Dawson's Clockwork Orange

As the runes predicted, the time has come to pass: '90s theatrical horror movies I once despised with my teenage might are now things I've come to enjoy with the same relish as a Snackwell's chocolate yogurt. Time does strange things to our tastes.

Quick Plot: Stoner Gavin is out for a walk with his (thankfully safe) dog when he spots a curious scene: an alpha jock refusing his girlfriend's sexual advances, breaking her neck rather than emitting his...fluids. Cops arrive only to have one shot and the other (Steve Railsback!) letting the letter jacket wearing murderer off with warning. 

Meanwhile, the Clark family is settling into their new home in Cradle Bay, the kind of small town that also happens to only be accessible by ferry. A cloud hangs over the ridiculously good-looking family following the suicide of oldest brother Allen (Ethan Embry!), which has been hard on middle child Steve (James Marsden!) and youngest daughter Lindsay (Katharine Isabelle!!!).

Apologies for the constant exclamations, but good golly: there are a lot of pleasant faces here.

They're also all ridiculously good-looking and about 98% white, including the albino character played, of course, by a non-albino actor. 

We had a lot to learn in the '90s. 

Gavin takes Steve under his baggy shirt-wearing wing, introducing him to fellow outcast Rachel via a music video slow motion of Katie Holmes' bare midriff. Like any high school, Cradle Bay has its clearly defined social caste system and at the top are the Blue Ribbons, a "community group" who live clean. Their only vices seem to be the local froyo shop(pe) and the need to bully those who misbehave. 

Having witnessed one commit murder, Gavin is convinced that the Blue Ribbons, coached by school psychologist Dr. Caldicott (Bruce Greenwood!), are some kind of cult under serious, possibly surgically-induced mind control. He's right, of course, but that doesn't stop his parents from signing him up, leaving Steve to take up the fight. 

I first saw Disturbing Behavior right when it hit video rental, and as a surly teenage horror fan, it epitomized everything wrong with theatrical horror following the success of Scream. I lumped it in my brain with I Know What You Did Last Summer as one more example of Hollywood misunderstanding a genre I loved. Why was everyone so pretty? Why did everything always end happily? Who did they think they were scaring?

It's been, apparently, 25 long years since Disturbing Behavior quietly came and went (though you wouldn't know by the possibly Dorian Gray-ish skincare regime of James Marsden) and while the characters ARE still too pretty, I can now sit back and say that for its time, it's quite possible that Disturbing Behavior is actually kind of interesting. Scott Rosenberg's screenplay hints at some surprisingly layered questions about teenagers' relationships to sex, as well as well-meaning parents struggling to make the right decisions for their kids. Director David Nutter (who has since gone on to be one of the most successful television directors working today)  doesn't quite break any of the mainstream '90s molds with his choices, but there's a solid core here. 

Under 90 minutes (including a full 3 of those minutes devoted to the opening credits) there's clearly something missing. According to the internet, that's another whole half hour. Not shockingly, the studio wanted Disturbing Behavior to be a teen hit and did everything it could to, well, not allow that to happen. It's clear that storylines and character journeys are cut (the fact that we never see Gavin's dog again is one clue) and as a result, the movie just never really comes alive. 

That being said, I had fun with this movie. Sure, the utter '90sness of its needle drops and wannabe Williamson dialogue is razor on its own (note: no it's not; nobody said "razor" as a term of approval except for Katie Holmes in Disturbing Behavior) but nostalgia aside, there's some meat here. It's impossible not to compare this film to The Faculty, another Body Snatchers/Stepford Wives-inspired high school sci-fi horror of the era. The Faculty is a better movie, and more importantly, a more entertaining one, but weirdly, thinking about the two side-by-side, there's more substance to Disturbing Behavior, even if it never had a chance to be developed. 

I'm not ready to say Disturbing Behavior is a misunderstood wonder, but time has been oddly illuminating to it...or rather, what it could have been.

High Points

One of the biggest whiffs of '90s slashers was how scared they were of sex. Disturbing Behavior kind of naturally embraces that by how it positions the very idea of sexual impulses in the Blue Ribbons' chastity. Like everything else in the film, it's not fully realized, but I appreciate its attempts to at least acknowledge how complicated a role sex plays in the teenage brain (in this case, literally)

Low Points

It's almost cute today, but it really can't be understated much seeing Nick Stahl and Katie Holmes in bad kid costuming feels like dress-up

Lessons Learned

The real path to a janitor's heart is Kurt Vonnegut (so it goes)

Psychiatric hospitals had no sign-in policy in the 1990s

The higher the school spirit, the better the bake sale

Rent/Bury/Buy

I'm not calling Disturbing Behavior a good movie. It's just more fun than I remembered, and more interesting in its potential than I probably realized. If you enjoy messy '90s genre films, it's definitely worth a watch. You can find it streaming now on HBO Max (if it's still called that). You know. Razor. 

It's the Great Pumpkin...Thing

There is something inherently fascinating about a terribly boring movie. 

Trick or Treats embodies this well.

Quick Plot: For reasons never given, Joan has her husband Malcolm committed to a typical '80s movie coed insane asylum. 

"Several years later" (specifics are rarely to be found in Trick or Treats), Malcolm is mad (BUT STILL NOT CLEAR IF INSANE) as hell and decides to not take it anymore. He escapes via the age old "grown man wearing a wig and skirt being enough to convince every person he comes across that he's a woman who should be hit on" trick to wreak his vengeance on the woman who wronged him.

And oh boy, that woman. Joan still occupies the same upper middle class suburban home, but has now filled it with new husband David Carradine. Also, she might be a magician. Or he might be one. Or they're semi-famous tuxedo-clad magicians eager to climb the magician social ladder by accepting an invitation to a lavish Vegas ... magician Halloween party? 

The details are murky--a LOT of Trick or Treats is--but it's clear that Joan and Malcolm's awful son Christopher is planning on continuing the family trade, or just being a terrible child who delights in playing obnoxious pranks on strangers. Babysitter/struggling actress Linda is called to watch him while mom and stepdad go gallivanting in Sin City, but not before Carradine gets to sexually harass the young blond and have an intense staring contest with his demon seed stepson. 

Linda is immune to Carradine's charms because, you see, she's in love with Brett (Steve Railsback), a community theater actor who promises to stop by after he finishes playing white Othello in his big premiere. 

SPOLIER ALERT! Brett never actually shows up because, I assume, the movie forgot about him or ran out of the money needed to bus Railsback to a different set. Note that I did not forget that he is playing, for reasons unexplained, white Othello. 

You know what else this movie forgets about? The dog. Joan clearly instructs Linda to feed the dog. 

We never see a dog.

Look, even  Blade Runner has detailed plot holes but the ones in Trick or Treats are so weirdly specific that it's REALLY hard to ignore. 

At some point, Malcolm makes his way to Linda (prior to that, we have SEVERAL painfully non-funny-but-someone-probably-though-were-funny scenes where he trades clothes with a nurse, punches a security guard, gets hit on in LA's red light district, and forces a homeless man to give him his outfit, underwear included). A cat and mouse chase ensues, with Christopher's obnoxious dime store magician tricks occasionally helping out. 

I don't know that I have enough words to effectively explain just how strange a movie Trick or Treats is. Much of that probably comes from writer/director/cinematographer Gary Graver, a man with one of the most fascinating IMDB profiles I've ever seen. 

Somewhere between serving as Orson Welles's final DP and making a LOT of cleverly titled porn films (Maverdick and Cape Rear sound the most fun), Graver tried out his mainstream auteur chops and, well, ended up making Trick or Treats. I have to believe that So I Married a Lesbian was better written. 

There's just so much weirdly wrong in Trick or Treats to the extent that you start to wonder, much like Cats: The Movie, if everyone involved was being blackmailed (though the child actor playing Christopher, being Graver's real-life son, was probably just earning his allowance). Or perhaps it was some kind of elaborate training session for lead Jacqueline Giroux to practice hanging up phones. Because SERIOUSLY: she has do it about 30 times in the movie, and never once does she put the phone back in its receiver the way any biological human being would.

Again, when a movie is this bad, you notice the details. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

High Points

Most of the characters seemed to know most of their lines and only stumbled over their words every other scene or so. I feel like that took a lot of work

Low Points

I know the running time said 90 minutes, but I'm pretty sure Trick or Treats went on for at least eighteen hours. Or possibly days. Or lifetimes...

Lessons Learned

The standard uniform of high end babysitting agencies in the 1980s combined an unflattering nurse-cut romper with a weirdly inviting easy-access front zipper

Movies are ultimately made in the editing room. Side note: I don't think Trick or Treats has an editing room

If your production location includes a pool, you might as well use it in at least 50% of all your film's shots because you clearly just had that pool cleaned and why not get your money's worth?

Rent/Bury/Buy

Make no mistake: Trick or Treats is a terrible, nearly incompetent movie lacking any real intrigue, sexiness, scares, or, well, anything logical whatsoever. That being said, if one were to "find the wine" (as the babysitter so responsibly says) and invite your pals and white Othello-boyfriend over for the night (as the babysitter so responsibly does), then hey: this is a good time. A terrible, incompetent, good time. Thank you, Amazon Prime. 

Scissoring with Sharon Stone & My Cat

Recently, it has come to my and some delightful readers’ attention that the 1990s output of horror cinema is something...well, different from other decades. It’s long been though of as a cinematic void in the genre, but look hard enough and you’ll pull up a few random pre-Scream gems and more importantly, a very different kind of nostalgia.


See, in 2011, the ‘80s are just funny. Camp counselors with one big earring getting slaughtered to post-disco beats? It’s like being tickled! The ‘90s, on the other hand, don’t yet have that distance. The actors *look* like us. They use a lot of the same lingo, even if they speak said lingo into elite car phones or public phone booths hunted down after receiving important messages on their beepers. We chuckle more and more as the time distance grows, but not so much that we excuse these films the kinds of dated errors that make the ‘80s so charming.

I have no idea why Scissors ended up on my Netflix queue, but hey, it’s got some genre pedigree behind it (director Frank De Felitta made the cult classic Dark Night of the Scarecrow), a fresh off of Mars Sharon Stone, and a lot of creepy dolls. Also, it’s the epitome of ‘90s horror for reasons soon to be discussed.


Quick Plot: Angie is a beautiful but frigid 26 year old who prefers the company of her strict psychologist (Ronny Cox!) and collection of antique store dolls to handsome single men or speed dating. Much like Catherine Deneuve in Replusion, the ice blond Angie easily attracts male attention that she has no idea what to do with. After almost being raped in her apartment elevator by a red bearded stranger, she meets a pair of Dead Ringers-lite twin brothers, both played by Lifeforce and Turkey Shoot star Steve Railsback.

Also, by the way, Joplin Zelda Rubinstein Intravia's new crush.

Twin Alex is a successful soap opera actor, while his brother Cole is a creepy wheelchair bound artist with an abominable haircut. Somewhere in the middle is Alex’s ex/Cole’s current cohort Nancy, who matters only because she’s played by Sheila from the film version of A Chorus Line.

NOTE: This might only matter to me.

As Angie begins an awkward courtship with Alex, mildly strange things start to occur but because of Angie’s own oddness, we’re not entirely sure if actions or her own fragile mind are to blame. Eventually, a faked job offer leads her to a Pee-Wee’s Playhouse sort of luxury apartment where she’s soon locked in with immobile furniture, angry birds, and a scissors-stabbed corpse.

Scissors is a strange movie, both in terms of plot and general feel. It was made by  Frank De Felitta, the man behind the novelist behind Audrey Rose and The Entity.  Whereas (in my opinion) both of those were great stories that wandered off into muddled territory, Scissors is a story that feels trite, then progressively turns bizarre, then silly, then dramatic, then wacky, and finally, rewarding.


Part of it does indeed come from the nuevo ‘90s nostalgia that paints each frame with mildly grainy and slightly badly dressed hue. Part of it has to do with the fact that the movie features about five extreme closeups of a creepy pig doll that seems to come with his own theme. There’s a delicious twist that’s more than ridiculous, followed by one that’s kind of awesome. It's ultimately the film equivalent of a box of Cracker Jacks, filled with handfuls of sweet goodness, evil little peanuts just waiting to ruin your mouth, and finally, an exciting little prize that makes it all worth it in the end. 

Historical figure trivia! Cracker Jacks' newest hit!

High Points
She might be somewhat insane in real life, but Sharon Stone holds the film together quite well, even when battling a bird

Low Points
During the opening credits, I was totally sold on the circus-like score. Bought and returned. The music of Scissors is, after the first two minutes, used fairly horrendously, with overly dramatic classical tunes practically raping the action onscreen, and I’m not just referring to the hilariously scored almost-rape scene


Lessons Learned
90% butter fat is terrible for the skin


All things cry and make a fuss when they’re lonely


A great way to meet an eligible bachelor? Fight off a rapist down the hall

Rent/Bury/Buy
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Scissors. At over 100 minutes, it’s far longer than it should be and filled with a tad too many time-wasting red herrings, but there’s something quite entertaining about where the storyline goes. 


Also, for those who care, Sharon Stone gets naked. Railsback, however, remains fully clothed. And the cat keeps her collar on (that’s not a euphemism; there’s a cat and it wears a collar. You’re disgusting).

So is that hair...