User Reviews

I first saw this film about eight years ago after I read that Roger Ebert gave it a rave review. It's a pretty tense and well-acted melodrama starring Perry King as a high school teacher who is forced to take matters into his own hands when the toughest kid in school makes trouble for him. Roddy McDowall plays a fellow teacher who resorts to unorthodox learning techniques when they become necessary. Michael J. Fox, pre-stardom, has a small part as one of King's students. The movie resembles BLACKBOARD JUNGLE in many ways, but I didn't mind because it worked well on its own terms. Timothy Van Patten, who plays the tough kid, is a memorable villain. He certainly deserves his ultimate fate. The movie is violent, as it's supposed to be, but not overly so. It's much more entertaining than 187. It also offers a look into the early '80's punk scene, and features an Alice Cooper song, "I am the Future", during the opening and closing credits.

Class of 1984 is a calculatedly unpleasant revenge thriller. It's the kind of film that any viewer with a shred of moral dignity will expect to hate.... but the film is surprisingly well acted and, in its ruthless and unrelenting way, very compelling. The depiction of life in a rough-as-hell high school is somewhat grim and unbelievable, and the dialogue often rings rather false. However, Class of 1984 exists as an exploitation revenger, so in many ways it's pointless to try to judge it on a deeper level. As exploitation revengers go, this one delivers.

Music teacher Andrew Norris (Perry King of "The Choirboys" and "Mandingo" - a bit of an exploitation veteran) arrives at the Abraham Lincoln High School as a substitute member-of-staff. Pretty soon, he realises that he's just taken on a position at one of the roughest, toughest schools in the world. The school is in a grip of fear due to relentless bullying, intimidation and drug dealing under a gang of misfits led by Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten). However, Andrew refuses to be intimidated by Stegman and his cronies. Consequently, Stegman resorts to increasingly violent and threatening courses of action in his attempts to victimise the teacher, until Andrew finally snaps and dishes out his own brand of discipline.

I really, really wanted to deplore this film. I'm a teacher myself, for Christ's sake!! Films which glorify violent schools and sadistic pupils generally tend to annoy me because they send out a completely immoral message to impressionable viewers. Amazingly, I actually found Class of 1984 to be an OK film. Most performances in it are good - King as the teacher trying to control unruly students is agreeable; Van Patten oozes menace as a psychopathic bully; and Roddy McDowall quickly overcomes what seems to be miscasting to deliver a great performance as an alcoholic biology teacher on the brink of a breakdown. But the film succeeds best in its unashamed audience manipulation - by the end, even the most lenient and tolerant of viewers will cheer on Andrew Norris as he goes on his Death Wish-style revenge spree. This film will never win any awards for subtlety, but within its genre it is a significant entry.

This film is like a kiddie-version of Death Wish films, but the most remarkable thing about this movie is the sheer amount of tropes it created that were re-hashed in dozens of films that came after it. From the scene where Stegman smashes his head into sinks, mirrors and a tiled wall in a bathroom then pretends the teacher, Norris, assaulted him, which was duplicated in an office setting in Fight Club, to the antagonist clinging to life at the end, pleading for his life while holding a rope, only to try to stab the protagonist when he reaches out to save him, giving the protagonist the moral approval to send the antagonist to his death, which has been re-hashed in so many movies, from Die Hard to Strange Days and many, many more. The sheer number of tropes that were subsequently re-used in subsequent movies is incredible. Of course, it did it's own pillaging of tropes too, such as the flagpole/PCP scene, straight out of a 70s Afterschool Special starring Helen Hunt.

For the most part the action in the film is somewhat realistic, except for when the teacher throws one of the gang members onto a table-saw back-first, killing him instantly even though the blade would have only made a gash a couple inches deep, and all the guy would've had to do is arch his back to avoid it. I know his arm was severed at that point but he still should have had a will to live. And the finale, where the antagonist, Stegman, goes from holding a rope and falling, to somehow wrapping the rope around his neck so that he gets hung. This would have been impossible for him to do on purpose while falling let alone having it occur by accident. The movie also fails to explain how the rope came down with him in the first place, since he was clinging to it and the teacher had no way of cutting it (and even if he had had a knife, which he didn't, the rope is like 3 inches thick). It seems to me I've seen an antagonist crash through a glass ceiling to his death after a rooftop fight before, but I can't place it. I will return periodically to update this entry as I continue to come across more movies with Class of 1984 tropes in them.

Probably the most amusing aspect of this film is the wardrobe and stylized characters, who definitely would have seemed menacing and out of place in a highschool in 1982, but by 1992 highschools were filled with people with dyed hair, studded leather accoutrements and punky haircuts. Even the safety-pin through the nose of the fat gang-member character would have seemed very exotic in '82 but nothing but a yawn by '92.

The only problem with this film is that it drags on too long, but that's generally the formula of 'thrillers'. The running gag throughout, that authorities' hands are perpetually tied because 'nobody saw it happen' was played up at the end with a printed message ensuring the audience that Perry King's teacher character got away with his murder spree for that very reason.

I'm giving this movie 8-stars, because it is watchable and so influential in all the tropes it created.

Inspired by the 1955 classic "Blackboard Jungle", this film seeks to dramatize the increased problems with dangerously unruly students, especially in inner cities, since that time. Increased drugs use and exchange, potential weapons requiring entrance through metal detectors, teachers keeping pistols handy, security guards, increased teacher and student intimidation by gangs, are some of the problems dramatized. Notice that the title references 1984, whereas the film was made in 1982, sending the message that the film depicts what is predicted to become more common in schools, in general, in the future. Recent experiences emphasize that mortal violence in schools can also originate from the unbalanced outside of school systems.

The climax occurs near and at the ending when new music teacher Andrew Norris, induced by a polaroid of his wife being raped by the gang, as the latest in a series of major incidents involving the gang, abandons his position at the podium, as conductor of the student symphony, to run after gang member Patsy, who supplied the photo. She leads him a merry chase, down into the dark basement, to where the other gang members were waiting to spray his face with the contents of fire extinguisher, then to pummel him. They then moved to another location, waiting for him follow them, where they again beat him up. Fortunately for Norris, the gang then split up, so that , in his weakened condition, he could take them on, one by one. Collectively, he engages in 3 fierce fights with them, winning each. This seems superhuman for a man just severely beaten up! Also, where did he all-of-a-sudden come up with a container of gasoline and a blow torch with which to fry one gang member? Also, I don't understand where the car came from that dropped on top of the car Patsy was driving, trying to run down Norris. If Patsy hadn't survived long enough to tell Norris that Stegman had gone to roof, with Norris's wife, he would never have thought of going there, with Stegman waiting there for him to arrive, for a final battle! Of course, the excessively melodramatic way Stegman ended was very highly unlikely. However, he likely would have succumbed to injuries from the fall, in any case. Should Norris's lethal actions against the gang legally be considered vigilante revenge or self-defense? Although he had vigilante revenge, as his driving motive, I would say most of the incidents were more a case of self-defense in a physical struggle.

Short 20yo Michael Fox was perfect in portraying an underclassman high school trumpet player. As a friend of Norris, he was targeted by the gang for violence twice. ............Roddy McDowall, whom I remembered playing Octavius, in "Cleopatra", 20 years before, plays a veteran teacher at this school, and friend of Norris. However, he's given up trying to be aggressive in prosecuting and controlling the gang. He doesn't have the persistent guts Norris has. Finally, he has a nervous breakdown, bringing a pistol to class and pointing it at the students, eventually at Stegman's head. Norris knocks his arm away, just before he pulls the trigger, sending the students fleeing. He breaks down afterward, then composes himself, to go home. But, that evening, he drives near a hangout for the gang, and tries to run then down, as they emerge, in another failed venture that ends disastrously for him.

I thought Perry King looked remarkably like Richard Chamberlain, in his Dr. Kildare days. He was perfect for the role of teacher Norris......Al Waxman was effective as the detective who was always countering Norris's assumptions that the gang could be easily legally held accountable for their depredations..............Be aware that there is a scene in which a drug-buying punk rock girl is asked to strip to assess her suitability as a gang-managed prostitute, showing full frontal nudity.

It was good that Stegman wasn't completely characterized as a one-dimensional bully and criminal, delving into drug trafficking and prostitution, as well as intimidations, and fights with other gangs. He was also said to be the best pianist in the school, and gave an impromptu sampling in Norris's class. This is how his mother chose to see him, and defended him when Norris came to their house to speak with her and her son.