Director: Mark L. Lester
18 | 1h 39min | Action, Horror, Sci-fi
By the mid-1980s, gang violence had become a serious problem for American society. With the emergence of the relatively cheap and highly addictive crack cocaine, street gangs were becoming major players in the world of organised crime, leading to the kind of all-out warfare that had middle class white America running for the hills during the nation’s hypocritical ‘war on drugs’ and deeply cynical prison construction boom. By 1980, rival gangs the Crips and the Bloods had grown to have an estimated 15,000 members, the bulk of whom kids aged between 14 and 24. Forced to defend their suburban territories, drive-by shootings became commonplace as peewee violence poured into the inner-cities, and inevitably the classroom.
In 1982, director Mark L. Lester tackled the issue in Class of 1984, a no-nonsense revenge flick in the Charles Bronson vein, one that saw Republican America go eye-for-an-eye with the next generation of insubordinate youth, thriving on the very violence it was supposed to be condemning. The movie proved somewhat accurate by introducing metal detectors and security guards to its fictional high school, something that would become a reality less than a decade later, resulting in a hard-line governmental crackdown and heightened, high-tech security procedures. The issue would even make its way into the spoof-happy realms of the Naked Gun series.
It may not surprise you to learn that Class of 1999 borders on spoof itself at times. Taking over writing duties from cult horror director Tom Holland, Lester’s loose sci-fi reimaging, though holding no narrative connection, is a sequel in spirit, upping the cartoonery and the violence and toning down the exploitative qualities of its predecessor (think Evil Dead 2 to The Evil Dead). In an era when gangster rap had emerged from the suburban battlegrounds, speaking out, rather vociferously, against corrupt authorities and institutional prejudice, at its core Class of 1999 is social allegory denouncing such behaviour, though its brand of OTT silliness places it firmly in the bad movie category.
By bad, I of course mean ‘so bad it’s good’. Class of 1999 presents us with the kind of B-grade, cyberpunk futurescape you would expect to see in a 16-bit, Streets of Rage style beat ’em up, a cartoon approach that often feels at odds with tasteless sexual references and instances of gratuitous violence. The film’s gangsters, runtish Bon Jovi fanboys who try their utmost to appear intimidating, are never convincing as a serious threat. The cops are notable by their absence, an Escape from New York-style opening making clear that the perilous schoolyard is out of bounds for law enforcement in a way that makes playground warfare fair game. But in a mutinous land of drugs and murder, would those troubled tykes continue to attend school in the first place? I mean, if they were so damned scary, would they really turn up to class with their notepads and packed lunches day after day, year after year? Something tells me not.
One youngster looking to turn his life around is former gang leader Cody Culp (Gregg). After a stint in the slammer Cody disappoints his younger siblings by refusing to get high on designer drug Edge ― a characteristic that the majority of the cast are severely lacking in ― and after informing the rest of the Black Hearts that he is through with the thug life, he is ostracised on both sides and treading a precarious line. Struggling with his newfound solitude, loner Cody soon finds solace in Christie (Lind), an American as apple pie beauty so out of place in Class of 1999‘s juvenile war zone you wonder why her parents sent her there to begin with, particularly when her father is the headteacher. When Christie is almost raped and students begin dropping like flies, her dad at least shows a modicum of concern, but he’s more than happy to send her back to the classroom almost immediately. Perhaps he had some urgent admin to attend to.
Meanwhile, serpent-eyed scaremonger Dr. Forrest (Stacey Keach in effortlessly treacherous form) has his own ideas about how to influence the scourge of the playground, convincing the school’s head, Dr. Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell), to install military cyborgs in the classroom (I’m sure the grossly underfunded public school system will prove a goldmine for the corporation’s high-cost, high-risk business model, particularly with all the potential lawsuits that such a strategy will inevitably trigger). Operating on a whopping one terabyte per unit, these machines are indistinguishable from your average human being, neither acting nor behaving like machines ― and to the movie’s detriment.
With The Terminator, James Cameron nailed the killer cyborg concept by casting a wooden Arnold Schwarzenegger and creating a monster that was free from prejudice and relentless in the pursuit of its goal. The machines in Class of 1999 actually take pleasure in their work, a fact that makes them a) less terrifying and b) less effective as servants. The key to a successful army is to dehumanise its soldiers, not spend billions creating autonomous machines full of pesky emotions, a fact that multibillion-dollar conglomerate Mega-tech singularly fails to understand.
To be fair, Mega-tech does get the most out of its USB-brained super machines. Not only are they proficient in the fundamentals of education, they’re programmed to deliver very specific degrees of punishment based on each student’s profile and behaviour, and according to their NES-style action screens are highly skilled in karate moves, punches, kicks and the dreaded fight combinations #1 and #2. Safe in that knowledge, the androids waste no time in stamping their authority, dishing out various forms of tolerable, though incredibly perverse corporal punishment, proving that a bit of hands-on-bondage is enough to bring out the submissive side in anyone, regardless of how crazy and armed-to-the-teeth.
Class of 1999 crashes forth like an exposition express train fuelled by nitrous oxide, but where the movie does excel is in its overblown action sequences. This is hardly surprising from a director who can add testosterone-pumped Arnie vehicle Commando to his back catalogue, though besides featuring an in-his-pomp Schwarzenegger and making a shitload of money, Commando is little more than B-movie pap masquerading as Hollywood spectacular, a production with more cinematic faux pas than the rest of Arnie’s back catalogue put together. Put succinctly, Lester is more than at home in the urban battlegrounds of schlock, and Class of 1999 is no exception. Anyone with a taste for bottom-rung hokum is in for a seriously delicious treat.
It certainly helps that former Hollywood player Lester was able to recruit the kind of secondary cast that was once considered royalty. This alone is enough to elevate the movie’s entertainment value, a past-their-peak combination of A Clockwork Orange‘s McDowell and perennial bad guy Keach providing Class of 1999 with some much needed acting clout, despite the fact that they have very little to work with and are clearly phoning-in their performances from a very long distance. In a move that foreshadows Tarantino’s modus for returning former stars to past glories, we also get blaxploitation bad ass Pam Grier as a flame-wielding android daubed in the kind of second-rate practical effects that will leave you giddy with disbelief, though unlike her memorable turn in slick gangster thriller Jackie Brown, she is clearly in it for the pay cheque.
Class of 1999 also stars the ever wonderful John P. Ryan. You may or may not remember him as the maniacal drug lord who sent Paul Kersey on his fourth vengeance-fuelled rampage in Cannon’s equally dubious Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, before eating the wrong end of a bazooka in one of the most abrupt and overblown cowboys at dawn stand-offs ever committed to celluloid. Action movie aficionados may even recognise him from Michael Dudikoff/Steve James action vehicle Avenging Force, another Cannon classic which sees Ryan play an equally extravagant Republican madman who hunts humans for sport and guns down kids with a wild-eyed insouciance that trumps even this movie. Here, he revels in the role of lead droid Mr. Hardin, a pipe-smoking, tweed-wearing menace who steals the show from under everyone’s nose. Ryan has done the B-movie rounds and always seems to attack his roles with relish, regardless of how ludicrous or low-profile. When it comes to chewing the scenery in self-aware action fodder on a shoestring budget, the man has very few peers.
I’m sure many of you will struggle to get through the first act of Lester’s harebrained follow-up, but if you have a taste for the criminally absurd this movie will be right up your alley. Like the majority of sci-fi schlock to come out of the late 80s, Class of 1999 ultimately descends into a farcical imitation of The Terminator‘s climactic scene, one that sees our indestructible killers put out of commission with a forklift truck travelling at a death-defying 2mph. I can only assume that Mega-tech went into liquidation shortly afterwards.
Extreme Discipline
When it comes to theatrical B-movie bad guys, Cannon regular John P. Ryan has the role down to a fine art, and as Class of 1999‘s psycho-in-a-sweater, Mr. Hardin, he’s as theatrical as ever. He’s also deliciously malevolent and excessively violent.
Take what is arguably the movie’s best kill. Shedding his flesh to reveal a vice-like limb, a malfunctioning Hardin drills a hole through the cranium of one ill-fated Black Heart member, turning his brains into chopped liver.
Yuck!
Roses Are Red, Violence is Blue
If you’re looking for accidental hilarity, you’ve picked the right movie. Class of 1999 is wildly dissonant, with the kind of plot and character development that’ll leave you scoffing from one scene to the next, and the following moment is as good an example as any.
Attempting to create a diversion for the girl who his gang almost raped just a few scenes prior, born-again good guy Hector is pursued by Mr Bryles and his newly exposed rocket launcher, wisely and effectively taking cover… behind a rosebush.
A half-decade earlier, Colonel John Matrix would take the exact same measures while attempting to free his daughter from the clutches of egomaniacal Freddy Mercury lookalike, Bennett.
Incredibly, both men survived with barely a scratch to show for it.
Just don’t try this at home.
Choice Dialogue
As tensions between the Black Hearts and the Razor Heads escalate to uncontainable levels, honcho Hector gets heavy with the sarcasm.
Razor Head Member: Do you trust him?
Hector: Yeah, like a vampire giving me a blow job.
One of many Terminator derivatives to fall so deliriously short,
Edison Smithis a cacophony of extreme violence and absurd melodrama, with a hokey screenplay, unconvincing special effects, and a future society which somehow looks less advanced than the year it was made, let alone set. If you’re anything like me you’ll marvel at every second-rate minute of it. Just remember to bring your homework.
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