I’ve always kind of enjoyed the subgenre of movies about teachers at bad schools that go to war with the troubled students. Movies like 187, The Substitute and even The Principal. As much as I like these movies I must admit that each one sways off into varying degrees of silly. When you’re dealing with this subject matter I think that’s just something that comes with the territory. One film that falls into this category, and is arguably the silliest, that I had not seen was Class of 1984 from director Mark L. Lester (Commando, Showdown in Little Tokyo). Given how much I enjoy Lester’s other works, I decided it was time to rectify this situation.
Perry King stars as Andrew Norris, a music teacher starting his first day at an inner city high school that is reportedly quite troubled. Before he even makes it out of the parking lot he gets an understanding of just how troubled this school is when he meets Terry Corrigan (Roddy McDowall), a fellow teacher who is carrying a gun. Norris is understandably puzzled by this but Corrigan explains that once he gets accustomed to the school he’ll understand why the gun is necessary.
Inside the school Norris encounters more unsettling things. Everyone entering the school is forced to go through a metal detector, certainly not your normal high school practice. Worse, kids are still able to sneak weapons in past the detectors. Norris catches one and points it out to security but they basically shrug it off and say, “Hey, what can we do?” Norris struggles to understand how this can all be real.
As Norris makes his way to his classroom he gets a good look at the school. It’s an absolute mess; the whole place looking like it should be condemned. Everything looks rundown and the walls are completely covered with graffiti. This looks less like a place of education and more like a halfway house where filth runs rampant.
Once Norris finally makes it to his classroom he finds a handful of kids actually there to learn to play instruments but the rest are hoodlums looking to cause trouble, one such kid is Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten). Stegman is a student in the class but he has no interest in learning. He hangs out in the classroom with a bunch of his thug friends, who basically act as his goons. Norris won’t stand for this and kicks the other kids out. Stegman decides to join them and this immediately starts a war between Stegman’s gang and Norris.
Class of 1984 is definitely more over-the-top than the films I mentioned earlier. It takes everything to the extreme, but that was Lester’s intent. He was purposely over exaggerating the situation to prove his point on the educational system at the time. While the students appear to be unruly and do not care, authority figures do nothing to stop them. Thus the truly bad students get a little braver and continue to push the limit until they’re basically a crime syndicate operating out of the school. There’s actually a scene in the movie with Stegman’s gang that references a lot of mafia movie scenes with people waiting to see the big boss. So despite how silly the film may seem at times, there was an underlying message that Lester was sending.
Messages aside, I think Class of 1984 is a ton of fun. King’s portrayal of Norris is very similar to Charles Bronson in the Death Wish films, particularly Death Wish III. In fact I think the perfect way to describe Class of 1984 is to imagine Paul Kersey teaching a high school music class. That pretty much nails it.
King in general is really terrific. He’s one of those guys that I can never think of off the top of my head, but whenever I see him he never fails to deliver. Across the board the cast delivers superb performances. A young Michael J. Fox stars as Arthur, one of the good kids in class. Even with his baby fat you could tell Fox was going to be a star. Van Patten is an awesome villain to King’s hero. The whole time he is just such an asshole that you really want him to get it. The scene that is likely to stick with you the most, however, comes courtesy of one Roddy McDowall. He’s definitely been broken down by the system and lost his passion to teach. In an effort to regain it, he goes to extreme lengths to force his students to learn.
Class of 1984 is now available on Blu-ray from a variety of different companies. Being the fan of mediabooks that I am, I checked out the German mediabook release from CMV Laservision. This release does appear to be region free, as it worked on both my region A and region B Blu-ray players. The transfer looks pretty solid, a few moments here and there are on the rough side, but for the most part it looks very, very good. There are a few special features that are in English, including the wonderful making-of/documentary “Blood and Blackboards,” which is from the old DVD release of the film. This 35-minute doc features a bunch of interviews from various cast members talking about their experience working on the film. It’s definitely worth checking out if you like the movie.
I think Class of 1984 is a great movie that crosses a variety of genres. It’s sort of based in that urban school drama but ventures into over-the-top action and has some of the violence and gore that you would find in a horror movie. The end scene is actually kind of shocking. Look, like I said earlier, it’s basically Paul Kersey teaching high school and that should be more than enough to peak your interest.
Class of 1984 is now available on Blu-ray from CMV Laservision.
