This movie was also released under the title "Dead Kids," and it's listed under "Strange Behavior" on Shudder, but when you hit "play," the title credits read "Dead Kids," so I had to find a poster for both. Speaking of posters, these are pretty awesome. I would have been obsessed with watching this if I'd seen those as a kid. I'm pretty excited about watching it even now.
This movie is set in a small Midwestern town in Illinois. A bunch of teenagers are dying, and a policeman is convinced that the deaths have something to do with experiments being conducted at a local college. His own son has participated in the experiments, as has his son's best friend, who has been acting strangely ever since. It appears that while the experimental drugs given to the teens increase brain activity (making them smarter) they also have dangerous effects on behavior (hello homicidal rage!)
This plot has been done many times now (one of my favorite teen horror flicks, "Disturbing Behavior," is one example) but the idea was more original back in 1981. This movie is considered a seminal qork in New Zealand cinema (so much for the film being set in Illonois) so it's an example of early Oz-ploitation cinema. Gotta love it. The acting is pretty cheesy, but not much worse than any early 80s horror flick. There's only one character in one scene who can't keep their American accent, which made me smile, but otherwise everyone could really be from Illinois, so they did a good job.
At first, this seems like a run of the mill slasher, and not a great one at that, so I wasn't very impressed, but as the movie goes on, it becomes more of a story of the dangers of scientists overreaching and playing God. Lots of horror movies have similar themes, so this one resonated. There are some good gory scenes, and the teens who have undergone the experiments have this confused, off-kilter, zombielike way of acting that actually works for the movie and creeps me out. Once the entire plot is revealed, it's pretty messed up, and I like how the Sheriff stops messing around and is ready to end things in a hail of bullets (I can't exactly say I disagree with him at that point). The ending is insane too. It's fucked up in a way I didn't expect it to be. Good job, filmmakers! can see why this movie went down in Oz-ploitation history. Overall, I ended up liking this movie much better than I thought I would.
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