Cast:
Perry King (Andrew Norris), Merrie Lynn Ross (Diane Norris), Timothy Van Patten (Peter Stegman), Stefan Arngrim ("Drugstore"), Michael J. Fox (Arthur), Roddy McDowall (Terry Corrigan), Keith Knight ("Barnyard"), Lisa Langlois (Patsy), Neil Clifford (Fallon), Al Waxman (Detective Stewiski), Erin Flannery (Deneen), David Gardner (Principal Morganthau), and Linda Sorensen (Mrs. Stegman) Directed by Mark L. Lester (#324 - Commando)
Review:
"Class of 1984 was prophetic in terms of high school violence. I never imagined how disastrous that situation would become over the years. But at the beginning of the film, it does say that it's a warning to America: that this will be happening everywhere."
Sure, why not another movie involving punks. I suppose it makes sense to go with the film that helped pave the way for stuff like Firestarter and Commando. Cleveland native Mark L. Lester had graduated from Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley before starting his career with a handful of B-movies directed such as Steel Arena (1973) before eventually getting to "less B-movie studio" stuff such as Roller Boogie (1979). Anyway, he had an idea for what became this film by a trip back to the Valley to see his old high school and what he saw from the students of the now. As such, he got Tom Holland to work on a first draft of what became the script before others came along. Lester, alongside Holland and John Saxton, were credited for the screenplay with Holland being credited for the story, although others such as Barry Schneider did work on the film (specifically punk dialogue) but requested no credit. Really the film is just inspired by the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, if crossed with a bit of A Clockwork Orange. Holland had been an actor in a variety of parts for the past decade before becoming a film screenwriter with this and The Beast Within in the same year of 1982. Eight years after the release of Class of 1984, Lester returned to write (alongside C. Courtney Joyner) and direct a follow-up with Class of 1999, albeit with a completely different cast and, uh, now featuring robots for teachers.
Sure, let's just assume the opening title card makes sense in calling the film "based partially on a true event". What we have here is a movie that basically takes things by the horns for a manic muddle of a time (94 minutes) that you can see coming in some of the beats that matter for a crime thriller with plenty of contradictions fit for its target in what it calls punks, complete with a performance by Teenage Head (after an opening song by Alice Cooper). As a production shot in Canada, you've got a mix of actors where McDowell (as the most experienced) ends up doing the best of the whole bunch, with Van Patten perhaps being just a bit above King in the second tier. There is just something quite curious that comes from a sequence involving McDowell getting students to learn biology in clearly the sanest way he believes possible: holding a gun to them, for which McDowell shows that he was not merely a guy there for show. King does fine with the material, but I find the descent (whether that means dealing with cops) far more interesting than the elements involving teaching or family. Go figure that the most noted actor among the youth was Fox (who had a handful of television appearances and exactly one film appearance before this) and not Van Patten, who does sell those times when one really wonders what kind of sociopath can play their hand in commanding attention. Granted, the group around him are not as particularly convincing, but I suppose that is how it goes when it comes to playing it simple with punks at the forefront of doing things for the sake of things (like making people take their clothes off or getting to stab folks in a ruckus).
Really the film rides on just how much you go with the ending. After a whole film of punks getting what they want as the goons they are, it goes right in to revenge flick for its climax, which at one point sees a guy getting his hand sliced off before a totally-not ironic title card for the ending. On the one hand, sure, totally sounds about right for a vigilante film. On the other hand, it really seems more appropriate to call it a movie where a man has been descended into a pit of hell by the punks that had been terrorizing him. It probably isn't a surprise that Lester is proud of his film to the point where he has called it "prophetic" in that aim to do Death Wish in a high school (and when it comes to punks among the society, 1983's Suburbia probably does it a tad better). I'm not sure how much of that belief is applicable when it comes to this film and the decades that followed its release, but regardless of that fact, the movie is mostly entertaining enough in the long run to inspire a look for being a boiling time for those interested in that sort of thing.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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