Shudder Marathon #001: Strange Behavior (aka Dead Kids) This is a 1981 Australian horror film that was shot in New Zealand and produced by both the UK and NZ. The adult leads were played by Michael Murphy (Yale in 1979's Manhattan) and Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched in 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) who both were known as strong character actors but they themselves weren't seen as leading actors. For the two high school kid leads they selected two relatively unknown and very much inexperienced actors who had only been working four years at the most, Dan Shor & Dey Young. This movie was both the director (Michael Laughlin) and writer's (Bill Condon) first official projects in their respective roles. The story starts off with the relationship between Murphy and Shor, father and son, arguing over which college is best for Shor. Murphy wants his son to experience the world outside of their town but Shor likes where they live and doesn't want to leave. As the story unfolds we see the real reason that Murphy doesn't want his son attending the local college. The highlights of the film are unquestionably the score and the atmosphere it helps provide. Tangerine Dream perform the score and do an extremely excellent job of unease throughout the film. As for the story and its originality, those aren't as strong. A good portion of the twists are able to be seen coming a mile away but they payoffs are very memorable and honestly quite frightening. The tension that Strange Behavior is able to exude makes this film worth the watch. Without the score this would only be a strange story with a flat ending. Instead, the movie is very moody, strange and a flat ending. I will be scoring the film in five categories: story, acting, originality, atmosphere and score. Story: 2/5 Acting: 1/5 Originality: 2/5 Atmosphere: 3.5/5 Score: 5/5 If you enjoy independent, moody, early 80s horror films you'll find a lot to like with Strange Behavior. The ending isn't any good but there are plenty of memorable moments throughout that make this movie well worth the time.
