“Appropriate sparks are flying, somebody cue the power ballad.”

Justin’s rating: Oh Katie, you came and you kept me from dancing…

Justin’s review: Disturbing Behavior (or “Behaviour,” for our Canadian/British friends) is so eerily like a two-hour X-files that you’ll be craning your neck to see where the heck Scully and Mulder are. Here, a small Washington community blindly turns their kids over to a mad scientist who wants to diddle in their minds to make them the perfect children, sort of like those kids on Home Improvement.

Like The Faculty, Disturbing Behavior borrows heavily from classic scifi body takeover tropes (Village of the Damned, The Stepford Wives, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers come to mind) while updating it to a more “hip” and “grungy” ’90s teen audience. Also, like The Faculty, it features a group of kids contrasted to high school society in their various weird — and I daresay, eerie — personas. And finally, like The Faculty, I profess a strange fondness for this in-and-out flick, even though most people have denounced this film as just another lousy Millennial ripoff. I disagree; it may be somewhat derivative, but it is fun and the visuals are interesting, and I would always pick it to watch over I Know What You Did Last Summer or Halloween: Water.

Steve (James Marsden) transfers to a Washington state high school where things are a little… off. A group of too-good-to-be-true “Blue Ribbon” members seem to have the run of the place, even if they act more like pod people than actual normal teenagers. They’re model-perfect students, except when they get all murdery whenever their emotions spike.

Sure enough, it’s a town-wide conspiracy to control those hormonal rascals, led by Dr. Caldicott (Bruce Greenwood). Yet not all is lost, because Steve befriends all of the Breakfast Club outcasts who’ve held out from the Blue Ribbon brainwashing cult. These include stoned Gavin (Nick Stahl), albino UV (Chad Donella), rebellious Rachel (Katie Holmes), and Lindsay (scream queen Katharine Isabelle). They also find an odd ally in the crazy basement-dwelling janitor (William Sadler).

Despite being a horror flick with teens and a few kills, this isn’t a slasher at all. Rather, it’s a conspiracy flick tinged with scifi elements, a kissing cousin of The X-Files. As you might expect in this genre, the outcasts have the odds stacked grossly against them, but we cheer their plucky rebellion even so.

I actually prefer this approach, because it strays far from the boring playbook of slashers to venture through a stranger playground.

Disturbing Behavior is truly one of those forgotten gems of late ’90s teen horror. It’s a commentary on cliques, conformity, trauma recovery, and the desire of adults to control rather than understand and communicate with teens. It’s also quite entertaining and packed with a great cast.

Due to a lot of studio interference and friction with the director, this film endured a lot of hardships in and out of the editing room, resulting in a flawed final product that could’ve been a lot better. It’s apparent how much was cut, including backstory on why this town felt that mind control was needed, more of the account of Ethan Embry’s deceased character, and more scenes with its key villain.

I do hold out hope that the rumored director’s cut will one day be released, but it’s not like there’s a Disturbing Behavior brigade out there pushing the studio to make it happen. At least what we do have functions as a very late-90s time capsule of fashion, slang, and feel.

Intermission!

• Reportedly, there’s an unreleased director’s cut that runs nearly two hours and is much better than the theatrical cut. Fans have noted that a TV version and DVD extra scenes contain some of this content, but it’s never been put out there.
• Disturbing Behavior and 2000’s Final Destination began their existence as X-Files scripts.
• “Self-mutilate this, Fluid Boy.”
• An abandoned rowboat is not an ominous sign
• High school cliques in 1998 include motorheads, microgeeks, and skaters
• “Tell me Shannon, do you get yelled at if you talk about your dead grandfather?”
• Ultra-cutie Katie Holmes trying to be edgy with phrases like “Sounds razor” and “Who put the acid in my Spam?”
• Ripping a guy’s nose ring out, ouch
• Such a waste to smash up that muscle car
• Every time the robot kids get mildly aroused, they go on a killing rampage. Makes one wonder how long America would survive if this trend continued. Hotel honeymoon suits will become slaughterhouses.
• A pretty freaky and trippy visit to the local insane asylum (every community has one, check your paper for listings). Right up there with House On Haunted Hill’s lockup.
• Another social dissection of teen cliques by touring through the local high school cafeteria.
• Dumb parents. I mean, really dumb. I think there would be a very popular horror movie if only someone would make the death focus on these very types of parental figures.
• There’s a stoned albino. Wonder how they did the casting for that role.
• The janitor is not what he seems… “You’d be surprised how people become when they think you’re REALLY stupid.”
• This movie LOVES its ferries
• Mental asylums are (a) absolutely easy to break into at night, (b) have rooms where the lights shine up on people’s faces, (c) have lots of free-roaming patients doing harm to themselves and others, and (d) are populated by “crazy people” stereotypes
• Flagpole Sitta! Well-used in the movie, too for those 15 seconds.
• “That’s a big rat!”
• This is a movie where all of the bad guys like to line up on roads and ridges to look threatening