Hardboiled High

Brick, a noir detective thriller set at a suburban high school, is dark, campy, and terribly funny. Its inspiration seems to come from many sources, including River's Edge, The Long Goodbye, Twin Peaks, and (as noted by SF Station reviewer Mel Valentin) Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op character from Red Harvest. Afterward, as the credits roled I was thinking about how easily the director could've gone just a touch too far and ruined the whole thing, but in my case that tension (and relief) also added to the overall experience.