Pump Up the Volume (film)
| Pump Up the Volume | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Allan Moyle |
| Produced by | Syd Cappe Sara Risher Sandy Stern Nicolas Stiliadis |
| Written by | Allan Moyle |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Cliff Martinez |
| Cinematography | Walt Lloyd |
| Edited by | Larry Rock |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
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Release date
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August 22, 1990 |
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Running time
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105 min. |
| Country | United States, Canada |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $11,541,758 (USA) |
| Pump Up the Volume | |
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| Soundtrack album by Various Artists | |
| Released | August 14, 1990 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Label | MCA |
| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Pump Up the Volume is a 1990 comedy-drama film written and directed by Allan Moyle and starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.
Mark Hunter (Slater), a high school student in a sleepy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, starts an FM pirate radio station that broadcasts from the basement of his parents' house. Mark is a loner, an outsider, whose only outlet for his teenage angst and aggression is his unauthorized radio station. His pirate station's theme song is "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen and there are glimpses of cassettes by such alternative musicians as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Camper Van Beethoven, Primal Scream, Soundgarden, Ice-T, Bad Brains, Concrete Blonde, Henry Rollins, and The Pixies. By day, Mark is seen as a loner, hardly talking to anyone around him; by night, he expresses his outsider views about what is wrong with American society. When he speaks his mind about what is going on at his school and in the community, more and more of his fellow students tune in to hear his show.
Nobody knows the true identity of "Hard Harry" or "Happy Harry Hard-on," as Mark refers to himself, until Nora Diniro (Mathis), a fellow student, tracks him down and confronts him the day after a student named Malcolm commits suicide after Harry attempts to reason with him. The radio show becomes increasingly popular and influential after Harry confronts the suicide head-on, exhorting his listeners to do something about their problems instead of surrendering to them through suicide—at the crescendo of his yelled speech, an overachieving student named Paige Woodward (who has been a constant listener) jams her various medals and accolades into a microwave and turns it on. She then sits, watching the awards cook until the microwave explodes, injuring her. While this is happening, other students act out in cathartic release.
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