YMMV / Class of 1984

• Anti-Climax Boss: Peter Stegman is the most easily defeated of the gang. Even with a dagger in hand, Norris, who had to resort to weapons and tricks to kill his underling, beats the tar out of him without breaking a sweat, despite being exhausted and wounded.
  • Good Bad Flicks would likely not be surprised at this, as Stegman went on be Max Keller.
• Awesome Music: The theme song, "I am the Future" by Alice Cooper. Because, well, it's Alice Cooper.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After seeing such rotten teens get away with everything, it becomes very satisfying when Terry Corrigan brings a gun to class and threatens members of the gang. For a moment, Fallon, Patsy, and even Stegman are knocked down a peg, to the point where Stegman is almost shitting his pants.
  • One ordered by the studio no less. Stegman's death was a straightforward Disney Villain Death. But executives found the character so evil they had Andy punch him to his death, and a caption says that he never got prosecuted for it.
  • Before that, seeing this wretched little monster being submitted to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown is as horrifying as satisfying considering how much he deserved every punch. Not to mention the rest of Stegman's gang.
• Complete Monster:
  • Peter Stegman and his gang run Lincoln High School with an iron fist. Even the teachers are understandably scared of him, as he's a brutal sociopath who runs drug and prostitution rings and has kids stabbed for ratting out his criminal activities. After teacher Andy Norris refuses to let Stegman play piano in his band due to Stegman's attitude problems, Stegman makes it his mission to torture him. He attacks Norris's friends, has a lab full of animals skinned alive just to hurt Andy and his fellow teacher friend, and eventually leads a gang rape of Andy's wife before kidnapping her to lure Andy in with the intention of killing them both.
  • Patsy is Stegman's girlfriend and the most involved of his gang. Scouting girls for Stegman's prostitution ring, Patsy is a sexual sadist who enjoys making the drug addicts she finds go through "tryouts" with her male cohorts while she watches. Using Andy's address to allow for the gang to rape his wife, Patsy photographs the assault to taunt Andy, hoping to lure him out to be beaten to death.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Teacher threatening his students at gunpoint? Terrifying. Teacher threatening delinquents to answer questions correctly - which they do? Hilarious.
• Cult Classic: Although it was a hit at the time, its cult popularity has prevented it from descending into obscurity. A special edition was even released in 2015 because of it.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Seeing Michael J. Fox getting stabbed and then sent to the hospital in a vulnerable and weakened state is much more tragic when Michael would suffer from Parkinson's Disease to a point it hindered his acting career and eventually forced him into receiving a disability retirement.
• Les Yay: Patsy shows lesbian or bisexual tendencies towards a girl that Stegman has strip off for the gang. According to her actress Lisa Langlois, it was an improv moment from her, who decided that Patsy would be turned on by violence.
• Moral Event Horizon: Stegman and his gang crosses it by torturing and raping Ms Norris and then taunting her husband after the incident to try to draw him out and kill him.
  • Although, It could be argued they crossed it when they slaughtered Terry Corrigan's lab animals and put them on display. Not only does it break Corrigan completely, he never recovers, and becomes so mentally unstable that he dies trying to kill Stegman.
  • Terry toes the line with his mental breakdown decision to teach the class at gunpoint. If he had dismissed everyone but Stegman's gang before pulling the gun, it would be much more understandable, but he doesn't, and there are a number of kids who are complete bystanders and are being threatened by Terry and his gun as well.
• Once Original, Now Common:
  • The director himself said that the film's depiction of violence in schools looks tame compared to what ended up actually happening in Columbine, Sandy Hook etc.
  • The cast themselves and the screenwriter were shocked at the violence shown in the film, some of which pales in comparison to the Torture Porn of the 2000s. It's arguably tamer than the most brutal Game of Thrones episodes!
• Retroactive Recognition: Michael J. Fox in one of his earlier roles, where he's credited just as Michael Fox due to an SAG technicality.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The film shows itself as being made when violence in inner city schools was still considered a new phenomena. Director Mark L Lester says that the opening card informing viewers of the statistics failed to predict that violence in schools would become far more commonplace in a post-Columbine world. The teachers are apathetic to weapons easily being smuggled into school, and Terry Corrigan brings a gun in with him quite easily (and the scene of him threatening the gang students with it is played for dark comedy). Superficially the fashions (most of the extras were authentic early 80s punks) and use of Alice Cooper's "I Am the Future" as the opening song immediately date it to the 80s.
• Values Dissonance: The students are still able to sneak weapons pass the metal detectors quite easily, which looks incredibly strange to viewers who grew up in a world where schools have zero tolerance policies around any kind of weapons (people have been expelled for bringing dinner knives in, as well as just making the shape of a gun with their fingers!)
• Values Resonance: Despite certain aspects of the movie are dated (like the 80s fashion, music and the Zeerust-y future), the violence against teachers committed by the students (and their parents) has become a very serious issue over the last years.

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