| “ | Steve Clark: People are gonna know when I get out of here. Edgar Caldicott: That’s right Steven, They will know. They’ll know because you’ll be better. Adolescence is a minefield but soon you’ll be fully equipped to walk right through it. Steve Clark: Yeah, straight A’s in a leather jacket and every now and then you rape and kill. Edgar Caldicott: To cure cancer, you gotta kill a few white mice. Steve Clark: Meet the musical little creatures that hide among the flowers. Edgar Caldicott: That’s a battle I didn’t win. You’ll be different. I know so much more now: she wasn’t that bright to begin with. |
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| ~ Caldicott revealing he’s going to convert Steve into a Blue Ribbon while viewing his daughter Betty as a worthless person. |
She wasn’t that bright to begin with.
What's the Work?[]
Disturbing Behavior is a honestly underrated 1998 teenage horror film directed by David Nutter of the X-Files fame. Starring James Marsden, Katie Holmes, Nick Stahl, Steve Railsback, Bruce Greenwood, and William Sadler, it focuses on high school senior Steven "Steve" Clark, who has moved alongside his parents and younger sister Lindsay into Cradle Bay following his older brother Allen's untimely suicide following his forceful split-up with alongside his girlfriend Abby, who killed herself as well. Steve gets along with solely a few people in his new school including love interest Rachel Wagner and best friend Gavin Strick. They unwillingly uncover a conspiracy involving the most popular group in the school called the Blue Ribbons, all lead by this sinister doctor.
Just a note: I'm including deleted scenes that were restored for television such as the USA Network, the Sci-Fi Channel and Comet as it'll clear up details that are lacking from the theatrical cut.
Who is Dr. Edgar Caldicott and What Has He Done?[]
The film begins with a teenage student named Andrew "Andy" Effkin violently snapping the neck of his girlfriend Mary Jo Copeland upon thinking like a pervert and shooting a cop named Kramer dead. Another teenager named Gavin Strick witnesses the scene and watches the other officer named Cox giving Andy a slap on the wrist and leaving before they can spot him. When Steven Clark enters Cradle Bay High, he later goes to the principal's office to meet Dr. Edgar Caldicott, who had resided in Cradle Bay for two years now and is into counseling scholars. Caldicott arrives and chats with Steve into considering joining the Blue Ribbons: a group that collaborates together into doing activities such as studying and participating in sports. Caldicott explains further that he'll be in touch with Steve and encourages him to find new buddies.
Caldicott is then mentioned by Rachel to have witnessed Andy bit off a kitten's head and that Gavin thinks a evil force is slowly covering Cradle Bay as one Blue Ribbon student named Charles "Chug" Roman attacks a supermarket after reminiscing how hot Rachel is, throwing two innocent men into supplies of food, scratching the nose of one and almost beating the other to death before being stopped and Dickie Atkinson smashing a vehicle apart in front of the other Blue Ribbons cheering him on. On Monday, Caldicott conducts a conference with parents with Steve and Gavin snooping around as Andy's mother voicing her concern over her son acting up over others who aren't part of the Blue Ribbons after returning from a "weekend enlightenment seminar", but Caldicott dismisses the concerns and explains that teenagers overreact, becoming snobby and prideful. It's here where Caldicott tells his story about his daughter Betty, originally viewing her as perfect until she reached adolescence. Caldicott seemed to have felt helpless and created the Blue Ribbons program as a result to "save her" and claims she is now in Stanford University practicing medicine and is on a stable and healthy marriage with a young attorney from San Francisco while making excellent Toll House cookies.
Caldicott then reveals that he has chosen Gavin as the next person to be with the Blue Ribbons. Gavin is enraged at his parents Ernest and Lucile for enrolling him there and tries pleading to Steve, only for a distrusting Steve to blow him off. Gavin considers shooting anyone who goes to his house and a worried Steve then grabs it and abandons him. The next day, Gavin comes back having a altered personality and Steve winds up being beaten by him and the rest of the Blue Ribbons. Steve approaches janitor Dorian Newberry regarding Cradle Bay. Newberry recalls a incident three years back, four seniors on a Saturday's night got drunk and drove to a yogurt shop, winding up murdering them alongside a important community member named Elaine and her eight-year old son Scottie. Caldicott then showed up to Cradle Bay shortly afterwards and convinces the parents that it'd be safer and wiser if they act as professional as they can while forbidding any semblance of fun or joy.
Steve then hitches a ride with Officer Cox, who takes him to his house only to find Lorna having taking care of his younger sister Lindsay and helping her with Algebra. Lorna finds herself attracted to him only to suddenly see herself in a mirror and repeat "wrong" and "bad" and breaking the mirror and attempts to stab him with a shard and rape him only for him to subdue her in time and she promptly returns to normal and goes back home. Caldicott however kidnaps her and removes her implant: confirming Gavin's suspicions that Caldicott is mind-controlling the Blue Ribbons and that they are trying to free themselves from it by increasing their dopamine levels. Caldicott expresses frustration when the other doctors inform him that his project might be compromised, and that he'll simply fix his invention by getting more children to be subjected to the process until it's perfect, having cleaned up the mess earlier.
Chug tries asking Rachel for a date only to reject him which causes Chug to try and rape her only for Newberry to rescue Rachel by using the E-Rat-icator (a device intended to repel rodents) and Newberry expresses amazement at it working. Steve visits Rachel, who plays a pre-recorded video tape message from Gavin before he was captured, who explains that Caldicott considers the Blue Ribbons "his" children. Rachel shows Steve a paper she got from the MI database that Caldicott had been employed at Bishop Flats inside the Belknap Psychiatric Facility for seven years having done his procedure. Newberry protested but Caldicott then terminates him. Steve and Rachel storm in only to discover some of Caldicott's former patients. One of them just so happens to be Betty, who can only manage "meet the musical little creatures, that hide among the flowers" repeatedly.
A horrified Steve and Rachel proceed to knock her unconscious after she unintentionally but nearly exposes them to the guards. Rachel wants to go far away but Steve has to retrieve Lindsay before Caldicott gets her too. Steve and Rachel then decide to bond further after Rachel expresses her problems with her life and they have consensual sex together. Cox has Steve and Rachel arrested for breaking curfew, but Newberry knocks him out and drives them to their residences instead. Steve approaches his parents Nathan and Cynthia, but when Caldicott is also there, Steve realizes his parents betrayed him and furiously hits Caldicott in his stomach and takes Rachel by hand. Unfortunately, Caldicott brought some of the Blue Ribbons including Gavin and Chug shoves Steve off while Caldicott grabs Lindsay and drags her back to her parents.
Caldicott has Steve and Rachel seized by doctors and strapped onto a gurney. Steve warns Caldicott that when he gets out he's going to let everyone in the town know what's really going on, Caldicott tells him that he'll be a "better, improved" person by then and how he'll be equipped to deal with his hormones and emotions. Steve calls him out on how his pets rape and kill regularly. As Caldicott callously shrugs it off, Steve then desperately appeals to Caldicott's humanity by uttering Betty's phrase: only for Caldicott to directly call his daughter a idiot to Steve's face. Steve uses a scalpel to slice his restraints open and impale one of Caldicott's technicians and then breaks Rachel out. Chug notices though and battles them, as the latter ends him by bashing with a pipe.
Luckily for the two, UV and Lindsay had gotten into a truck. Just then, they're stopped in the middle of a road by the Blue Ribbons and Caldicott: the latter clearly intending to finish them off. Caldicott then sees Newberry's truck and spitefully shoots him. However, he gets partially struck as the Blue Ribbons give chase to Steve. Newberry then sacrifices his life and takes the Blue Ribbons with him by ramming his truck deep into a pit, knowing that he was going to die regardless from the injuries inflicted by Caldicott as he leaves parting words to Steve. A bloodied up Caldicott engages in a final confrontation with Steve, planning on repeating the pattern elsewhere. Steve gets the upper hand though and while Caldicott grabs his shoe on the edge, Steve punts him so Caldicott falls to his karmic demise: preventing him from ever harming anyone again.
Now, the movie concludes in two different ways: The one presented in theaters has Gavin surviving and teaching a new class to convert them eventually, while the original ending has Gavin confronting Steve and Steve having to put him down, with Gavin thanking him as he dies while Rachel sheds tears as she, Steve, UV, and Lindsay move on to a hopefully better life.
Heinous Standards?[]
Nobody in the movie is a total saint as the heroes are willing to kill others, but it's clear they regret doing so and have no other choice and the parents are being unwillingly strung along by Caldicott, who is basically responsible for everything wrong. Caldicott conducts horrific experiments and uses a chip to transform dozens of innocent students into his pet projects while also tricking the parents that it is ethical and hiding the fact that they proceed to attack, kill and rape multiple people due to the process not being 100% complete. Caldicott goes as far as to subject his own daughter Betty to it and when it didn't fully work on her either, he proceeds to condemn her and several other teens he initially worked on to a mental health institution. Caldicott also converted Steve's friend Gavin, sets out to have Steve, Rachel, UV, Lindsay and Newberry disposed of (succeeding in claiming the life of the latter) by himself when the game is up, and aims to continue his absolutely vile scheme in the end.
Mitigating Factors?[]
Brace yourselves here. Caldicott presents himself as a kind doctor only seeking to improve kids' lives and make them into responsible and beneficial members of society. In truth, he loathes and detests them for their "imperfections" and when his creations doesn't work as intended, he discards them and definitely shows no reaction towards the Blue Ribbons dying. Caldicott mentions his wife Mary but the relationship doesn't go any further than "they produced a baby". Speaking of which? Caldicott at first pretends to love his daughter and comes up with a fake story of her. Caldicott may have originally truly loved/cared about her, but when she disobeyed him, he made her his first victim and coldly deems her to be dumb/stupid in the first place. Oh, there's more! Caldicott also casually despises pigeons: saying they're pedestrian. Overall? Caldicott prioritizes over being a savior above anything else.
Final Verdict?[]
Easy yes to our first Bruce Greenwood qualifier.