the audience applauded

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I can see why they changed the title...even for 1981, the 'Dead Kids' title (that I actually saw in the film's opening vs. 'Strange Behavior') seems a tad morbid.What a creepy early 80s horror film I never heard of before 2 hours ago. And strange, indeed. An almost dead-even half of the movie is solid with unique gore, thrills and cinematography while the other 50% is amateurish at best and contains plot holes wide enough to jump through.Immediately into the film we get our first kill. Extremely effective and original as in they try to shadow the killer - a staple of the never-ending Red Herring string of 70s/80s horror movies - only to turn around and reveal the killer. Not long after, the plot, or most of it, is fairly easy to grasp.Kids are disappearing at an alarming rate in a small town and the weirdest police "force" or what you would expect to be the police "force" in an Ed Wood/MST3k movie, sans an actual police uniform, are lazily putting the pieces together before the next murder takes place. Meanwhile, the scientific office from the also 80s-set 'Stranger Things' is taking new patients. Coincidence?Since some of the scenes are genuine and highly effective, I really want to grant this a higher rating. But, the movie starts to fall completely part in the last act almost to the point it felt like huge chunks were edited out for no reason. Not to mention it had an odd, out of place opening nude scene with the lead kid/teen (well, 25 in real life) and his dad and the ending felt rushed.But, it had the always awesome Louise Fletcher (even though she seemed lost on what her character was supposed to do or how to react,) a character named Peter Brady who was friends with Superman's Jimmy Olsen and a delicious femme fatal, Fiona Lewis, who stole every scene and you just couldn't take your eyes off her.Rare "gem" and despite my just-lower-than-average rating, I'd recommend it for diehard 80s horror fans, like myself.***Final thoughts: Man, I'd like to see this remade. Only, with a finished script, the title "Dead Kids" kept and more gritty - ah-hem, fleshed out.

Inventive horror yarn that transcends the usual slasher fare by mixing in an imaginative, sometimes scarily plausible plot with the usual nasty in-your-face violence that goes with the period. Filmed in New Zealand but set in America, the photography in this film is ruined by a hideous print and poor pan-and-scan job on the video version I saw, but that doesn't stop it being a tense and grisly exercise in terror that proves to be a lot stronger than other '80s horror fare. I know I always use it as a whipping boy, but the Friday the 13 series in comparison is sterile, comic book stuff.I really liked this film's plot of a science lab being the front of a brainwashing cult, which I believe hadn't been done elsewhere. Some scenes are packed with tension and the film as a whole is very suspenseful. The gore isn't overdone, but is still pretty strong stuff and used in a way to make you squirm (for example, in one scene a boy slashes open his own wrists - ouch!). The scene in which the maid discovers a girl sawing the arm off a corpse is particularly grisly. At the same time, there's a great final twist in the plot (the "kill your father" scene) which I have to say I didn't see coming, although some other moments are predictable.The acting as a whole is impressive, especially when you consider most of the cast are unknowns. Particularly affecting are Dan Shor as the brainwashed teen, Fiona Lewis as a despicably evil nurse and, most of all, Arthur Dignam (for trivia fans, he went on to play Ernest Thesiger in GODS AND MONSTERS) as the weird-looking, immortal scientist. Great stuff. While the film does have some lulls and seems overlong at even a fairly shot running time, it still manages to be quirky, unpredictable and on the occasion, intensely gripping.

FINALLY, a passable horror. Although, I'll remember it more for a stunning I Dream Of Jeannie costume in the fancy dress party scene, than for the actual content. Also, I have no idea why this is rated 18 since the murders are more comical than gruesome, and the most horrific thing on displays are the bad 80's hairdos.Still, Fiona Lewis's performance as the most ruthless female medical worker since Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is noteworthy (Oddly enough, the woman who played Nurse Ratched, Louise Fletcher, pops up here in a completely different role) and there is a nice little twist near the end.Alas, the unrealistic stabbings and the presence of breathing corpses prevent it from ever being scary, and the tactic of renaming it DEAD KIDS in the UK just reeks of desperation.It's perfectly watchable,and miles better than some of the dross I've seen of this genre recently, but my wait for a truly good horror this year goes on

In the last few weeks I've been passed one or two (what looked like) low-budget horror DVDs.Im surprised to find out that this is the first film by writer Bill Condon.While it has some slight "slasher" parts that defined the 1980s horrors,thankfully this films doges most of these things (no sign of groups of "dumb teens"),and thought flawed,this is still a very good under-rated horror: The Plot:Pete Brody finds out that hes been offered a place at some top colleges (includeing the same one his dad,the head of police,John went to.)But he unable to afford the cost of going to them,Pete gets some advice from a friend,so he decides to go to an "animal testing" lab,and offers himself as a human guinipig.What Pete does not know is that his dad blames the death of his mother on the lab,and with killings starting to happened by teens who are on a "weight loss" pill made at the lab.So John decides to look deeper into the workings of the lab... View on the film:The score is by famous electronic band Tangerine Dream,who give a very good ambient score,and there's also song by before-he-went-solo Nick Caves band The Birthday Party.The screenplay by Bill condon,one of the things thew film looks at is animal testing,thought sadly Condon does not fully build on the very interesting issues,thought he thankfully does include some good horror scenes (the best one being in a mens toilet!)The odd thing is for some scenes it seems that someone has pressed "mute" on the sound-effects!Final view on the film:A good horror film,with a good cast,score and screenplay,thats sadly let down by the low budget.