Review: Horror comedy 'Spontaneous' is a sardonic take on high school life, love, and death

The teen horror-comedy “Spontaneous” is “Heathers” for a generation that didn’t need “Heathers” — because today’s high-schoolers already have enough crap going on in their lives — but they, and anyone else watching, will dig the sharply anarchic humor of this tale of sudden love and even more sudden death.

It’s a normal day at Covington High School, where Mara Carlyle (Katherine Langford) sits at her desk half-listening to her teacher. When she drops her pen, she leans over to pick it up — and misses the moment when the girl sitting in front of her, Katelyn (Mellany Barros), suddenly explodes, her blood coating the walls and her classmates.

Everyone, naturally, freaks out and runs screaming into the hallways. Soon, the class is giving depositions at the police station, and handing over their bloody clothing as evidence. How long will they stay in custody, and in unflattering police-issued sweatpants? “When they know it’s not going to happen again,” Mara tells her classmates.

Once they’re released, something else happens to Mara: She gets a text from Dylan (Charlie Plummer), a shy classmate who, inspired by Katelyn’s unexpected death, decides to live for today — which means admitting his long-standing crush on Mara.

It doesn’t take long for Mara and Dylan to go from talking to hanging out with Mara’s BFF, Tess (Hayley Law), to falling in love. It also doesn’t take long for more students to explode spontaneously, just like Katelyn.

Writer and first-time director Brian Duffield (his writing credits include “The Divergent Series: Insurgent” and the Kristen Stewart thriller “Underwater”) adapts Aaron Starmer’s young-adult novel into a fast-moving, darkly comic tale of teens trying to maintain their wits, and their gallows humor, as the world suddenly stops making sense.

Duffield turns the comically bloody moments of instant human explosions into an all-purpose metaphor — representing, by turns, general get-a-page-in-the-yearbook tragedy, then teen suicide, and, later, school shootings. He also plays up the despairing impotence of the grown-ups, whether it’s government scientists, an exasperated FBI agent (Yvonne Orji), or Mara’s worried parents (Piper Perabo and Rob Huebel).

If you’re not yet on the Katherine Langford bandwagon — I missed seeing her in “13 Reasons Why,” but loved her in supporting roles in “Love, Simon” and “Knives Out” — this movie will seal the deal. The Australian actor is a delight here, capturing Mara’s sardonic humor in the first half, then carrying some heavy drama when necessary. Langford gives “Spontaneous” both a spicy kick and a surprising warmth.

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‘Spontaneous’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, October 2, in select theaters; streaming on VOD starting Tuesday, October 6. Rated R for teen drug and alcohol use, language and bloody images throughout. Running time: 97 minutes.