A socially awkward teen bonds with a group of misfits who plot to abduct the school's arrogant rich kids - until their kidnapping scheme turns deadly.
Directed by Mikhail Red, Dead Kids is the first Netflix Original Filipino film to be released on the streaming platform and stars Khalil Ramos, Markus Paterson, Vance Larena, Kelvin Miranda, and Jan Silverio. The film utilises Taglish (a mix of English and Tagalog) which does mean the film requires subtitles to fully appreciate.
The tone of the film transitions as it progresses, starting off like any other coming-of-age young adult drama, with a bit of comedy mixed in. Focusing on this group of dead kids (a slang term for what American films would categorise as the "losers" or British would call "misfits"), we have a generic story about this bullied group taking revenge on the popular jock-like students that have harassed them over the years. As we get into the third act, however, things take a much darker turn as their ineptitude start to cause rifts.
The main group of characters are poorly developed, with only one or two personality quirks that define their characters and motivations (if they are even lucky enough to have one. The main protagonist that we are given to relate to is Mark Santa Maria (played by Kelvin Miranda), yet his character is simply defined by the fact that he is poor, likes a girl, and gets bullied, and he gets the most development of all of the characters.
There is a subplot in the film that would have brought in an interesting perspective, looking at the effects of class differences between the rich and poor, but the plotline remains largely unresolved. Vance Larena's character of Charles Blanco is potentially the most intriguing character of the group and ties into this sub-element, with a great portrayal of a strong and silent type that has a history with untold trauma.
While it is safe to say that the third act switches in tone and tries to avoid the predictable tropes, from a narrative standpoint, the story and structure collapse completely as if the screenplay writer had no idea how to end the film. Initially, it does work well as it fits in with the mantra of Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Benjamin Franklin quote, where if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Peculiarly, the female characters in the film are sidelined, with very little to do in the film, the two characters taking up potentially 5 minutes of screentime combined, wasting a great potential source of character development.
Dead Kids puts forth an interesting twist on the usual young adult high school dramas. While the narrative falls apart in the end, it still manages to keep the intrigue until the very end. It would have benefited from an additional 10-20 minutes to runtime to flesh out the ending, as this was where the supposed "thriller" element came into play. But all in all, it was still an adequate flick.