• Director: David Nutter
• With: James Marsden, Katie Holmes, Nick Stahl, Tobia Mehler, Steve Railsback, Bruce Greenwood, William Sadler, Chad Donella
• Music by: Mark Snow
• Duration: 1h24
• Studio: Columbia Tristar (MGM)
• Rating: 7/10

Synopsis:

When Steve Clark moves with his family to Cradle Bay and enrolls in the local high school, he’s not sure where he fits in with the local high school crowds. He doesn’t really fit in with the punkers, the nerds, the hot-rodders, or any of the other diverse groups you would expect to find in a typical American high school. Actually, Steve looks more like one of the jocks, but they don’t seem quite right either. In fact, the jock crowd seems perfect with their matching varsity jackets, perfect hair cuts, politically-correct charity work, and all-around perfect behavior that would make any mom and pop proud. When Steve befriends two of the less desirable social misfits at school, Gavin Strick and Rachel Wagner, he soon discovers why the jocks’ perfect behavior is so disturbing.

Review:

Cradle Bay is a little island where the Clark family moves to. When Steve Clark and his sister enrol into high school, he befriends Rachel, U.V. and Gavin, three misfits. Gavin is convinced that something’s wrong in their school, that the Blue Ribbon Pack is a bunch of perfect, brainwashed gang.

When Gavin himself one day shows up as part of the Blue Ribbon gang, Steve and Rachel start to consider his theory and start to investigate. Suddenly they become hunted by the gang and doctor Caldicott.

This is another of those movies from the nineties that brings back memories, though it’s not the best one of that period… (I recently learned a 115 minutes version was made but had to be cut so now I want to see the unedited version!)

Along with The Faculty this is about teenagers fighting an unseen enemy that’s out to get them and change who they really are… (with The Faculty being more sci-fi than this one)

This was one of the first movies I saw with James Marsden and Katie Holmes (another Dawson Creek link here!) as lead actors. Marsden proves he’s a great actor, even though this is not his best part it shows his potential… Holmes never really was my favourite actress, to be honest…

What I love about these nineties movies is how I wanted to look like them and be these teenagers… and how I feel nostalgic for that time… we can’t turn back time, unfortunately but if I could.. the nineties it would be!

No time travel for us… but brainwashing… now that’s something we can do… this movie kind of set a premises for something that is currently happening with internet and all kinds of apps… think about that! 😁