ROLLERCOASTER

These are the damned, the doom generation. Stealing the station wagon from the group home, a quintet of jaded juveniles invade a closed-down amusement park called Wonder World, which for one day and night threatens to become TeenagewasteLand instead. They blithely blackmail the lone security guard on duty, a pedophile, to be allowed to run loose inside, around eerily-silent thrill rides and shuttered snack stands. Lovers Chloe and Darrin are there for more than fun and games; after a positive pregnancy test, she wants to end their lives with a spectacular double-suicide that will persist ever after as a slumber-party urban legend (she's even brought candles because “I want it to be spiritual”). Uncouth pals Stick and Sanj are along too, to see if the pair will really go through with it. Darrin's little brother Justin, an unnervingly quiet sketcher of disturbing flip-books, is using the trip as a jumping-off point to run away to Spokane. How much of this is mere Gen-Why poseur boastfulness, and how much of it is really going to happen? Filmmaker Scott Smith not only pulls the levers and flips the switches that make ROLLERCOASTER run ? with you strapped in, tight ? he also finds the fragile, frightened children cocooned inside these cynical, swaggering punks.