In the 1980s in southern California, high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro) discovers fugitive Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander (McKellen) living in his neighborhood under the pseudonym Arthur Denker.

During the $14 million production, a lawsuit was filed by several extras, including some underage who alleged that they were told to strip naked during a shower scene.

In Southern California in 1984, 16-year-old high school student Todd Bowden discovers that his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker, is Kurt Dussander—a former Nazi concentration camp commandant who is now a fugitive war criminal.

Dussander begins blackmailing Todd in return, forcing him to work to restore his grades by threatening to expose the subterfuge and his dalliance with Nazism to his parents.

A group of Neo-Nazis demonstrates outside the hospital; realizing his situation is hopeless, Dussander commits suicide by giving himself an air embolism.

Ian McKellen stars as Kurt Dussander, a Nazi war criminal who hides in America under the pseudonym Arthur Denker.

Screenwriter Brandon Boyce described Dussander as being "a composite of these ghosts of World War II" but not based on any real-life individual.

[1] Singer, who enjoyed McKellen in John Schlesinger's 1995 film Cold Comfort Farm, invited the actor to take the role.

[9] While Schwimmer was known for his comedic role on the television show Friends, Singer was impressed by the actor's performance in a Los Angeles stage production and decided to cast him as the counselor.

Singer spoke of his goal, "There have been a lot of fun horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer.

[15] He referred to how young Todd Bowden's interactions with Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander start to affect him, "I liked the idea of the infectious nature of evil ...

The director also perceived the film as not about the Holocaust, believing that the Nazi war criminal could have been replaced by one of Pol Pot's executioners or a mass murderer from Russia.

[16] He was also attracted to the film as "[an] idea that the collective awfulness of this terrible thing that happened decades ago in Europe had somehow crept up across the ocean and through time, like a golem, into this beautiful Southern California suburban neighborhood".

The composer sought a mix between the scores of the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the military-based comedy 1941 (1979) to create an "otherworldly pastiche".

You hear the same music when Dussander is turning the tables on Todd, which makes you remember the first scene ... You hope people are subliminally making the connection that the tables are turning back and forth.Another scene in which Ottman meshed his editing and composing duties was when Dussander wakes up in the hospital with the television show The Jeffersons playing in the background.

[21] In The Films of Stephen King, Dennis Mahoney writes that the obsession with Nazism and the Holocaust that unfolds in Apt Pupil is the result of the paternal bond between Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander and high school student Todd Bowden.

[24] Mahoney says language serves as "a vehicle for corruption", as Dussander tells Bowden horrific stories of his service at the fictional Death Camp of Patin.

[25] One of the key motifs of the film is that "a door was opened that could not be shut", referring to Dussander's confession about following orders and being unable to hold back.

[30] The central characters Todd Bowden and Kurt Dussander are onscreen most of the time, and they are frequently framed in close proximity, which Picart and Frank describe as "[intensifying] a homoerotic intimacy [which is] punctuated by dread of contact with the monstrous".

"[5] In the film, Bowden intimidates French, who suspects Dussander's false relationship to the student, by threatening to destroy him with "rumor and innuendo".

Stanley Wiater, author of The Complete Stephen King Universe, wrote, "As depicted on screen, Todd is much more consciously evil, in his way, than in the book.

The critic felt that the offensive material lacked a "social message" or an "overarching purpose" and found the film's later scenes to be "exploitative".

[47] Janet Maslin of The New York Times applauded the production value of Bryan Singer's direction, liking Newton Thomas Sigel's "handsomely shot" cinematography and John Ottman's "stunningly edited" work.

Maslin wrote of McKellen and Renfro's performances, "Both actors play their roles so trickily that tensions escalate until the horror grows unimaginatively gothic."

The critic perceived that Apt Pupil came off as a conventional horror film, that it had Stephen King's "characteristically unsavory" touches, and that Singer's "inept" direction "trivialize[s] the characters and the subject matter".

[50] Jay Carr of The Boston Globe called Apt Pupil "most compelling for its moral dimension", enjoying the "duet between Renfro's smooth-cheeked latter-day Faust and McKellen's reawakened Mephistopheles".

"[51] Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune described Apt Pupil as "a good shocker that misses the ultimate horror", finding the film's weakness to be the "contrived" bond between Dussander and Bowden.

Wilmington called the plot "overly slick", asking, "How can Todd not only conveniently find a Nazi war criminal in his hometown but also instantly coerce and control him?

The boys claimed trauma from the experience, seeking charges against the filmmakers including infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and invasion of privacy.

The Los Angeles District Attorney's office determined that there was no cause to file criminal charges,[16] stating, "The suspects were intent on completing a professional film as quickly and efficiently as possible.