This is just a more a superficial, upbeat ripoff of Welcome to the Dollhouse

I finally saw this years ago, and I couldn't believe how acclaimed it was.

The first thing that leaped out at me is how superficial it was. It was very slickly produced in a calculating way. The entire movie felt like a major studio trying very hard to make a cult B movie. For a B movie to be a cult classic, it has to be by accident. This felt very fake, very paint by numbers, like a studio executive went, "Okay, we need this and this and this! Oh, and the sets have to look like this and the costumes have to look like that. The hipsters will totally love it!"

Another thing about this movie is that it's a complete rip off of Welcome to the Dollhouse, except all they did was make the protagonist male and have it more upbeat. The movie is so similar that it almost feels as if it exists in the same universe. Again, I can imagine a studio exec going, "We need to cash in on that movie's cult status! Okay, let's pick a crew who can shoot a movie that more or less looks and feels like that movie, but make it positive." Again, amazed at how acclaimed this phony baloney fake B movie cult turned out to be.