Other than Star Wars, there hasn't been a film that completely took me over like Heathers did when I first saw it. Like almost everyone, I saw it on video. I've never seen it in a movie theater. Small releases like Heathers never made it to a small town in Eastern New Mexico in the 80s. We had six screens in town, so there wasn't much space for a flick so universally ignored by the public.

When it came out on video, though, I rented it. Instantly, it was one of my favorite movies. The opening twinkles of "Que Sera Sera" trigger something in my head. My friends and I still, somewhat ironically, "punch it in" with some regularity. Whenever anyone hands me a mug of something, I look inside to make sure it isn't blue drain cleaner. There are so many memorable scenes and lines, I could just write a whole story with them. But, from what I see on people's Myspace pages, tons and tons of people have watched, enjoyed and become obsessed with this flick. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, put it on your Netflix rent list already.

Interestingly, I've had trouble obtaining a working copy of the movie over the years.

When I moved away from Clovis to live in the big city in the early 90s, a friend who ran a video store gave me a well-worn video copy in the original pink box. I was able to watch it a few times before it fell apart. I still have this VHS copy, even though I can't use it for anything other than a prop.

When it finally hit DVD in 2001, I bought a copy with Winona Ryder on the cover Originally, there were at least three DVD covers (with the Heathers on them), but now the only one I see is Winona Ryder. Which is fine. She's the star. It's the best flick she's ever done--I say this after seeing a ton of Winona's movies before and since. It's hard to top the best high school movie ever, isn't it?

But when I watched the DVD, it had a fatal flaw. It would skip over the scene where Heather Chandler calls into the radio talk show to lament the recent bad turns in her life. A small scene, but if I'm going to have a copy of a great movie, it should play the whole damn thing, don't you think?

So I took it back to exchange for another copy. The new copy had the same fatal flaw. In fact, after the first try of watching it, the DVD didn't work at all. In any DVD player. Anywhere. It is, for all practical purposes, blank. Since return policies prohibit exchanging opened DVDs for anything other than the original title, and the possibility of getting yet another bad copy was pretty high, I just kept the unusable copy. A badge for my failures of consumerism.

I've had to do without seeing Heathers for a while.

It scarred me, really. It was like trying to bring back a happy moment in my adolescence and realizing everyone lied to me about everything. The worst kind of tease ever. And I resisted getting another copy of Heathers for a long time.

Until this month, actually. Last week, to be precise. I got to fall in love with Veronica Sawyer all over again. Almost like going to that high school reunion I skipped six years ago, but better because everyone still looks hot. They still talk with the cool, made up slang. Made up back then, but people now quote this movie without thinking.

And finally, I can visit these friends and enemies whenever I want. Again.

Christian Slater, in the first of his trifecta of crazy cool guy roles (Heathers, Pump Up the Volume and True Romance), is the most confident--and gonzo--high school recluses in history. Yeah, he's channeling James Dean, Martin Sheen in Badlands and, of course, Jack Nicholson, but he does it effortlessly.

All of the stereotypes you could ever imagine are shown at the fictional Westerburg High School, and I used to try to figure out who I was when I was in school. And maybe I was none of them--or all of them at once. But I really wanted to be Jason Dean. And I really wanted to be Veronica Sawyer's boyfriend. And I really wanted to be able to play strip croquet--with a girl.

So maybe I didn't really want to blow up the high school. But let's pretend I did. Pretend I blew up all the schools.

I'll light a cherry on your cigarette.

Matt Worley had a crush on the "Heathers" at his high school--before he even knew what that meant.