Strange Behavior (1981) World Northal/Horror RT: 101 minutes Rated R (violence, gore, language, brief rear nudity) Director: Michael Laughlin Screenplay: Bill Condon and Michael Laughlin Music: Tangerine Dream Cinematography: Louis Horvath Release date: November 13, 1981 (US) Cast: Michael Murphy, Louise Fletcher, Dan Shor, Fiona Lewis, Arthur Dignam, Dey Young, Marc McClure, Scott Brady, Charles Lane, Elizabeth Cheshire, Beryl Te Wiata, Jim Boelsen. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
I never knew the horror movie Strange Behavior is regarded as Ozploitation. Although it takes place in a small Midwestern town in Illinois, it was filmed in New Zealand for its authentic looking locations. Director Michael Laughlin, in creating a homage to 50s-era horror-sci-fi, wanted it to look like a movie from that era. It was the first in a proposed trilogy that continued with Strange Invaders two years later. Laughlin never completed the trilogy, but there’s always hope the third movie will finally materialize at some point.
Also known as Dead Kids, Strange Behavior is a few different types of horror movie rolled into one. It’s a mad doctor movie in which the antagonist uses science against humanity, namely the residents of a small town. It’s a slasher flick in which the slasher isn’t an unkillable being powered by some unknown supernatural force. It’s a Killer Kid movie because the slashers are normal everyday teens who made the unfortunate mistake of volunteering to participate in weird experiments being conducted by the mad doctor, Dr. Parkinson (Lewis, The Fury). She does things to them to make them kill. It’s really pretty clever what Laughlin does here.
The story focuses on John Brady (Murphy, Manhattan), the town sheriff tasked with investigating the disappearance of the mayor’s teenage son (played by co-writer Condon). He’s later found dead. Not long after that, another kid buys the farm at a party attended by Brady’s son Pete (Shor, TRON). Things aren’t great between father and son at the moment. They disagree over where Pete should go to college. The boy wants to go to the local university while his father wants him to go anywhere else.
In need of money for college applications, Pete signs up with Parkinson on the advice of his best friend Oliver (McClure, Jimmy Olsen from the Superman movies). He doesn’t mind the first round (it’s just a pill); he’s less enthused about the second as it involves injecting a hypodermic needle into his eye, a trend in ’81 with the same act going down in Halloween II and Dead & Buried.
Sherriff John’s investigation ultimately leads him to the college and Parkinson’s experiments. It also brings back a tragedy from his past involving Parkinson’s late mentor Dr. Le Sange. He has good reason to hate the guy and distrust any experiments he’s even posthumously involved with. I’ll leave it at that.
I wasn’t bowled over by Strange Behavior when I first saw it in ’87. I was going through a horror movie kick in the early months of the year catching up on all the scary movies I wasn’t allowed to see circa 1979-82. I was looking for gory movies like Maniac and Pieces. Although it has a couple of cool bloody moments (e.g. a boy has his hand cut off), Strange Behavior isn’t a bloodbath. It’s more suspenseful than anything else with a nifty little plot twist or two. I love how it relies on the tropes of the Mad Scientist genre. In a way, it’s reminiscent of the paranoid horror movies that stoked the public’s fear of atomic energy in the Eisenhower decade. In the 80s, it’s mind control through drugs, still a concern today with Big Pharma pushing pills as a cure-all for all psychological maladies.
The cast, which also includes Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) as John’s concerned girlfriend and Dey Young (Rock ‘n’ Roll High School) as Pete’s concerned new girlfriend, does a respectable job. Shor is especially good as a young man trying to assert independence only to fall victim to submission by chemical means. Lewis is suitably menacing as the mad doctor experimenting with mind control. Elizabeth Cheshire, the injured little girl from Airport ’77, shows up as Lucy Brown, a 13YO girl with a reputation. Quoting Oliver, “Lucy Brown gets around.” She gets chased by a killer at the same party where the second victim meets his grisly fate. BTW, the party is one for the books. I don’t know what’s weirder, the 60s TV-themed costumes or the teens line-dancing to Lou Christie’s “Lightning Strikes”. It’s totally surreal.
As I mentioned earlier, Bill Condon co-wrote Strange Behavior with Laughlin. I didn’t realize it until I wrote the header for this review the night before I watched it. He would go on to direct Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls and the final two Twilight installments. It’s damn good for a first screenplay even with the occasional lapse into dopey dialogue. The pacing is uneven but it never actually drags. We get a few neat “BOO!” scenes. It’s a decent horror movie, one that deserves a little more recognition.
