High school is a tough time. You’re either popular or you’re not. You either get invited to the party or you don’t. And if you’re four anxious freshman and somehow get invited, what do you do? All will be revealed in Dave and John Chernin’s hilarious R-rated high school comedy Incoming starring Mason Thames (The Black Phone), Bardia Seiri (Grey’s Anatomy), Ramon Reed (Just Roll with It) and Raphael Alejandro (Acapulco).

Filmmaking duo Dave and John Chernin (The Mick, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) took some time after a wild party to discuss bringing Incoming to the screen with Creative Screenwriting Magazine.

The Emotional Core Of Incoming 

“Incoming is about four freshmen in high school confronting the most terrifying moment of their life, which is their first big party. That’s such a seminal thing in anyone’s life,” declares John.

“It’s about the first time you go to a big party and put yourself out there. I’m wondering if I’m going to be okay? Are people going to like me? Is someone going to get beat up? Am I going to get beat up? Am I going to have a chance to make a move on my crush?” expands John.

Dave Chernin

It’s all about capturing the tone and emotion in this very rich area. Everyone can relate to a similar experience.

“I think all of the boys are desperate to be included and accepted,” continues Dave. “And I think at that age, that’s a very familiar feeling that we can all get behind.”

“Benj (Mason Thames) is good at playing confident, when the reality, he’s just as insecure as the rest of them.”

Filmmakers’ Intention

John and Dave Chernin didn’t set out to make a comedy film with a powerful thematic message about acceptance. They wanted to counter the current film and landscape of preaching to the audience.

“We set out to say, ‘Let’s make a movie that prizes laughter above all else. I think if there was a message to this movie, it’s ‘be yourself and have fun.’ We tried to keep it as far in the background as we could,” adds Dave.

“The whole impetus for this movie was that we wanted to do a 95 mile an hour fast-fault ride,” notes John. “We wanted something that was funny for the sake of being funny.”

They refer to a pivotal scene which captures the essence of Incoming.

“Our main character looks like he’s about to finally get a chance to kiss this girl that he is madly in love with, and he’s interrupted by his science teacher setting himself on fire in the middle of a high school party,” says John. “I like stuff like that because we you get to sit in the emotion for a second, and then it’s completely shattered by this crazy, outlandish thing.”

What Makes R-Rated High School Comedies Work?

The tropes of this type of film center around being as gross, drunk, and reckless as possible while navigating a party. Consequences be damned. According to John, “these films must have authenticity to work.” He elaborates by stating that many R-rated high school comedies fail because “they don’t speak to something real. They feel like a series of moments or they feel like these aren’t real characters.”

Dave and John Chernin are proud of Incoming because “it doesn’t pull punches or coddle their characters or their audience.” With similar movies in the same genre like American Pie and Superbad, they looked to their predecessors and expanded where their movie would go. Having producer Nicholas Stoller on board also helped to shape the movie.

John Chernin

Incoming isn’t a tell-all autobiography. “When we sat down to write this movie, we spent about a week reminiscing about high school and the feelings we felt, some of the first experiences we had and some of the characters that populated our own world.” They used their life experiences to create the baseline characters and storylines and amplify them for “entertainment purposes.”

“We’re not huge into drawing only from truth, but it definitely starts from a place of truth,” confirms Dave.

Throwback To The Chernins’ High School Days

The Chernins didn’t specifically set out to reinvent the R-rated high school comedy wheel with Incoming.

“We’re constantly trying to take in information and see how it can be synthesized in a new way and use things in a way that’s unexpected.” They also add that they watched movies from other genres for additional inspiration.

Social media wasn’t around when we were in high school

Back in the day, it was pagers, pay phones, and cell phones the size of a brick. In the current age of smart phones, communication is immediate, incriminating and explicit.

The filmmakers wrote this story as if it was set in the early 2000s when they were in high school. “We rerverse-engineered it to make sure that invites to the party came from TikTok accounts and characters always had phones in their hands and checking up on one another via social media,” adds Dave.