“ God forbid anybody gets murdered on film these days without appropriately ironic music. ”
Who says giant, national video-rental chain stores are impersonal and uncaring? After I returned the craptacular Gossip a couple of weeks ago, my local store inexplicably instituted parental restrictions on my account, preventing me from renting any movies naughtier than PG-13. Given my rental record, they were probably just looking out for my best interests. I appreciate it, guys, but you can't save me. It's not worth the effort to even try.
Disturbing Behavior opens with weird roving lights that highlight the opening credits as creepy-ass Mark Snow-composed music plays. It sounds kind of like Enigma having a bad drug trip while watching Halloween. Following the credits, we pan down from a view of the stars to a couple of teens making out in a car, parked on some lonely cliff overlooking a view of the Great Northwest.
The kids smooch for awhile, the girl sitting in the boy's lap on the driver's side. Eventually the boy pulls away. The girl slides over to the passenger seat and wants to know what's wrong. He says he has a big game on Friday and "[he] needs [his] fluids." Eww. Which sport does he play? The boy (who looks like a younger Gil Bellows) notices a tattoo on the girl's ankle and asks her why she would mutilate herself like that. Calm down, Skippy. My mom has a tattoo. It's not like she had a third eye implanted. The girl ignores his question and slides back over to kiss some more. Then she slides down to the floor to adjust his fluid levels. Eww. Sorry.
As she gets busy, a stoner boy and his dog wander out from some woods above the overlook and get a good view of what's going on. Then a police cruiser sneaks down towards the car, lights off. What, did the girl trigger some sort of blowjob signal recognizable within a five-mile radius? Does everybody want a turn? Inside the car, Blowjob Girl is learning the fundamental rule of teen thrillers -- sex equals death. The boy's eyes start to roll back in his head as he gets that goofy orgasm look. Oh, wait. I stand corrected. It's the "I'm Going to Kill You Now" look. You don't confuse those two things. Unless you're Justin from Big Brother. One of the boy's eyes glows red for a moment; then he reaches down, grabs the girl on both sides of her head, and snaps her neck. He pulls her up, calls her a slut, and pushes her back over to the passenger side. And thank heavens The Flys are singing "Got You (Where I Want You)" on the soundtrack right now, because God forbid anybody gets murdered on film these days without appropriately ironic music.
Disturbing Behavior
“ Lindsay runs off to make sure her 'N Sync posters haven't been crumpled during the move. The ferry passes an unmanned rowboat, which sets off Mark Snow and his dramatically intense compositions. ”
Outside, the two officers have left their cruiser and are approaching the car. One officer knocks on the window, recognizing the boy and asking him to step out of the car, pointing out that it's past curfew. The boy steps out of the car, and he and the officer chat about the game on Friday. It sounds like the boy is the quarterback of the football team and his name is Andy. That's still no explanation for why he needs his "fluids" for the football game -- although I have seen some videos that could answer that question in a manner not appropriate for children or delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention. Meanwhile, the other officer is scoping out the car. Hey, the other officer is Agent Jeffrey Spender from The X-Files. You know, the bastard child of Cigarette Smoking Man, who refused to believe his mother was abducted by aliens and then got killed off? Or was he? Wait, was he? It seems like it was so very long ago. And it's like none of that stuff even matters on the show anymore. In any event, Officer Spender shines a flashlight inside the car and sees Dead Blowjob Girl. Before he can really do anything about it, however, Andy grabs the gun from the other officer's holster and shoots Officer Spender in the chest. He goes down, dead. As the surviving officer calms Andy down and attempts to get the boy to give him his gun back, Andy repeats that he needs his fluids. What, did Spender make him horny, too? Andy gives the officer his gun back, but rather than arresting the murderer, the officer tells him to get out of there, pronto. Andy drags the body of Blowjob Girl out of the car and drives off. Stoner Boy and his dog, by the way, witness the whole thing and run off before the officer sees them.
Here's where the opening credits would be if this were an episode of The X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or one of those shows. But instead, we cut to the Exposition Ferry (yes, that's ferry, not fairy), which is carting in our movie's hero, along with a big heap of background story. Our hero for this recap is Steve Clark, played by James Marsden. Steve's little sister, Lindsay, rushes over to him and gushes about how much better their new life is going to be and how much better everything's going to be blah blah blah moving to a new town. Lindsay runs off to make sure her 'N Sync posters haven't been crumpled during the move. The ferry passes an unmanned rowboat, which sets off Mark Snow and his dramatically intense compositions.
And so we are introduced to Cradle Bay, the Clark family's new hometown. As they're driving off, some ferryman tells them that they'll enjoy living in Cradle Bay and that they'll never want to leave. Well, that's a huge red flag right there. Normal people would be all, "The mayor's an idiot and gave the city garbage contract to his brother-in-law and now we have to pay twice as much for pick-up as we used to. And I don't know where the hell my property taxes are going but they sure aren't being used to pay for decent teachers around here. It rains all the time, the cold hurts my joints, and I'm thinking of moving to Palm Beach. And if those hippie whale-watchers throw their trash on my lawn one more time, I swear I'm going to open fire." Everybody bitches about his or her hometown. It's normal behavior.
Disturbing Behavior
“ Boring stock establishment shots of kids and buses and cliques, oh my. Cut to an English class, where a scary, shiny, pointy boy named Trent is reading Dickens aloud to the other students. ”
The Clarks move into their new home. Papa Clark finds Steve sitting in his room and asks him if he's nervous about the first day of school. Because somebody who looks like James Marsden would have so much trouble fitting in. Dad leaves, and Steve looks at a picture of himself and Ethan Embry, both of them smiling and covered with mud. I've seen videos with that theme, too. Don't judge me; love me.
We cut to a freaky montage of images featuring Ethan acting like a lunatic. He's talking about snakes in the garden and spiders in the bed and sticking his face in the camera lens and looking about for some French dressing to give the scenery some flavor. It turns out to be a dream of Steve's. He wakes up gasping for air with tears in his eyes.
It's time for Steve's first day of school. Boring stock establishment shots of kids and buses and cliques, oh my. Cut to an English class, where a scary, shiny, pointy boy named Trent is reading Dickens aloud to the other students. Seriously, Trent looks like somebody decided to make a ventriloquist's dummy that looked like Noah Wyle. The teacher is similarly creepy. I think they deliberately chose actors who look like they could be robots for this movie. The teacher takes the opportunity to introduce Steve, and condescendingly asks him if they read Dickens in Chicago. Because, you know, there's no culture in Chicago or anything.
The lecture is interrupted by the late arrival of Dickie Atkinson, a scowling teen clad in denim and leather so you know he's a rebel. He and the teacher bicker; there's an exchange of automotive-part terminology to establish that Dickie is a gearhead, a grease monkey, or as the school's guidance department might describe him, "a student on the vocational arts track." Some of the students laugh at the bickering. Dickie asks Trent what's so funny. Trent says he was just thinking how ignorance kills. Dickie doesn't understand what Trent means, which causes Trent to riposte, "Exactly." Except that Trent's comment about ignorance killing makes no sense anyway, so his insult is idiotic. Perhaps it's foreshadowing, but there's not so much as a peep from Mark Snow and his collection of disturbing etudes, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think. Anyway, Dickie jumps up and attempts to physically assault Trent. Some students separate the boys, and the teacher sends Dickie to the principal's office. Steve, meanwhile, looks around the classroom and ends up drawing the eye of Stoner Boy from way back in the opening scene. Stoner Boy is wearing a hooded sweater and secretly listening to music rather than paying attention in class.