fall of 1988,[37] then was screened at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 1989,[2] and was released to the U.S. public in March 1989, at which time New World Pictures was going bankrupt.

[19] The film was considered a flop when it was released, earning $177,247 in its opening weekend and ultimately grossing $1.1 million in the United States over five weeks.

[19] It was released again on LaserDisc in September 1996, as a widescreen edition digitally transferred from Trans Atlantic Entertainment's interpositive print under the supervision of cinematographer Francis Kenny.

[41] The DVD contained an audio commentary with director Michael Lehmann, producer Denise Di Novi and writer Daniel Waters, as well as a 30-minute documentary titled Swatch Dogs and Diet Cokeheads, featuring interviews with Ryder, Slater, Doherty, Falk, Lehmann, Waters, Di Novi, director of photography Francis Kenny, and editor Norman Hollyn.

[17] The Tin Set included a theatrical trailer, screenplay excerpt, original ending, biographies, 10-page full-color fold-out with photos and liner notes, an 8-inch "Heathers Rules!"

Writing in April 1989 for The Washington Post, journalist Desson Thomson wrote that it "may be the nastiest, cruelest fun you can have without actually having to study law or gird leather products.

The website's consensus reads: "Dark, cynical, and subversive, Heathers gently applies a chainsaw to the conventions of the high school movie—changing the game for teen comedies to follow.

"[50] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[51] Academics have likened Heathers to other films popular during the 1980s and early 1990s which characterized domestic youth narratives as part and parcel of the "culture war".

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Clueless (1995), Jawbreaker and Election (both 1999) all feature popular school girls who are at once dedicated to maintaining their accepted image but who struggle (or fail) to recognize the contradictions and ironies of their position.

[56] On June 2, 2009, Entertainment Weekly reported that Ryder had claimed that there would be a sequel to the film, titled Heathers 2, with Slater coming back "as a kind of Obi-Wan character".

"[58] In 2024, Daniel Waters revealed that he had concocted a story for the sequel where Veronica becomes a page for a presidential candidate named Heather, who would have been played by Meryl Streep.

[60] Fickman also worked on the musical Reefer Madness,[60] a parody of the anti-cannabis movie of the same name which was turned into a feature film.

The cast of the Joe's Pub concert included Annaleigh Ashford as Veronica, Jenna Leigh Green as Heather Chandler, and Jeremy Jordan as J.D.

[63] An Off West End production of Heathers, directed by Andy Fickman, played at the Other Palace in London with performances between June 19 and August 4, 2018.

[64] In 2021, Heathers returned for a limited run at the Haymarket with Christina Bennington playing Veronica Sawyer and Jordan Luke Gage as J.D.

In March 2016, TV Land ordered a pilot script for an anthology dark comedy series, set in the present day, with a very different Veronica Sawyer dealing with a very different but equally vicious group of Heathers.