Dear Disturbing Behavior (or, John Misses His Teen Years: Part 1)
If any of you are friends with me on the book of faces, then you’ve probably taken notice of my recent posting of various pop culture clips from my teen years. You see, children, my quarter life crisis has extended into my late 20s because, dammit, I don’t want to get old. I want to stay young and PHENOMENAL looking forevs. And while that’s obviously not possible (unless there’s some magical, insanely expensive European lotion made out of boar testicles and pixie poop that I missed the memo about), I can at least live out my ageless fantasies through YouTube clips. My pathetic clamoring for my golden youth proved SO popular on the FB that I just had to bring it over to my beloved, neglected site. I have arse-loads of fave teen clips to discuss in the future but, to make things interactive, I will be more than happy to take anyone’s requests to discuss certain ones.
Unless you grew up in one of those super creepy Christian homes where television was the devil and every time you masturbated god killed a kitten, you should be fully aware that Scream revitalized the teen horror genre in the 90s. While most met with huge financial success upon their release, there were a few that, unjustly so, flopped harder than a fat kid on a diving board. One such went by the monicker of Disturbing Behavior. Mind you, I can understand why it flopped. While Jennifer Love HugeTits and Neve Campbell were being chased around by angry men with sharp, metaphorical penises, Disturbing Behavior dared to be different. And by different I mean they forced The Stepford Wives into letting Dawson’s Creek violently inseminate her egg with his angsty seed. The result is far from perfect, but fuck if I don’t enjoy the Hell out of this bastard child. Behold!
Joey Potter is WAY hotter as Cook’s Ridge white trash than she was as Capeside’s doting girl next door who constantly pushed her hair behind her ears, don’t you think? And what of the irony, looking back now, in the fact that she’s actually NOT one of the brainwashed teens! It’s no secret that Disturbing Behavior gained a bad rap. But it’s my belief that most of its shortcomings can be attributed to the butchering done in the editing room just before the movie’s release. Years back, when Syfy was still called SciFi, they aired the complete version with all of the deleted scenes added back in. You know, the parts that actually developed the characters and filled in the GIANT plot holes. Who’d a thunk the movie would be better with these things? MGM sure as hell didn’t. But even in its current state, it’s still one helluva entertaining, underrated little nugget of Scifi/horror/teen awesomeness.
Dear Disturbing Behavior,
I’m not going to lie to you and tell you you’re perfect, because you’re far from it. But I define a “classic” movie not by how much money it made or what kind of reviews it got. I judge it by its re-watchability and its achievement in making the target audience remember it. Anyone my age will know EXACTLY what I’m talking about when I say “Rats from the bay!”, “Meet the musical little creatures that hide among the flowers”, or “Bad wrong, wrong bad…” For that, you will forever be a classic 90s teen film. Rock on with your batshit bizarreness and fucking SICK soundtrack.
Love, John.