Back in late April of this year I was searching threw the Netflix vault of titles and came across this film it looked good to me having that late 90's Scream vibe to the cover,a solid looking cast, & I was in the desire to watch a film I haven't seen before so that's what lead to me watching it and watching it more than four times.Disturbing Behavior(1998) is a film about a family who moves to a city where they intend to start fresh lives after the death of their son & brother and one of the family members the other son goes to a High School where he runs into group of peers Gavin(a rebellious cocky likable guy),UV(a major pot-head) & Rachel(the love interest of the film).One of the new found Friends Gavin portrayed by Terminator 3:Rise of the Machine's Nick Stahl suspects something off with the other kids of the school of whom he used to be good friends with and the new friend Steve(X-Men's James Marsden) thinks he's just nuts.The film goes on to show you a deep routed family conflict dealing with the passing of the deceased family member and also features Katherine Isabelle(of Freddy Vs. Jason & Ginger Snaps fame) as Steve's sister.The film then reveals the mystery of the film by having Gavin become a member of the Blue Ribbons and to show you very subtly the Janitor knows something is up too.The film then goes to explain that their's this corporation who takes children with odd ,unfavorable & etc, behavior and controls them to doing their biding then it's up for Steve and Rachel to stop it.Now this film is actually very good in my eyes it could've been a masterpiece if everything was left alone in the film tough because of my knowledge on this film a whole bunch of scenes had to be cut for the DVD Home Video release of the film and you could tell because some of the film feels lacking and some of the characters just needed more time to develop.The film's main strength is in how it slowly reveals the intriguing mystery beyond the story it's nice tone and setting and not to mention score.This film also features many similarities to another film of the same year or year before called The Faculty(now I also enjoyed that film) and that begs the question which is the better film we'll that's a hard question because I love both films very much but their must be decided victor between the two so let's dissect the strengths and weaknesses of both films of which they both have: The Faculty's strength is more in the characters of which is understandable because that film didn't have to sacrifice so much so for bulls!t reasoning behind the studios and getting to understand their traits and to have some witty Kevin Willamson dialogue in the film.Disturbing Behavior's strength is in it's mythology of the corporation and setting and atmosphere.It is truly sad Disturbing Behavior had to trim down it's character elements because I have a deeper interest in their back-story and the events their going through whereas The Faculty just offered me character development to characters of which I'm not to interested in their story.Disturbing Behavior is a good film regardless just if it was a lot less messed around with it would be a lot better in my eyes.My Next Review will be of:Halloween(2007) coming within a few days of this reviews postage I hope I brought some interesting insight to the film and didn't come off dumb in this review as this is my first review for IMDb.

A teenager named Steve Clark (Jamie Marsden of X-Men fame), moves with his family to a small town called Cradle Bay in Washington State after leaving Chicago due to his older brother committing suicide. He encounters outcast stoners named Gavin Strick (Nick Stahl) and U.V. (Chad Donella). They're at the bottom of the social ladder at Cradle Bay HS. Steve also meets the Blue Ribbons, a type of Phi Beta Kappa-esque group of seemingly civic-minded student athletes. They seem like typical high achievers at first, but they're violent elitists, given to random acts of bullying, intimidation, assault and seen in the opening scene, murder. Before participating in the mysterious Program run by the resident school psychologist, some of the Blue Ribbons' leaders were once good friends of Gavin and U.V. It seems that Gavin, Steve and Rachel Wagner (Katie Holmes), Gavin's only other friend and Steve's love interest, are the only ones that truly take notice of the Blue Ribbons destructive nature while parents and community leaders look the other way. On the plus side, they did have an interesting idea of an almost cult-like group of student high achievers along with some creepy scenes seen with the 'recruiting' they do. The negatives, they give in to stereotyping, with jocks, stoners and social outcasts. The most disturbing thing about this movie may be the idea of some misguided educator deciding that the 'bad students' need to be improved through aggressive Pavlovian conditioning.

Disturbing Behaviour is a thriller that was overlooked upon its release in July, 1998. The movie has a popular cast and an intriguing storyline. This movie is similar to thrillers like The Faculty and Urban Legend. All three of these movies were released in 1998. I personally like The Faculty and Urban Legend better than Disturbing Behaviour. The movie is 1 hour and 24 minutes but the movie should have been more detailed about the plot. Most thrillers are 90 to 120 minutes. If this movie was longer the impact of the movie and box office success of the movie would have been massively increased. I think that The Faculty is more stylish than this movie and Urban Legend is more intense. Urban Legend has more clever plot twists and is similar to Scream in regards to its plot. I liked how the filmmakers took this movie and put their own spin on it. There isn't one moment of the movie I dislike. I feel the movie could have had added depth. Numerous scenes were deleted from the movie that flesh out the characters and they clarify any unanswered questions you may have after watching the theatrical version. Those scenes also add vital information to the plot that isn't in the version that was released. Overall Disturbing Behaviour is an entertaining addition to the eerie teen thrillers that were widely released in cinemas during the 1990's. The movie has an original style and some twists can't be foreseen in the movie. Not all the characters are predictable and every actor has fun with their role. I believe they chose the best actors in the business at the time to act in this movie. Every actor seems like their character, they don't seem like they're acting. I couldn't imagine any other actor playing their roles, if other actors did this movie wouldn't have turned out as well as it did.

DISCLAIMER: If you're going to watch this movie, then PLEASE do so only with the deleted scenes included. The theatrical edit got utterly butchered in the editing room, where what must have been nearly twenty minutes of scenes were removed from it, leaving it much worse for wear. The DVD includes all of the deleted scenes on the disc (though, sadly, they're not woven into the film itself), as well as the original ending, complete with director's commentary. From what I've heard, the version of the movie that airs on SyFy includes these scenes woven into the film.Now, with that out of the way...Disturbing Behavior is your typical late '90s/early '00s teen horror picture made to capitalize on the success of Scream. Like others of its ilk, it has its share of cringe-worthy "totally radical" dialogue (Nick Stahl's character is the worst culprit on that front), though fortunately, it doesn't try to copy Scream's hip self-awareness like so many others attempted (and failed) to do. It's pretty well-written and directed for what it's worth, with an X-Files vet helming it and a good, if not terribly original, script (it's pretty much The Stepford Wives in high school). The theatrical cut removed a terrible amount of character development, leaving the cast largely a collection of caricatures (the goth chick, the controlling parents, the stoners, the evil scientist, the crazy guy who knows the truth), but with those scenes included the cast becomes much more fleshed out, becoming much more like actual human beings with thoughts and motivations rather than robots like the film's villains, going through the motions. And I dug the Pink Floyd shout-out during the climax.It's B-movie teen schlock, yeah, but it's the good kind. The original theatrical cut gets a 5 from me due to how thinly written it is, but with the deleted scenes included, I'd bump it up to a strong 7, leaning towards an 8. One thing I didn't understand was how the "Blue Ribbon" program is supposed to turn troubled teens into moral, upstanding, diligent students, yet they're shown acting like even bigger jerks after their brainwashing, with one of them murdering two people, including a cop, in the opening scene. Kind of bugs me.