Fiction that tackles the topic of school shooting
Much needed disclaimer : This post is kind of out of my zone here (i mainly talk about my dumb ocs lol) but not completely, this is going to talk about FICTIONAL media about school shooting so be warned about the obvious heavy topics. I won't talk about true crime related media that exist because I don't really want to (just know that there's a lot of non fiction books that are still interesting as well as documentaries available for free on youtube) So i'm going to talk about fiction here, mainly movies and books but there's a surprisingly amount of other kind of media that did tackle this kind of topic. I believe that it's important to discuss darker topic in media, unfortunately you'll also see that a lot of these media fell flat due to the person behind it not fully understanding what they want to depict (i will talk about it more) This is mainly for educational purposes as i just wanted to list a bunch of these and give my opinion on some of them And to end this "intro", if you are struggling mentally, do not surround yourself with only depressing stuff like this, i do understand some people find comfort in dark subject but only consuming media that will reinforce a depressive state or self destructive state will probably not help you, not all coping mechanism are good, remember to take a step back and appreciate the little things in life
This post was made by me, a grown man with a master degree and too much time on my hands, also isn't it terrible to have the "school shooting media autism" and not the science autism ?
this list will link you to letterboxd pages and goodread pages and not to links to the actual media, however all of them can easily be found either on streaming services or youtube (and you can buy the books or find them somewhere else)
Movies
Duck ! The Carbine High Massacre 1999, available on youtube, it came out 6 months after Columbine and also got the directors to get arrested for bringing guns on school grounds lol William Hellfire was high on meds during the making on the movie (source : trust me bro, i'm sure he said it somewhere during an interview), he (and Joey Smack) are also erotic-fetish film makers, which does also show in the movie during the ? cartel scene with prostitute, and also when shooting up Bible Girl, anyway if you want a serious movie, this is not a movie for you. It's satire and dark humor from the 90s, expect everything to be bad in some ways. Is it interesting in any other way ? If you squint you can see it making fun of all the rumors surrounding columbine perpetuated by the news at that time AND how the media portrayed the whole Columbine situation, so there's that at least
2000s
Heart of America 2002
Bang Bang you’re Dead 2002
Home Room 2002, available on youtube
Zero Day 2003, available on youtube, if you know about this topic, you've seen Zero Day, if you don't, go watch it. To me it's one of the best media talking about school shooting, which is pretty easy and everything else is just kind of bad. It's also one of the best use of found footage according to little ol me, i think the fact that both of the actors were encouraged to do improv really carried the movie, really feels like following two teenagers around while they plot something bad.
Elephant 2003, i've seen many people have a beef with this movie, i think it's because they get into it with the WRONG expectation, Elephant won a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival, you know, the french festival for movies that will bore you to death (well, no i'm being mean, it's actually for artistic movies "film d'auteur" as we call it in french, but they're indeed boring and slow paced) so if you go into Elephant expecting Zero Day or a mainstream movie, WRONG, not your movie, this is not what it's trying to do, it feeling like a walking simulator is the point, that's an average school day and a school day is usually boring and a lot of walking and nothing happening, also it's part of the Death Trilogy made by the director (Gus Van Sant) which are the movie Gerry, Elephant and Paranoid Park, the director is gay if you were wondering why there was so much gay theme in the movie, he's the same director as My Private Idaho too
American Yearbook 2004, available on youtube
The Only Way 2004
State’s Evidence 2004
Dawn Anna 2005
Ekskul 2006
Klass 2007, available on Internet Archive with english subtitles
The Life Before Her Eyes 2007
April Showers 2009, the director is a Columbine's survivor
2010s
Hidden Rage 2010
Beautiful Boy 2010
Pivot Point 2011
We Need to talk about Kevin 2011 (adaptation of the book with the same name), for some reason Erza Miller always plays this kind of character
Black Coat Mob 2012, I cannot find ANYTHING about this which drives me crazy
Blackbird 2012
Hello Herman 2013
White Rabbit 2013
The Dirties 2013, available on youtube, another great movie about the topic, leans more on humor and is honestly kind of refreshing in a pile of drama oriented movies, it's also found footage
Shooting : The Musical 2014, it's canadian, because if there's something particularly crazy it's canadian for some reason
Natural Selection 2015, wonder where they got that title from....
All American Bully 2015
Almost Mercy 2015
White Rage 2015
I’m not Ashamed 2016, I wondered about putting this one on the list, it is about Rachel Scott's life (first victim of the Columbine Shooting) but it was made in such a way that I don't think this was her life at all, felt like someone put her corpse on a puppet and ??? decided her life was going to be christian propaganda as if she wasn't a real person to begin with ? Inaccurate and disrespectful movie
And then I Go 2017 (adaptation of the book Project X), I watched 40 minutes a year ago and forgot to finish it, is way more dramatic and serious than the book (see below for more about the book)
Sterling 2019
2020s
Paper Tiger 2020
Run Hide Fight 2020
M.O.M. Mothers of Monsters 2020, it's another found footage movie, i've actually seen this one, it's not exactly about school shooting, the mother just believe her son is gonna shoot up his school, i'm just gonna say : it's like We Need to Talk about Kevin had a paranoid mother who refused to give her son his playstation back so he became ? an incel ? I guess
Nitram 2021
The Fallout 2021, yes this is the moving starring Jenna Ortega if you were wondering
Mass 2021
Don’t Go to School Tomorrow 2022
Short Movies
DeKalb Elementary 2017
Active Shooter 2018
Safety 2019
1, 2, 3, All Eyes On Me 2020
If Anything Happens I Love You 2020
Shotgun Shrine 2023
We can also note the prevention video made by the non profit organization Sandy Hook Promise
Evan 2016
Back to School Essentials 2019
Movies that predates the Columbine Shooting
If… 1968
Monday Morning 1990
The Delicate Art of the Rifle 1996
Hostage High 1997
Books
2000s
Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser 2000, cannot get my hand on this book and it's really annoying
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 2003
Project X by Jim Shepard 2004, I read this one, mind you I read both the french version and english version because i had both, the french translation was so bad it made the book felt even more bonkers than it is. Listen, it's about two guys in 8th grade so i thought the 8th grader bullshit was accurate, they do that but sometimes I was like what the HELL are they talking about, you really have to read it to see what i mean, I also pictured Alex and Eric from the movie Elephant when reading about the two characters because it did felt like those four characters were the same, I do recommend it, it's at least fun to read
Shooter by Walter Dean Myers 2004
School Days by Robert B. Parker 2005
The Last Domino by Adam Meyer 2005
Endgame by Nancy Garden 2006
Quad by C.G. Watson and Carrie Gordon Watson 2007
Lockdown by Diane Tullson 2008
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb 2008
Bang, Bang, You're Dead! by Narinder Dhami 2009
Hate List by Jennifer Brown 2009
A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic 2009
2010s
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine 2010
The Survivor by Sean Slater 2011
Unlocked by Ryan G. Van Cleave 2011
This Is Not a Drill by Beck McDowell 2012
Crash and Burn by Michael Hassan 2013
Siege by Sarah Mussi 2013
He Was Weird by Michael D. LeFevre 2013
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick 2013
This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp 2016, i read this one, it wasn't good, too many pov i couldn't remember most of the characters and also the shooter was so, so fucking dumb and "obviously evil" like wow okay, also he did his evil speech for SO LONG and nobody thought of tackling him to the ground ?
Shooter by Caroline Pignat 2016
Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down by Anne Valente 2016
Close Your Eyes by Nicci Cloke 2017
Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong 2018
Beyond Broken Pencils: A School Shooting Tale of Heartbreak and Healing by Julie C. Gilbert 2018
That's Not What Happened by Kody Keplinger 2018
2020s
How We Ricochet by Faith Gardner 2022
Middle Grade
The Shape of Thunder by Jasmine Warga 2021
AfterMath by Emily Barth Isler 2021
Books that predates Columbine
Rage by Stephen King 1977, Stephen King decided to stop printing the book after it was found in the possession of some (6 in total) early 1990s school shooters
Video Games
Pico's School 1999
Super Columbine Massacre RPG! 2005
V-Tech Rampage 2007
Active Shooter 2018
The Final Exam 2024
Class of 09 (one ending with Jeffery), god the weeb is shooting up the school, what am i supposed to do with that now
I'm aware that some of these aren't really "fictional" but they do exist anyway so i put them here
Plays
Columbinus 2005
The Library 2014
4/20/99: A Story of Columbine 2018, you can see stuff about it on tumblr
also, yeah okay, not really fiction but, there's play about columbine, like, PLAYS ? where am I
I couldn't put it anywhere else because it's so ? random and weirdly specific but the cartoon Bridge Kids has an absurd amount of school shooting reference, not only with the character of Isaiah but their high school is called Columbus High
To end this :
As you can see, a lot of them are just... kind of bad, something borderline shitty and missing the point. I haven't seen/read all of them obviously but if I trust the reviews, it's still pretty bad.
It's clear that they fail to understand what makes someone do that in the first place, thing is, there's no clear profile, sure it's more likely a cis white man in between the age of 15 and 20 with some kind of mental illness, and access to guns, and you know what ? right wings ideologies for some reason the news really like to make that part disapear (who would have thought that violence, repressed emotion and incel behaviors could lead to violence ? shocking news i know)
But they fail to portray people as people, the victims are just the victims and they seen as martyr "can do no wrong" meanwhile the shooter is always morally evil and a psychopath, and next thing you know it's video games' fault, no wait, metal music, wait wait actually it was satanism, you get the gist
what if we portrayed people instead of archetype, what if we portrayed what really happen ? but they don't want that, they don't want to think that anyone could do that, they wanna point fingers to the weirdos that dress in black or something
Does bullying cause school shooting ? the answer is not black and white, bullying causes isolation which can worsen an already mentally ill person, if we take a cis guy society will encourage them to repress their emotion instead of talking about it and turning to violence rather than crying, there's a lot to say about that, violence, interest in guns, interest in tragedies in history, in itself there's nothing wrong with these interests don't get me wrong, but dude, let's face it, every single one of the shooters in real life were struggling and turned to anger (i mean one of them had a wrath shirt like yeah duh, also all of known shirt referred to what i'm talking about, hatred for the world)
so let's focus on mental health and discussion about it rather than ignoring and shaming people
Also, there's nothing wrong about media portraying these kind of event, nobody cares about Hannibal or all the series where the main character is a serial killer, why would this particular one be different ? Does it hit too close to home ? Well good, because it happens in real life and it's important to talk about it, media will make you uncomfortable and that's okay, not everything is for everyone.
And if people mention any of these in their manifesto, it's not the movie's fault, it's "video game causes violence" discussion all over again, it's dumb and useless, who's fault is it then, you ask ? the damn person with the gun shooting people maybe ????
Like I said in the beginning, really niche part of my interest, probably won't be making post like this after this one unless i get hit by some kind of knowledge (i do want to make longer post to talk more about what i like), so don't follow me expecting more post like this, I mainly post about the story i'm writing and my ocs (if anyone is wondering there is indeed a link between my knowledge on that and the story i want to tell, but that's a topic for another day, for the ones that actually wanna know about my ocs)
Anyway, peace out nerds