DISTURBING BEHAVIOR (1998)

DISTURBING BEHAVIOR (1998)

Tagline: In Cradle Bay... there's nothing more frightening than perfection.

(Sci-Fi, Horror, Everyone Better Settle The Heck Down) [R]

I bet you didn't know toast came in 3 flavors.

In the early 90’s we saw several horror flicks coming out that were basically like backup bands to the glory of 80’s style horror. This is not to say there were not a few standouts. Then later in the 90’s we got a bunch of stuff like this and to be honest, I pretty much loved it. Let me start off by saying this for those of you that know me asking “Dude, why are you posting a horror review outside of the month of October?” A lot of you know I rarely do that, but I do make exceptions from time to time, and to me, this is NOT a horror movie. This is basically just run-of-the-mill everyday stuff in high school. Mind control – check, crazy kids – check, running around with hot girls who will kick ass – check, having your friends suddenly turn on you overnight – check, faculty meeting in the middle of the night in the dark trying to figure out how to survive the kids- check. 

All that aside, this one is about the above things and to be honest the actual plot is pretty simple. Dr. Edgar Caldicott is trying to start a “Wave style*” system of student perfection by subjecting students to, let’s say…questionable therapy.  We get a breakout performance from Katie Holmes as Rachel Wagner which allowed her to kind offset her Joey Potter persona on Dawson’s Creek which was a huge success for the actress. The lead male and most generic name award winner Steve Clark is confidently played by Scott Summers from the X-MEN movies (real name James Mardsen) and the other actors and actresses in this thing are pretty solid for this type of movie. 

Just the opening high school setting monolog from Nick Stahl of TERMINATOR 3 (as Gavin) is worth watching this movie for, but there are a lot of other interesting “what the cow” moments here making this a great selection for movie night. Oddly, apparently, it bombed in a lot of theaters last just one week when it came out. *= See author Todd Strasser’s book “The Wave”. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MGM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.