Invasion of the teenage body snatchers

>> Disturbing Behaviour is the perfect summer movie

by MATTHEW HAYS

When The Stepford Wives premiered in 1975, it sent chills down the spine of women everywhere--or at least it should have. The feminist riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers had a couple of newcomers dumbfounded by the bizarre behaviour of the women of the small town of Stepford. Was there something in the water? Was there a mass brainwashing going on? No one seemed to know for sure, but all of the good wives of Stepford were acting downright conformist: all they could talk about was new products to mop their kitchen floors with and better ways to serve their dear hubbies. This movie suggested that all that '60s women's-lib consciousness-raising could be lost if the right conspiracy came along.

Two Body Snatchers remakes and three made-for-TV Stepford sequels later, and Hollywood has done a fine thing: Disturbing Behaviour is a teen version of the have-they-got-you-yet?/body snatching sub-genre--a Stepford gone Clueless, if you will.

When teen heart-throb James Marsden shows up in the apparently idyllic small town of Cradle Bay, the last thing he's worried about is fitting in. His family left Chicago after a mysterious accident killed his older brother. A tad turned off by the glossy perfection of the local teen clique who call themselves the "Blue Ribbons," Marsden opts instead to hang with outcast Nick Stahl (who delivers a brilliant performance), the town square peg. Stahl warns Marsden of the evil intent of the football-playing, straight-A-student gang, but Marsden dismisses it all as mere conspiracy mongering.

The horror bells go off when Stahl goes missing, only to return as a pristine and eager student, dope-free and just dying to hit the books when he's not rubbing shoulders with his former nemeses. Marsden is left to ponder: how did Stahl turn into such a robotic automaton?

Yes, it all sounds a tad predictable, and in fact it is; the script has been done a few times before, but Disturbing Behaviour will give anyone who ever attended high school (perhaps the quintessential pit of conformity) the creeps. Marsden finds that Cradle Bay, like Stepford before it, is indeed in the throes of an evil master plot, one that turns the likes of rebellious youth into trusting, law-abiding--and deathly boring--citizens.

Maybe it's just my Alberta upbringing, but I love movies like this--they speak to me. And while the summer is abuzz with the hype over mindless crap like Armageddon and Godzilla, here's a movie with a message. Undoubtedly, it's an obvious one, but it clearly needs repeating, and could serve Disturbing Behaviour's teen target audience extremely well. In a decade when we're constantly being told to get excited about the Gap, the new burger at McDonald's and the latest opening of a Planet Hollywood, everyone needs a cinematic reminder that conformity is truly a horrible thing.

Disturbing Behaviour opens Friday, July 24