Sorry, this movie sucks

As Good As It Gets

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Someone is killing high school students in "Cutting Class". The movie begins with us finding out that a teenage boy who killed his father is being released from a mental institution, clearly the writers wanted us to suspect him from the start. We meet out main cast of characters next. Brad Pitt plays short tempered Dwight who is going out with Paula (Jill Schoelen). The boy just released from the institution is named Brian, and throughout the film he is written as the prime suspect along with the school principal and janitor. Some of the teachers are murdered as well as a few of Paula's friends, but the body count is actually pretty low in this. Eventually, Paula discovers who the killer is. Will she survive? ... A mistake I made with 'Cutting Class' is reading the back of the DVD. The identity of the killer is revealed in a picture on the back of the DVD case, so I wasn't all that shocked when it was revealed. We get a lot of classroom scenes and love triangle scenes which, at times, make 'Cutting Class' feel like more of a teen drama rather than a slasher film. Jill Schoelen, who was a pretty well known late-eighties scream queen, does a great job in the lead as always. It was interesting to see Brad Pitt in one of his early movies, he did a decent job given the material he had to work with. Roddy McDowell and Martin Mull had comedic roles, but didn't really make an impact on the movie at all.What stopped 'Cutting Class' from being a great horror/slasher film was the lack of scares and the lack of kills. It has a decent plot with the guy getting released from the asylum, but it never get's to the level of being an elite film. I however enjoyed 'Cutting Class' enough to recommend to horror fans.6/10

CUTTING CLASS is one of those teen flicks co-mingling some stupid humor with murder. Taking place in a high school with the typical cast of characters, focusing on three...cheerleader chick Paula(Jill Schoelen), basketball star and self-proclaimed stud Dwight(Brad Pitt)and an obligatory crazy guy Brian(Donovan Leitch). Crazy in this case meaning messed up enough to take a turn in a mental hospital...sent there by Paula's dad(Martin Mull), the district attorney. Right after Brian is released, the D.A. happens to be shot by an arrow while on a hunting trip. There is a premise of boy thinking he has girl wrapped around his finger, while another boy decides he deserves the girl in question. The high school becomes the breeding grounds for strange murders; duh...who could the main suspect be? Playwrite Steve Slavkin will not be confused with John Hughes. This film marches to the beat of several tunes from Wall of Voodoo. The cast also includes: Brenda James, Eric Boles, Dirk Blocker. Nancy Fish and Roddy McDowell.

Sometimes all that it requires to take your mind off of everything is a simple-minded, bone-headed 80's slasher, especially if it's one that stars a young, hunky and still unknown Brad Pitt as the high school jerk and Roddy McDowall as the dirty-minded principal. The plot is textbook 80's guff, meaning no purposeful twists or any attempts at building up tension whatsoever, but still it guarantees a good 90 minutes of dopey fun and chuckles. As Brian returns to the schoolyard after a period in a mental asylum to treat his Violent Schizophrenia Syndrome, bodies start piling up as well and naturally he becomes the prime suspect. Of course, in this type of film, it takes an awfully very long time before any of the dim-witted characters realizes something's wrong and "Cutting Class" is no exception. Someone actually has to stumble over a corpse accidentally before realizing several others persons are missing as well. The script really tries hard to uphold the mystery and to keep the real killer's identity secret, but it doesn't matter all that much since we're just watching the film for the murders anyway. They aren't special, unfortunately, just a neat throat-slitting, an icky flagpole-killing and someone's crushed head on the copying machine. There's also the fairly original running gag of the killer's first victim surviving the assault and fruitlessly struggling for help for the rest of the film. The main attraction here is obviously – and almost exclusively – Brad Pitt, and he certainly doesn't disappoint as the cocky school-rebel. At a certain point in the film, one of his teachers tells him he has little chance to a great future, ha ha ha!

"Cutting Class," the directorial debut of "Excalibur" screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg, receives a failing grade because it doesn't know what it wants to be: a slasher flick, a comedy, a teen drama, or a hybrid of all three. Add to that, so much potential arises within the script by Steve Slavkin for satirical jabs at the high school movie experience that you find yourself, when the movie mindlessly passes over these moments, banging your head against the wall at such wasted opportunities.It's as if the filmmakers were cutting film school class themselves. But the movie isn't all bad, with some nice production values and some gory special effects-laden deaths, it helps keep it from being a complete bore. "Cutting Class," however, still receives a failing grade in my book when you think the movie couldn't get any more tedious, when it reverts to type and descends into typical slasher/haunted house movie territory in the third act. And don't forget about some gratuitous female nudity as well (so keep your eyes peeled).The story surrounds a would-be love triangle between high school outcast Brian Woods (Donovan Leitch), cheerleader Paula Carson (Jill Schoelen), and her basketball-hunk boyfriend Dwight Ingalls (Brad Pitt). Brian and Dwight were once the best of friends, but that turned sour when Brian was accused of murdering his abusive father and as a result was sent away to a mental institution for a few years. Now that he's been released, it isn't long before a series of gruesome murders begin occurring on campus and low and behold, Brian is the main suspect."Cutting Class" does has some pretty cool deaths - a burning in a pottery kiln, an impaling here, a death-by-copy machine there, an ax to the brain - that are flawlessly executed. Most of these deaths happen to men who are apparently connected in some way to the lovely Paula Carson. Most of these men are in fact obsessed with Paula, including Principal Dante (Roddy McDowall), which is a little disturbing. The main problems arise in the tediousness of a whodunit that's all too obvious in the end. The performances are mostly below average. The worst of these is poor Donovan Leitch as Brian Woods. The film builds him up to be a sympathetic, misunderstood outsider but instead he turns out to be way too creepy, sneaking around in the dark and even once appearing in Paula's bathroom as she washes her hair."Cutting Class," perhaps if the filmmakers weren't busy cutting class themselves during their film school years, maybe they could have made a better than average teen slasher flick.3/10