YMMV / Disturbing Behavior

• Complete Monster: Dr. Edgar Caldicott is a ruthless psychologist who intends on remaking teenagers in his own image. Coming to Cradle Bay, Caldicott implements the Blue Ribbon program where he takes delinquent teens and brainwashes them, implanting neurochips to destroy their minds and turn them into stereotypical carbon copies of "wholesome" teens. The programming, however, is imperfect and they tend to rape and kill on a frequent basis, something Caldicott simply covers up before experimenting upon others. Caldicott is revealed to have destroyed his own daughter's mind along with many others in these experiments, callously throwing them into an asylum and claiming his daughter "wasn't that bright to begin with" anyways. Even after his Blue Ribbon army is destroyed, Caldicott tries to murder the heroes, claiming he'll start over in another town to satisfy his god complex.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: By the late Nineties, it was widely and rightly understood that even the lamest excuse from a woman in a sexual situation was a "no" that must be honored. In the opening scene, Andy Effkin tries to break off sexual activities with Mary Jo Copeland with a very lame excuse. She seems to take it as an insult, and responds by performing oral sex on him against his will, which the scene treats as a hot moment of sexual aggressiveness from a girl who Really Gets Around that any man would welcome if he didn't have something wrong with him instead of a sexual assault.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: The theatrical cut removed so many scenes, including most of the plot and Character Development and a different, more Bittersweet Ending, that director David Nutter considered giving it the Alan Smithee treatment. Needless to say, the TV edit that restores most of it to pad the length is the only version of the film that most fans will accept. Home video releases contain not just all of the deleted scenes, but also commentary tracks for them.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Watching Katie Holmes trying to escape from getting brainwashed reads a lot worse now given her much-publicized adventures with (and later well-planned escape from) Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology.
• Moral Event Horizon: Caldicott is revealed to have crossed this a long time ago when he lobotomized his own daughter Betty when she grew up due to him not liking how she acted up.
• Relationship Writing Fumble: Rachel and Steve being the protagonists are also meant to be the One True Pairing, except that they have very few scenes where we actually see their relationship build. Even with other characters pointing out their supposed "sparks" it all still comes across as an Informed Attribute! Rachel and Gavin on the other hand seem to have a lot more chemistry in their scenes together. In universe they’re supposed to be seen as Like Brother and Sister yet when Rachel gets hit on by Chug it’s Gavin who seems jealous while Steve has no emotion. It also seems to upset Gavin the most when Rachel doesn’t believe his conspiracy theories while he just accepts it from everyone else. And when Gavin is brainwashed by the Blue Ribbons Rachel is the one who seems the most upset. Lastly there’s also Gavin leaving his video will specifically to Rachel… This mainly applies only to the theatrical release however, as the deleted scenes that were restored for television fleshes their relationship far more.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Newburry's Heroic Sacrifice. "Do good things, Lunchboy."
  • Gavin's reaction to seeing his parents volunteer him for the Blue Ribbon program.
• Values Dissonance:
  • In the opening scene, Andy Effkin and Mary Jo Copeland are making out in his car. He breaks off the activities and gives a lame excuse, which she seems to take as an insult, and proceeds to perform oral sex on him against his will. The scene uses his refusal as a sign that something is wrong with him (since there could be no other reason that a teenage boy would refuse sex), and treats her actions as a reasonable thing to do (which he would be grateful for if there wasn't something wrong with him) rather than the sexual assault that it is. Granted, a Neck Snap is still Disproportionate Retribution.
  • This film hit the theaters the year before Columbine. Post-Columbine, they probably would not have tried to make a desperate student with a gun determined to take all of his oppressors down with him a heroic, or even anti-heroic figure.
• The Woobie: All of the brainwashed students are this on some level but none more so than Gavin who spends most of his time trying to warn people about what’s happening and is ignored, has to watch most of his friends lose themselves and then turn against him and if that isn’t enough he’s also sold out by his own parents and is fully aware that there’s not a damn thing he can do about it! Paranoia Fuel indeed!

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