Disturbing Behavior is a 1998 teen science fiction psychological horror film starring James Marsden, Katie Holmes, and Nick Stahl.
The plot follows a group of high school outcasts who discover their seemingly perfect "Blue Ribbon" classmates are part of an elaborate mind control experiment.
[9] High school senior Steve Clark is new to Cradle Bay, a picturesque island community in Washington state's Puget Sound.
The Blue Ribbons, a clique of preppy, clean-cut overachievers, attempt to recruit Steve, but Gavin steers him away, claiming they are a murderous cult that has been "lobotomized and brainwashed" by Caldicott.
Repeating the words "wrong, bad", she smashes a wall mirror with her head and attacks Steve with a shard, but he subdues her, and she snaps out of her episode.
They learn Gavin was right: Caldicott is implanting brain microchips on teenagers with the approval of their parents, who want to reprogram their kids from juvenile delinquents into well-behaved model citizens.
and Lindsay arrive in a truck and the group rushes to catch an outgoing ferry but run into a roadblock where Caldicott and the Blue Ribbons are assembled.
Newberry drives up in his car and activates the multiple rat-catching devices strapped to his vehicle, scrambling the mind control tech inside the Blue Ribbons’ heads and sending them chasing after him.
While U.V., Lindsay, and Rachel head for the ferry, Newberry, fatally wounded by a gunshot from Caldicott, drives his car off a cliff and takes most of the Ribbons down with him.
In a final scene, a class at an unnamed high school is acting rowdily and playing loud music when a principal walks in to introduce a new student teacher.
[14] After the first test audience screening, Nutter cut the backstory for Steve's brother Allen as well as a love scene between Steve and Rachel, but when the film again tested below studios’ expectations, MGM proceeded to take full control of the film and hired another editor, George Folsey Jr., to make further cuts.
[13] Director David Nutter said he envisioned the film as an atmospheric X-Files-style thriller, but the studio wanted a Scream-style teen horror.
[8][17] Stephen Holden of The New York Times said the film "could have worked as an eerie fable about teen-age identity and social stratification in the age of Prozac" but descends into "a paint-by-numbers creep show that can't muster enough energy to be the tiniest bit scary.
[18][8][22] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "But for all its influences, Disturbing Behavior establishes a semi-real, semi-supernatural, part-mocking, part-commiserating genre of its own—a state so precarious that those expecting chillier frights or warmer laughs may be disappointed.
[24] According to an interview with Fangoria, David Nutter was close to getting a director's cut released on DVD, but MGM prevented him from finishing the restoration.
[9] Although a director's cut was never released, there have been online circulation of fan edit versions which use the DVD's deleted scenes including the film's original ending.
"[31] Cinapse also stated, "In spite of all the hacking the studio inflicted upon Disturbing Behavior, many of the filmmakers’ core themes of high school life in the late ’90s manage to shine through.