Product Description

Hot stars James Marsden ("Bella Mafia"), Katie Holmes ("Dawson's Creek") and Nick Stahl (The Thin Red Line) set the screen ablaze in this breathlessly fast-paced jolt-fest from veteran "X-Files" director David Nutter. Written by Scott Rosenburg (Con-Air) and featuring a hip soundtrackfrom the hottest bands around, this "clutch-your-armrest thriller" (Teen People) will pull you into the undercurrent of a deranged high school cliqueand drag you away screaming! Achieve, be excellent...and be afraid. For when the esteemed Blue Ribbon club of Cradle Bay High take their slogans too far, things in the small coastal town begin to go wrong. Dead wrong. And when a "dark sinister force" begins turning the school's curricularly challenged into the soulless, academic elitethree "outsiders" join in a desperate race to avoid becoming insidersand losing their individuality forever!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24629 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-01-05
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 84 minutes

Amazon.com
This paranoia-fueled thriller, more intelligent and imaginative than you would have reason to believe, owes a huge debt to The Stepford Wives with its premise of a goody-good high school clique programmed by an evil doctor to be wholesome, academically driven, and shining examples of clean living. Unlike its predecessor, though, David Nutter's film opts to open up its premise for everyone to see, diluting the scares but amplifying the creepy atmosphere. There's never any question of what's happening to the students of Cradle Bay High, who go from being druggies and sex fiends to the academically excellent Blue Ribbons, but it's a lot of fun to see these programmed teens run amok--and start killing people--when their hormones kick in. And considering they're all horny teenagers, this happens, oh, at least a few times a day. Model-perfect James Marsden, with stunning cheekbones and piercing blue eyes, is the new kid in town who stumbles on the plot with a little help from metalhead Nick Stahl. Moody Marsden stirs up trouble when he refuses to join up with the Blue Ribbons, prompting his concerned parents to consider signing him up for the program, especially after it turns Stahl into a vest-wearing, pep-rallying brainiac. The satire isn't entirely fulfilled (the evil kids hang out at the yogurt shop and spout inspirational platitudes), but once the action kicks in it's quite an enjoyable ride, thanks primarily to Bruce Greenwood (of The Sweet Hereafter) as the mad scientist behind it all and Katie Holmes (Go) as Marsden's love interest. Refusing the advances of the star football player and fighting gamely alongside Marsden, Holmes manages to deck a few bad guys with a fervor that squarely puts her in Linda Hamilton and Jamie Lee Curtis territory. With Steve Railsback as the colluding chief of police and Dan Zudovic as a janitor with a penchant for getting rid of "rats," rodent and otherwise. --Mark Englehart

From The New Yorker
The gorgeous teen children of a small town are lobotomized by their parents in director David Nutter's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" rip-off. The cast, featuring some of TV's most photogenic actors, is saddled with Scott Rosenberg's groaning dialogue and totally played-out scenario. The film wastes the considerable talent of Bruce Greenwood (who was the grieving father in "The Sweet Hereafter"), in the thankless role of a local doctor turned mad scientist. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Not a perfect movie, but a perfect example...
...of what can happen when a movie is created in a studio conference room. The sheer idiocy of what MGM did to director David Nutter's "Disturbing Behavior" is paralleled only by Miramax's hack job on "54". Good job, guys. We really didn't need to know anything about Steve's (James Marsden) brother's suicide did we? Sure, it would have given the film a whole new dimension, and would have made Steve's bond with Gavin (Nick Stahl) maybe mean just a little bit more within the context of the story. But, out it goes. And, hey, who needs that whole love scene with Rachel (Katie Holmes), anyway? We've already gotten the idea that these two dig each other - let's get on with the show! And wait just a gosh darned minute - do we really need anymore background on an important, pivotal character like Newberry (William Sadler)who gives his life to save the kids toward the end? Nah! And the ending - wouldn't it be so much more profound to have Gavin just kind of show up in some inner-city classroom with chip in his eye than for him to have the powerful final confrontation with Steve on the ferry? Absolutely! MGM screwed up royally with the final cut of this film but, through the miracle of DVD, audiences can now be treated to all of the above-mentioned deleted scenes (and several more that are so riveting you wonder why in the heck...) plus a fascinating audio commentary by David Nutter that gives us a new appreciation for this flawed but intriguing little film. Skip the VHS edition, but do check out the DVD.

Decent plot and acting meet poor writing
This film starts out well enough, with a family moving to the odd little town of Cradle Bay seeking a fresh start, and an escape from the haunting memory of a son and brother who committed suicide. When the family arrives, the town seems eerily too-good-to-be-true. The "kitschy" small town flare, complete with that "everybody knows everybody else" sentimentality, is almost nauseating. How very cliché (can we say "Stephen King?").

When the family's two remaining children (one of them being James Marsden's character, Steve Clark) head out for their first day of school, it becomes easy to discern, to the viewer at least, that something is horribly awry. Sure, the usual high school cliques are present. However, they seem far too exaggerated. For example, the omnipotent "Blue Ribbons" (a.k.a. "jocks") are the school's best athletes, as well as the school's most academically inclined students. Few exceptions aside, is this generally the case? I think not. Furthermore, these students hang out at a yogurt shoppe. It's no longer the 50's, and most high schoolers have other various hang-outs. Yet another clue that should give the new arrivals some insight as to the odd goings-on in Cradle Bay. However, when Nick Stahl's character (Gavin) attempts to inform Steve Clark of the evil plot that is behind the Blue Ribbons and their oddly uniform characters, Steve remains clueless. It takes Gavin becoming a Blue Ribbon himself to spark the light bulb in Steve's head, and he then decides to discover the root of the evil.

With the help of a fellow student, Rachel (Katie Holmes), and a very cheesily written but well acted school janitor (Dan Zudovic), Steve uncovers the extremely "Stepford Wives-esque" plot. The mad scientist behind it all is unveiled just before Rachel and Steve are themselves to become Blue Ribbons. Together they must find a way out of their predicament before it's too late. Thus, the movie comes to it's extremely harried "grand" finale.

This film seems well-conceived, and probably could have been much better than it was in actuality. It would have been interesting to see more of the teenage angst, rebellion, and struggle for individuality yet desire to fit in developed in some of these characters. Perhaps then they would not have seemed so soulless and one-dimensional. The plot, though cheesy and cliched, began with some decent build up. However, the ending was a bit of a let down. Furthermore, some of the plot elements never quite seem to come to fruition, and the deleted scenes included on the DVD extras only partially solve this problem. Many of the scenes were also far too unrealistic. For example, the creepy, dank atmosphere at the asylum and the completely incoherent nature of every patient there seemed far too over-the-top. Not all of those institutionalized mumble, drool, and traipse around like zombies.

Overall, this film is decent for a rental, but not worth the money to purchase.

Unfairly maligned; slightly clumsy, not awful.
Much has been said about this being a Scream ripoff. Here's my verdict based on my horror-film experience and my observation on the technical execution of Disturbing Behavior:

From screenwriting, directing and cinematographic points of view, Disturbing Behavior has NOTHING to do with ANY of the Scream movies.

Scream and Scream 2 were self-referential commentaries on the horror genre while frankly (and dare I say not very effectively) using the conventions of slasher films for cheap thrills. The value of the Scream movies was in the comedic elements: The wink-wink, nudge-nudge to people who know slasher films well. The impact of Scream, if it has impact on you, is strictly personal, as are the relationships of the characters. (If anything, Urban Legend is an extension of this approach).

Disturbing Behavior is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sociological in its impact and its intention, broad (and often sketchy) in its character depictions, and completely uninterested in its own genericism, Disturbing Behavior is a conventional suspense-action piece. It doesn't rely on gore effects and slasher-film conventions; for example, one of the most disturbing scenes in Behavior is the scene of near-seducton that ends in masochism -- its impact comes not from physical danger (as in Scream and the slasher-film tradition) but from the concept. Same for the rest of the story -- the question is not whether these kids will get their heads chopped off; it's whether they can retain their own identity. And that is NOTHING that the slasher-film tradition offers because, as shown by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the forefather of all slashers, the slasher film's chief weapon is simple, straight-forward physical danger.

The look of Disturbing Behavior is more noir than slasher, and its storyline is a dead-serious social commentary. Kind of like a much less complicated version of 1984, and limited to young people instead of the whole society.

I actually liked Disturbing Behavior even if its faults are legion -- Marsden's questionable acting, the lack of real depth of the Katie Holmes character (though she tries for more), and a slipshod narrative structure. It's worth a look for writer Scott Rosenberg's bleak view of the institution of education.

Disturbing Behavior is no classic. But to lump it in with Scream (admittedly, the marketing campaign for Disturbing Behavior *did* try to cash in on the horror audience rejuvenated by Scream) is convenient, shallow, and an act of ignorance as to how the two movies respectively work.