How Netflix’s 'Do Revenge' Successfully Revives The Campy Teen Movie Genre!

Do Revenge recently dropped on Netflix and it has the internet ecstatic. The consensus? If you love classic teen movies like Clueless, Mean Girls, and 10 Things I Hate About You, but have been disappointed by recent attempts to recreate that campy nostalgia, then Do Revenge is for you. The one-liners alone are “shocking! I’m shocked!” – as the character Drea (Camila Mendes) would say. 

Drea is the popular princess of her posh private school, but when her boyfriend Max (Austin Abrams) leaks intimate photos, her status plummets. Then Drea meets Eleanor (Maya Hawke), who was also betrayed by her partner when they wrongfully told the school that Eleanor was a predator. Together, Drea and Eleanor concoct a scheme to get revenge. 

Do Revenge manages to be both nostalgic and refreshing in its attempt at the teen movie. This is largely in part to the costumes and soundtrack. Drea’s high school uniform is pastel plaid pieces (think Clueless) and Max’s hair is reminiscent of a '90s-era Leonardo DiCaprio. The school itself brings about memories of the one in Cruel Intentions, not to mention Sarah Michelle Gellar herself also making an appearance as the headmistress! 

The director, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, deliberately paid homage to films of the past rather than trying to recreate them. In fact, the plot of Do Revenge is inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 classic Strangers on a Train and obviously not a teen movie. Robinson was so earnest in her appreciation of past classics that she even had a fountain, like the one in the original Scream movie, brought on set to recreate a similar shot.

The soundtrack pays more homage -- oldies and recent hits mingle to give us a film that won’t let your head stop bobbing. There’s the iconic end shot with “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks closing things out, juxtaposed with Olivia Rodrigo’s “brutal” at the beginning of the movie. Let’s say it: Gen-Z finally has a classic! 

Sophie Turner also makes an appearance that will have you cackling; you might even find yourself repeating her outlandish lines. Do Revenge’s quotability is the gift that keeps on giving. 

Stream Do Revenge now on Netflix!