Disturbing Behavior

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Disturbing Behavior ★★½ 1998 (R)

Gavin (Stahl) welcomes new kid in town Steve (Marsden) by pointing out the social castes at Cradle Bay High School. The Ubergroup is the goody-goody Blue Ribbons, an excessively straitlaced and perky group of athletes and cheerleaders. Along with fellow outcasts Rachel (Holmes) and U.V. (Donella), they joke about a possible conspiracy, but when Gavin shows up with a crewcut and an inordinate love of pep rallies and bake sales, his friends know something is up. They discover that parents have allowed the school shrink (Greenwood) to use drugs to tinker with the brains of the Blue Ribbons. They also discover that the Step-ford Teens' vanilla lives are topped with sprinkles of homicidal fury. Director Nutter creates just the right creepy and paranoid mood in his feature debut. 84m/C VHS, DVD . James Marsden, Nick Stahl, Katie Holmes, Bruce Greenwood, William Sadler, Chad E. Donella, Ethan (Randall) Embry, Steve Railsback; D: David Nutter; W: Scott Rosenberg; C: John Bartley; M: Mark Snow. MTV Movie Awards '99: Breakthrough Perf. (Holmes).