Disturbing Behavior - 1998

I had the rare opportunity to watch Disturbing Behavior last night on 35mm in a fucking theater with other weirdos like myself who would go out to see a late 90's thriller-ish movie on a Tuesday night.  It had a short intro where I won the trivia contest, and it was all in all pretty "rad".  See, I can say rad because the movie was from the 90's.

Disturbing Behavior was a post-Scream entry into the horror thriller genre.  I have been talking a lot about horror as a genre with my horror buff friend recently.  We were talking about exactly how much Scream redefined the entire genre, the entire concept of horror.  As die hard horror fans, we both agree that in a way, as fucking stellar and groundbreaking as Scream was, it basically ruined horror movies forever.  It brought every problem, every ridiculous idea up, and it brought it front and center so we'd see it every time.  Of course, die hard fans like us can still enjoy a horror movie, but in the mainstream eye I think Scream really made people re-examine how much they truly enjoyed the genre as a whole.  In short, Scream was amazing.

So, post-Scream, they were still gonna make horror films, but how would they do it?  Disturbing Behavior did it by crossing genres with thriller and drama, coming of age, and big doses of reality coming through.  The whole film is an allegory about conformity and being oneself.  And it did all of this with huge 90's charm, ridiculous music of the era, and great actors.

Disturbing Behavior jumps into the action with Nick Stahl as Gavin witnessing a murder.  Some asshole jock is out with his girlfriend, randomly breaks her neck and kills a police officer.  However, the jock is let off by the cops who were there, and so now we know the cops are in on it.  Meanwhile James Marsden as Steve is a newcomer to the town, an outsider who doesn't fit in but is befriended by Gavin and his group which includes Katie Holmes as Rachel.  They are the outcasts of the school, the punky druggie dudes who don't care about school and just wanna chillax. Anyways, cutting all this short, Gavin is convinced there is a large conspiracy at hand that's changing the students into zombies, and he begins trying to convince Steve of this.  And then one day Gavin himself changes.

It's a extremely fast paced, gripping, and electric movie.  The cast sells the shit out of their characters, and Katie Holmes looks bomb as fuck as the main girl.  The threat feels real, and the story this movie tells is one that likely we could all relate to.  Feeling out of place in a school, in a society, feeling that pressure to conform is a very real feeling which I know I've felt most of my life.

There's some awesome death scenes, some great action, and everything falls right into place.  The end was typical, and satisfying.  All in all, I was not expecting a ton from this movie, and I really fucking liked it!  If I remember the plots and the every detail, if I remember character names, if I remember individual scenes the next day, it's pretty much a guarantee I liked the film.  I wasn't sure about the blog aspect of the film, but since I never update the site these days (hehehe) I figured whatev.

I give it....5 90's stars.