Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Class of 1984 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 13, 2015

Unruly students marauding through their school lives have had several memorable cinematic treatments, including such films as Blackboard Jungle, High School Confidential, Up the Down Staircase and To Sir, With Love. Rarely have students been quite as unruly as they are in Mark Lester’s 1982 opus Class of 1984, a film which grafts a kind of social consciousness ambience onto more traditional horror tropes and which probably played fairly hyperbolically back in the day, but which in some respects now seems sadly prescient. A high school littered with graffiti and other signs of vandalism? Metal detectors weeding out kids bringing weapons to the campus? Students and teachers in virtual armed conflict? It may have seemed fanciful back in the Reagan Era, but now as the 21st century continues to unspool horror stories of mass shootings at school, kid on kid violence and even kids murdering teachers, Class of 1984, while certainly nowhere near verité levels in either plotting or presentation, has an unsettling ring of truth about it. The film was enormously popular in its day, seeming to capture some previously unknown zeitgeist in its portrayal of an inner city high school dealing with a bunch of kids who are rather proudly out of control. Well meaning music teacher Andrew Norris (Perry King) shows up at this new assignment all bright eyed and bushy tailed, perhaps evidently swayed by more decorous portrayals of teachers in films like Goodbye, Mr. Chips and/or Good Morning, Miss Dove, but he soon discovers he’s wandered into a maelstrom from which he may not be able to emerge unscathed.

The handwriting is literally on the wall for Andy to see as he enters the chaotic confines of Lincoln High, as the interior of the school is virtually covered in graffiti scrawls (director Mark Lester jokes about how difficult it was to remove the graffiti from the real life Canadian high school which provided the locale for much of the shoot after the filming had been completed). Andy is also stunned to see a student trying to sneak a straight razor onto the premises, and even more shocked when the kid is actually allowed to. Fellow teacher Terry Corrigan (Roddy McDowall), a guy who’s obviously already run this particular gauntlet for years, tries to alleviate Andy’s anxiety, but in a perhaps unexpected way, by basically telling him he’d better toughen up if he wants to survive the mean streets (hallways?) of this academy. The fact that Corrigan keeps a pistol in his briefcase is perhaps the single biggest clue as to what Andy has wandered into unawares.

Andy has big plans for his music class despite the fact that the school in general and his class in particular are overrun with gang members led by an intimidating kid named Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten). While there’s a kind of punk-goth ambience to a lot of the kids, it’s probably no mere coincidence that Stegman’s acolytes pledge their fealty to him (in front of Andy) with something akin to a Nazi salute. Nobody messes with Stegman, including the few nice kids, like Arthur (a young and somewhat pudgy Michael J. Fox, still billed as simply Michael Fox), who are there to actually try to learn something.

What makes Class of 1984 so interesting, aside from its unfortunate prescience (that “not yet” seen in the film’s opening title card— shown on screencapture 19—has sadly gone the way of the dinosaur), is how artfully it combines a more traditional dramatic narrative with some fairly grotesque “blood and guts” sequences that might be more at home with a mad hockey masked slasher slicing and dicing his way through amorous teenagers. King does a great job showing Andy’s transformation from wide eyed naif to something approaching a vigilante, and Van Patten is memorable as a thug who (in one of the film’s most artificial constructs) basically just wants to be loved.

Roddy McDowall pretty much walks away with the film, though, with a neatly detailed portrait of a hard drinking and probably once well meaning teacher who becomes increasingly unhinged as the film goes along. A riveting scene with Corrigan “teaching” his class with the aid of his trusty pistol stands out as one of Class of 1984’s most compelling moments. When the film trips over into Grand Guignol territory, especially in a hyperkinetic climax that features a gruesome hanging, it’s certainly shocking, but perhaps not as viscerally so as some of the ostensibly more “mundane” offerings of teens running amok.

Class of 1984 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Class of 1984 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. (The fact that Scream is bringing this out speaks to the film's horror tendencies, something that helps to give this otherwise gritty urban drama its odd multi-genre appeal.) Shout! states explicitly on the cover of this Blu-ray that Class of 1984 was sourced from a "new high definition transfer of the film from the interpositive." The results are largely commendable, at least in terms of a generally very organic and filmlike appearance. There is still some fairly regular damage to be seen, including the usual suspects like speckling, minus density, dirt and such, along with occasional minor blemishes that are a bit more odd looking (see screencapture 13 and look at the anomalies on King's cheek). The presentation is rather grainy, with grain occasionally resolving a bit on the unnatural side, with small yellowish clumps (see screencapture 7). Densities are consistent, and the palette, while perhaps just a tad anemic at times, is generally accurate looking and sufficiently saturated. There are some passing issues with crush in some of the darkest moments, and an overall softness to the presentation that may slightly disappoint the fussier videophile, but all in all this a solid and generally pleasing looking presentation that should satisfy most fans.

Class of 1984 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Class of 1984 features a repurposed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix as well as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix recreating the film's mono theatrical presentation. Lalo Schifrin's score, along with the proto-punk use of source cues, provides consistent use of the surround channels, and there's a good feeling of a kind of "echoey" ambience within the claustrophobic confines of the high school, but otherwise the 5.1 track is not overly immersive and occasionally has vestiges of a slightly phasey sound that may suggest effects have been duplicated or splayed in order to create the faux surround mix. That said, elements like dialogue are presented very cleanly, if not overly directionally. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is very wide, especially as the film teeters toward the hysterical side of things in its final act.

Class of 1984 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary features director Mark L. Lester hosted by Anchor Bay's Perry Martin, in a wide ranging and extremely informative dialogue that covers all sorts of minutiae about the shoot.


• The Girls Next Door (1080p; 16:17) features enjoyable interviews with Lisa Langlois (Patsy) and Erin Noble (Deneen).


• Blood and Blackboards (1080i; 35:35) is an older piece (previously on the DVD, as was the commentary) that features some good interviews with cast and crew. Are Shout Factory and Cohen Film Collection farming stuff out to the same authoring house? I ask because I recently mentioned how embarrassingly misspelled a lot of things were on the menus of That Man from Rio / Up to His Ears, and that situation recurs here with regard to how this featurette's title is spelled on the menu.


• History Repeats Itself (1080p; 21:00) features Mark Lester and composer Lalo Schifrin discussing the film and more general issues.


• Do What You Love (1080p; 46:55) is an absolutely fascinating sit down with Perry King, who covers the entire gamut of his rather eclectic career.


• Trailer and TV Spots (1080p; 3:20)


• Still Gallery (1080p; 4:42)

Class of 1984 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Somehow Class of 1984 manages to indulge in a number of questionable subjects without ever seeming overly exploitative. Perched rather precariously between a resolutely dramatic portrayal of an out of control school and a more florid horror offering, the film manages to remain surprisingly consistent from a tonal standpoint, and it features standout performances by King, Van Patten and (especially) McDowall. Probably a bit less thought provoking than it might have been courtesy of its more exaggerated horror elements, Class of 1984 is still sadly prophetic and retains a remarkably visceral impact several decades after its original release. Technical merits are generally very good to excellent, and the supplemental package is great. Recommended.