Review of Disturbing Behavior (1998) by James S — 23 May 2013

One of the late '90s horror revival crew, but not one of the ones which attained the grand status of your Screams or Knowing What You Did Last Summer. Which is a bit of a puzzle as despite it clearly not having the budget thrown at it that those films did, Disturbing Behaviour strikes you as a very marketable film for the time, if only because it has Katie Holmes in it.

Disturbing Behaviour came at a time when Holmes was lighting up bedroom TVs and fantasies as Joey Potter in Dawson's Creek, this film showed her in a slightly different kind of role as the nose ring wearing Rachel who hooks up with new boy in town, the floppy fringed James Marsden when students of their local high school start having overnight make overs to turn them into goody two shoes. Actually, Holmes is essentially still Joey Potter, just with a nose ring and leather pants. She looks cool though.

Disturbing Behaviour draws it's influences from various zombie, sci-fi movies and The Stepford Wives for a tale of teenage, master race style brainwashing. The plot is pretty well written and the script has some snappy dialogue. Nick Stahl puts in an impressive performance also as Gavin, the kid who no one will believe.....until it's too late.

Aside from a silly sequence set inside a mental hospital, the film shows restraint with the traditional horror cliches, instead building a paranoid sense of dread and misunderstanding from the adults in the piece. It's not as clever as the likes of Scream or The Craft, but it's a pleasant surprise watching the film now to see how well it's stood the test of time and that it should be viewed with a minor cult status now.

It might have been a bit ham fisted in it's edit and the production crew look as though they may have been half asleep, but Disturbing Behaviour wins through with it's script and commitment from the cast. It's all faintly ridiculous but when everyone knows that, it seems to work.

Oh, and Katharine Issabelle is in it too. Which is always nice.