Disturbing Behavior looks, feels and acts like a discarded episode of
The X-Files and there is good reason for that. With a handful of people that have worked on the series at one time or another, this one was bound to take on that flavor. That's not a bad thing. But that should also tell you just how "scary" this "horror" movie is. It's not. When has an
X-Files episode ever been scary? Exactly.
Disturbing Behavior was one of the first DVD's I ever bought when the format exploded onto the scene and it's been almost that long since I actually sat down to watch this. Time away from this movie has not aged well at all. I never thought the movie was all that good to begin with, but watching it tonight, it was pretty painful.
My biggest gripe with this one is the wasted cast featuring
Nick Stahl, Katie Holmes and
James Marsden. There is only so much an actor can do when they have to work with a script that is full of holes with some really bad dialog as this one. No teenager at anytime in the history of the planet ever talked like
Nick's character does. It's a screenwriter that is trying to be cool....or cute or whatever by trying to create a new style of language that just comes off incredibly weak and forced. Everything that comes out of
Stahl and
Holmes mouth induces unintentional laughter. This is a movie to Skip. About the only thing that got right was the music, especially that of
The Flys.
One last thing, I still don't know how this was ever given an
R Rating. All it has is a few F-Bombs and a t i t shot that you can barely see. Without question the weakest and softest
R you will ever find. You can show this entire movie basically unedited on broadcast TV by today's standards and not worry about getting fined for it.