Directed by David Nutter
Written by Scott Michael Rosenburg
Starring:
Jimmy Marsden as Steve Clark
Katie Holmes as Rachel Wagner
Nick Stahl as Gavin Strick
Bruce Greenwood as Dr. Caldicott
As Reviewed by James Brundage
To be or not to be? That is the question. Or, at least, that is
supposed to be the question. In the care of Disturbing Behavior,
the question is rather what to be. One on hand, you have a fairly
gripping psychological thriller. On the other, you have a teen
moneymaking vehicle.
One may ask, why can't it be both? It can't be both because you
just can't be a psychological thriller and a horror film. Sure,
people have tried, but I haven't seen it yet, and dollars to
doughnuts, I've probably seen more films than you. Unfortunately,
the writer and director of
Disturbing Behavior didn't quite get this.
At least it focused mainly on being a teen vehicle. In Disturbing
Behavior, instead of good kids going bad, bad kids are going good.
Of course, having all seen our share of films with this plot, we
know that they're being brainwashed.
Like all horror films, there really isn't any mystery or surprise
to the film. Point A can figure Point B. You have your basic
secluded setting: nice, suburban, and, of course, on an island
only accessible by ferry.
Well, basically, the movie grudges along, trying to be good. That's
fine. It tries to be funny and basically succeeds in that part.
It tries to surprise and trick us, but basically fails in that
respect. It has a hell of a soundtrack.
The thing that bugged me about the film was that, instead of
accepting that it was a popcorn movie, it tried to be intelligent.
For that, you may blame "X-Files" vets David Nutter and
Scott Michael Rosenburg. It tries to be surreal, it tries to be
intelligent, and it makes references that pass way over the heads
of its target audience.
This basically puts a stake in the heart of the movie, killing
what could have been a good teen flick, which still was,
according to the majority of teens, a cool movie. This yet again
proves Cynical Hollywood Thesis #132: "If you slap a good-looking
girl, a teen-idol guy, and a good soundtrack on a film, and it
will make up its incredibly meager budget." The soundtrack
on this one is mostly punk metal, but includes some interesting
additions, such as the 50s song "Accentuate the Positive."
It also gives us the gift of Harvey Dangerfield's "Flagpole
Sitta," the song of the 1998 summer that is basically gone
but not forgotten.
The kicks I got in the film mostly came in the form of inside
jokes. For instance, I was the only one in the theatre who
noticed that Bruce Greenwood, the bad guy, was in the exact
opposite position in the cult TV show "Nowhere Man" a
few years back. Or the million references it put in to The
Stepford Wives. Or the homage it pays to "The X-Files."
The performances are better than the average horror film, but the
script isn't: cliches dot the movie and basically get on my
nerves. The director tries to do film noir, but forgot how to
somewhere along the line. Nick Stahl and Bruce Greenwood are the
standouts of the film, although Holmes hones her natural talent
to some degree.
This isn't all to say that Disturbing Behavior wasn't fun: it was.
I enjoyed watching it, making fun of it, watching Katie Holmes
not have to be the all-American girl with the SAT-level
vocabulary she plays on "Dawson's Creek" (nipple and
nose ring and all), but the film basically disappointed me. I
wanted a paranoid thriller. I got Wes Craven.