Teaching Mrs. Tingle **1/2
rated PG-13 Dimension Films 96 minutes starring Helen Mirren, Katie Holmes, Barry Watson, Marisa Coughlan, Liz Stauber, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael McKean, Molly Ringwald, Lesley Ann Warren, Vivica A. Fox written and directed by Kevin Williamson
We've all had her before; the teacher that seems to hate us for no apparent reason, other than the fact that she's jealous of our future. Such is the title character of "Teaching Mrs. Tingle", a flawed but fun dark comedy. Mrs. Tingle, played by Helen Mirren, is kidnapped by three of her students(Katie Holmes, Barry Watson, and Marisa Coughlan) after she catches them cheating for her final test. The three students tie her to a bed in her home, and take turns watching her, while she plays mindgames and tries to make them free her. Despite a lame script and unfocused direction by "Scream"-scribe Kevin Williamson, "Teaching Mrs. Tingle" is devilishly entertaining, and almost becomes the high school satire that "Jawbreaker" tried to be. The best thing about "Tingle" are the performances of Helen Mirren and newcomer Marisa Coughlan. Mirren commands the screen and never loses her edge, while Coughlan always entertains(especially in an improvised "Exorcist" performance). Katie Holmes and Barry Watson(TV's "7th Heaven") are merely competent and don't hold the viewer's attention. I enjoyed Williamson's scripts for "Scream" and "The Faculty", but a good screenplay here could have made for quite a surprising film. "Teaching Mrs. Tingle" is his first directing foray, and he seems to be derivative of anyone with whom he's ever worked. But the film moves along at a good pace and is a breath of fresh air from the thankfully forgotten teen horror genre. Teens will like this film, but wait to rent it on video.
a capsule review by Akiva Gottlieb, The Teenage Movie Critic akiva@excite.com http://teenagemoviecritic.8m.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews