Sean Parker
There are few films brazen enough to go where Todd Wiseman Jr’s future-dystopia Florida-set film The School Duel goes. When it comes to the next generation, there’s plenty to discuss, but consistent gun violence against the most vulnerable in the nation never seems to amount to direct change. In the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, where twenty students and six adults perished, Connecticut passed stricter gun laws and enhanced safety measures in schools, sparking Second Amendment rhetoric across the country. Extra capacity magazines known as bump stocks were criminalized in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas concert sniper shooting, but the measures were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2024. This was just days before they overturned Roe v Wade. It remains apparent that the country cares more about an unborn fetus than any person living outside of that womb.
That hypocritical rhetoric leads Wiseman to a diabolical alternative in the form of a Battle Royale for bad apples. The School Duel marks the feature debut for Wiseman, who considers the divisional politics that have led the United States into individual states’ rights advocacies that have changed the definition of what it means to be American. Florida is a leader in that measure. The “Don’t Say Gay” state enforces many laws that target females and minority spaces, Anti-Trans Bathroom Bills, abortion bills, Red Flag Gun laws with vague definitions, making it easy to confiscate firearms from whomever police deem a threat without due process. While this response is a considerable measure in response to the 2018 Parkland shooting, in 2024, Governor DeSantis then allowed concealed carry laws that do not require permits, background checks, or training. The governor has also been pushing for open carry laws.
Wiseman has considered all of this in his script, making Florida the best backdrop for the titular duel, a radical enforcement of the film’s diegetic Governor Anthony “The Ram” Ramiro (The Office’s Oscar Nuñez in a role you would never have imagined him in). Ramiro is more interested in appeasing his base of gun owners and has created The School Duel as a Purge derivative alternative to removing problematic youngsters with violent behaviors.
Creating The School Duel’s landscape involves a similarly attuned infrastructure, one that prioritizes God in schools where teachers preach “Adam and Eve” sexuality and principals act as disciplinary wardens of corporal punishment. Even the boys’ Gym coach, Coach Williams (played with incredible power and compassion by Jamad Mays), is charged with preparing his students for military service, often incorporating violence into the lessons as if it is part of the syllabus. In multiple cases, viewers see these private battles of older boys taunting and bullying the younger students. This makes it very easy for a young man with questions about manhood and ideological notions of who his military father was to form a delusion of his importance, especially when holding a weapon.
As I stated in The School Duel’s precursory piece in our Fantasia opener, Kue Lawrence is having a hell of a year. The Marshmallow actor is a mere fourteen years old, and he’s amassing a credit sheet truly becoming of his meteoric rise. With an additional five projects currently in various stages of production, and the imaginative Sketch about to hit theaters on August 6, Lawrence is proving his young talent with every new title he becomes a part of, but Wiseman’s film pushes the actor into adulthood with scenes resembling Full Metal Jacket and dialogue that’s sure to leave jaws dropped in theaters.
Lawrence’s Sam Miller is an angry teenager. He hasn’t found his place or people at school, where it seems like his daily tenure is spent defending himself. When his ire for a classmate reaches a breaking point, Sam uses a weapon and earns himself a black mark on his record that attracts the eye of a recruiter (Michael Sean Tighe), who builds up Sam’s confidence, getting him to enter The School Duel of his own choosing.
Wiseman doesn’t let up on the gas either, showing how authoritarian fascism can look like democracy when painted with a Christian Nationalist brush. To do this, Wiseman’s composer Trevor Gureckis embeds hymnals and patriotic music into the score. The use of cheerleaders pantomiming gun violence is a nice touch as well. Even the little badges on the arms of each boy’s school uniform look a little threatening. He also uses a specific middle school taught short story, written by a Civil War veteran and based on Civil War inclinations of dignified deaths on the battlefield, to fuel his ending. The sentiment isn’t lost on the audience, and Wiseman shows multiple facets of Sam that help endear and repel him in the eyes of the audience. Regardless, he is just a messed-up kid who has somehow become the easy answer to a problem rather than dealing with the actual issue.
The School Duel is a twisted, politically charged, dystopian horror film that is sure to haunt you. It’s an unapologetic musing into the backslide of zealotism the country has found in both the religious and political fronts. It pushes boundaries and buttons in an attempt to create discussion. Guns are a Second Amendment right, obviously, but I don’t think the writers of the amendment factored in the modernized weaponry of semi-automatic weapons that fire successive rounds at blistering speeds when they were writing the amendment in 1791. And while I understand the government paranoia associated with the argument, especially after reading some of the more egregious incitements of the red flag gun laws, I can discern that the conversation will undoubtedly be turbulent at times. But when it comes to schools, don’t we owe it to the children to talk about it and find a path forward that doesn’t put them in harm’s way?
Wiseman’s film is powerful, made even more so by an array of challenging imagery and bold storytelling. The director has created a film guaranteed to ruffle some feathers, and never backs down from being extraordinarily divisive. The outstanding character work done by this glorious ensemble adds depth to the drama, and Lawrence is simply magnetic. Catch this one wherever you get the chance to. The bigger the screen, the better. You’re going to want to feel this one’s impact as bright and as loud as it can hit you, because it will hit you.
The School Duel played at the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival on Thursday, July 31, with an encore showing on Saturday, August 2. Check out the film’s page on the Fantasia website for more information.
