What if one of the biggest bombs of the ‘90s is secretly an awesome thriller waiting to be rediscovered? At the time, Disturbing Behavior (1998) was a box office bomb that got absolutely dragged by critics, but it’s much better (and much, much scarier) than most modern scary movies.
If you want to dive into an underrated spooky classic featuring some of the best stars of both DC and Marvel, you can now stream Disturbing Behavior free on Tubi.
Similarities To Pluribus
The new Apple TV series Pluribus, from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, is set in a world where everyone appears to be programmed to be extremely happy and friendly. Meanwhile, it’s up to the most miserable woman in the world to save us.
Disturbing Behavior explores a similar plot on a smaller scale. It’s limited to one school, rather than the entire world, but it’s about a group of seemingly perfect kids who may only be that way because they’ve been programmed to be. It’s up to a loser to save everyone from their perfection.
Introduce Yourself To the Class
The premise of Disturbing Behavior is that after his family moves to a new town, a young man tries to navigate his way through the local high school’s colorful cliques. He is especially wary of the Blue Ribbons, whom the faculty celebrate as model students but whom his new buddies insist are brainwashed zombies. As more people seemingly succumb to the reprogramming of the increasingly violent Blue Ribbons, our protagonist realizes that he might be the only one who can save his new high school from the preppiest, scariest kids the world has ever known.
The cast of Disturbing Behavior has some big names, including James Marsden (best known for Hairspray) as our main character, a new kid whose quest to fit in puts him on a collision course with his new high school’s creepiest kids. Katie Holmes (best known for Batman Begins) plays a cute outcast whose midriff literally drives men into a violent frenzy. Nick Stahl (best known for Sin City) plays another outcast who has the inside scoop on everything from cliques to conspiracies, and Ethan Embry (best known for this movie and That Thing You Do!) plays the doomed older brother whose death haunts our protagonist.
Scaring the Critics In All the Wrong Ways
Disturbing Behavior made quite an impression on my teenage self, but it turns out I was one of the relatively few people who saw this one in theaters. Against a budget of $15 million, this movie only earned $17.5 million, making this a bona fide box office bomb. This killed any prospects of a sequel, though some devoted fans have kept the movie’s spirit alive by touting the virtues of fan-made “director’s cuts” that added deleted scenes back into the film and restored its original, arguably superior ending.
When it came out, critics found Disturbing Behavior… well… disturbing in all the wrong ways. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie had a rating of 36 percent, with critics mostly complaining that the plot was too predictable (a cardinal sin in a post-Scream world). While some enjoyed the movie for being a throwback thriller with atmospheric vibes, others felt the film didn’t take enough creative risks and instead hewed too closely to a very familiar formula.
A Throwback Thriller In All the Best Ways
Now, I know what you’re thinking: why the heck am I recommending you check out a box office bomb that the critics thought they’d have to be brainwashed to like? First off, Disturbing Behavior may be a movie that wears its influences on its sleeve (it’s basically Stepford Wives meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers), but it manages to deliver a school full of genuine scares throughout its svelte, 84-minute runtime. Sure, it’s a throwback to ‘80s horror, but that’s not really an issue given how much modern audiences remain fixated on the decade that just won’t die.
Additionally, as I have written about before, this is one of those late-90s movies that got heat from the critics not so much for what it was but for what it wasn’t. Namely, this movie was no Scream, which had come out only two years earlier. Few films are as good as that S-tier slasher (seriously, Wes Craven struck, er, slashed gold with that one), but after that film redefined the horror genre, critics spent years expecting every scary film to be an equally subversive metatextual meditation on cinema.
If you go in expecting it to be more like a vintage horror movie rather than something revolutionary, you’re going to have a good time with Disturbing Behavior. It’s got just enough familiar tropes to be easily accessible and just enough serious surprises to leave you on the edge of your seat. Plus, we all know high school is a nightmare, so why not work through your fears along with a killer cast?
Marvel and DC Held These Stars Back
Speaking of the cast, there’s a certain glee in watching the Marvel and DC stars of this movie get to shine in ways their future comic book movies never allowed. James Marsden’s Cyclops, for example, was the most boring part of the X-Men movies and Superman Returns, but Disturbing Behavior lets this leading man demonstrate a full range of nuanced acting chops. Meanwhile, Katie Holmes was a glorified damsel in distress in Batman Begins; here, though, she gets to show off a wild side that Dawson’s Creek always tried to keep hidden, shining as a sultry fighter who refuses to be defined by her staggering beauty.
Will you agree that Disturbing Behavior is one of the most underappreciated teen horror films of the ‘90s, or will you think this is just a lamer Stepford Wives? You won’t know until you stream it in all its vividly violent glory for yourself. After the credits roll, be sure to check out the movie’s official music video, whose song (The Flys’ “Got You Where I Want You”) is the ultimate paean to the passionate highs and bittersweet woes of young love.
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