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Cram Sheet: Dark high school movies

By Deborah Netburn, Jevon Phillips and Patrick Day, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

An overview:

• The dark high school comedy usually involves one of three main themes: 1. Sex. 2. Murder. 3. The outsider/severe, painful, social awkwardness.

• One might argue that the dark high school comedy makes perhaps the best use of the black comedy genre because the subject matter and the medium are so perfectly paired; For most of us, high school is both painful and embarrassing, while at the same time being hilarious in retrospect. A perfect recipe for darkly comic storytelling.

Continue reading for examples of some of the best of the genre.