Disturbing Behavior (1998) James Marsden, Katie Holmes, Nick Stahl, Ethan Embry, Bruce Greenwood, William Sadler, Steve Railsback, Melanie Angel, David Benton. Written by Scott Rosenberg. Directed by David Nutter. 83 minutes. Rated R, 1.5 stars (out of five stars)
Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo-online.com/film/ Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Edward+Johnson-ott To receive reviews by e-mail at no charge, send subscription requests to pbbp24a@prodigy.com
Think "Dawson's Creek" meets "The Stepford Wives." Think "Beverly Hills 90210" meets "A Clockwork Orange." Better yet, think about going to see anything other than "Disturbing Behavior."
A spoiler alert. Generally I avoid revealing significant plot points about movies, but I'm making an exception here because I simply don't care.
"Disturbing Behavior" is a painfully derivative, hapless little thriller about small town authority figures who use computer implants and brainwashing techniques to turn unruly young people into Republicans. Unfortunately, when the Stepford teens get angry or sexually aroused, they become homicidal maniacs. Oh sure, this may sound like the Bob Dornan story, but it's really just another hack horror flick aimed at the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" crowd.
The film suffers from post-Kevin Williamson-syndrome, where writers desperately try to crank out the kind of pop-culture riddled, ironic dialogue that helped Williamson strike gold with his "Scream" movies. In a script packed with unconvincing slang and snarky dialogue, writer Scott Rosenberg comes up with only one decent line, when sarcastic teen outsider Gavin watches the male and female leads eyeing one another and says, "Wow, appropriate sparks are flying. Cue the power ballad." Apparently, Rosenberg knew he hit pay-dirt with the quip, because he actually uses it twice in the film.
The story, such as it is, goes like this. New kid in town Steve (James Marsden) moves to Cradle Bay and hooks up with the annoying Gavin (Nick Stahl) and sultry Rachel ("Dawson Creek's" Katie Holmes). Gavin fills Steve in on the town's secret of success. Rebellious teens are taken away for "motivational weekends" with the "Blue Ribbon Club." They return as well-groomed All-American archetypes, with the aforementioned ultra- violent programming glitch.
Soon enough, our heroes learn that they are next on the list for involuntary "Blue Ribbon" membership. Oh, what to do! As the kids wring their hands over their pending entry into the Christian right, they stumble onto a handy fact. The sonic rat repellent machines the whacked- out school janitor keeps in the basement just happen to emit a frequency that short circuits the Aryan youths' brains. From there on...well, you do the math.
Even material this trite could have worked in the proper hands, but these filmmakers just don't have a clue. David Nutter, who directed a number of "X-Files" episodes, relies on every stock teen horror flick cliché in the book, while a standard-issue rock soundtrack grinds away in the background. The notion of remote-controlled jocks is amusing, but Rosenberg wastes the satiric potential with his limp script. The cast doesn't help matters. Marsden and Holmes look like pouty Gap models, and Stahl is so irritating that in his case, the implants don't seem like that bad an idea.
With "Disturbing Behavior," it appears the dregs of summer have arrived a few weeks early. Incidentally, please forgive this shorter-than-usual article. Throwaway flicks like "Disturbing Behavior" don't warrant a lengthy review and besides, I have better things to do. I'm going to surround the next Promise Keepers convention with sonic rat repellents and turn them all on at once, just in case...
© 1998 Ed Johnson-Ott
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