August 28, 2018
Written by: Mark L. Lester, C. Courtney Joyner
Starring: Bradley Gregg, Traci Lind, Malcolm McDowell
Budget: $5,200,000
Quote: "The mind is a terrible thing to waste - don't make me waste yours."
Trivia: According to Director Mark L. Lester, the two films that influenced the visual style of the film were both The Road Warrior and The Asphault Jungle. The Road Warrior influences are completely noticeable in the look of the cars and the school itself on the outside.
Alright, this movie is much more of a scifi flick than a horror movie, but it does have certain horror elements, TubiTV had it listed as a horror film, and it was a pretty fun film. Watching this, I vaguely remembered this from my childhood. I must've been ten and saw it a couple years after it came out. I didn't remember much other than robot teachers killing kids, some weird drug that kids crack under their nose and one of the teachers mentions playing war games. The movie is actually pretty good and it has punk kids as the heroes (what was it about the eighties movies making criminals be either punks or rastas?). The film also has Clockwork Orange's Alex, Mr. Malcolm McDowell, Stacy Keach as a military nut with bleached hair, white eye contacts and a terrible mustache, and Ms. Foxy Brown herself, the beautiful Pam Grier. I guess that's what we'll all look like in 1999. Also, if you look real closely, you can see a very young Rose McGowan in her first movie role. Like, Clockwork Orange, this film focuses on a bleak future with the young run roughshod and have crippled society. This also seemed to be a common fear of the Reagan Era (and shortly thereafter).
The movie is about a near future (about ten years from when the movie was made) where adolescent gangs have taken whole cities. These cities have been deemed "free fire zones" where authorities have given up trying to stop crime and instead are letting the gangs control the cities. Within the "free fire zone" of Seattle, Washington lies Kennedy High School where two rival gangs, the Blackhearts and the Razorheads go to school. In order to combat the rampant violence (I think they said there was a violent incident every three and a half hours) the principal contracts three android (they look human) teachers to teach and take care of discipline. They take their task too far beating and killing the students. Meanwhile, Cody, a former Blackheart, is let out of jail and is trying to do the right thing by actually paying attention in class. Unfortunately, after beating up a student while stopping a rape, he incurs the wrath of the android teachers and they make it their mission to destroy him. Cody and his Blackhearts team up with the Razorheads to stop the androids. Of course, they eventually do.
Alright, so you need to get past the ridiculousness of the plot. Does it make sense for a bunch of murdering drug dealers to go to class every day? No. Why the hell do these kids show up to school every day just to throw paper at the teacher and beat each other up? Maybe, there's nothing better to do. I don't know. Once you get past that and ignore the acting (the protagonist, Cody, is some kid who seems like he's doing a Corey Feldman impersonation the entire time), it is a really fun film. The android teachers are interesting because while they are robots, they have all the qualities of a human. They are petty, vengeful, and mean. They encompass all the terrible qualities that we have within ourselves.
The androids do some pretty brutal things to the kids of Kennedy High School. After beating Cody for trying to save the principal's daughter from being raped, the android gym teacher breaks the neck of Cody's friend. Later, robot history teacher shoves a bunch of drugs (in the future there is a cool new drug called "edge" that all the kids are into) into a kids mouth causing him to instantly overdose. Another student is kidnapped, burnt alive and tossed through the window of a gang hangout. Another has his throat ripped open.... you get the drill. Robots are running amok. What do we do when our technology gets out of control (like the bad guys in Robocop II and III... and maybe the first one, I don't remember).
I had no idea but there is a first movie from the film creators called Class of 1984 (from 1982) and a sequel Call of 1999 II: The Substitute. I am really intrigued! I love a good "the kids have gone crazy" movie! Clockwork Orange, Concrete Jungle, If... and it's even better if the kids going crazy are punks.
I'm not sure what the overall message of the film was. Don't trust anybody over 30? Gangs are not as bad as they seem? Government military contracts are exploiting the American public? I don't know. I think it's best with films like this to not think about it. Just sit back, relax, and watch robot teachers kill punks for 90 minutes.
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