Horror is having a bit of a renaissance period at the moment, but great horror movies have always been with us. The 1970s was a particularly great time for movies wishing to scare the flared pants off us. The Exorcist, The Changeling, Cult Movie Guernsey favourite The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, Halloween, the list written in blood goes on. But there is one that properly stands out for this cult movie fan.
And that is Brian De Palma’s Carrie from 1976.
Yep, that one, the one with the bucket of blood, the very 70s and naughty opening slow motion sequence and that ending, you know the one, the one with the grave. The movie that is, in the opinion of Cult Movie Guernsey – alongside The Dead Zone – the best Stephen King film adaptation ever, by one of the great cult movie directors.
Cult Movie Guernsey worked as a teacher for a while, so always has a bit of a soft spot for films set in schools where it all goes wrong and carnage ensues. It’s even better if the scumbag students properly get their comeuppance, especially if it’s in a blazing inferno in the school sports hall or an exploding, almost flying car kind of way. That always seems a bit more refreshing than lines or detention.
Many of Cult Movie Guernsey’s teacher friends have a real enthusiasm for Dead Poets Society. It’s fair to say that Cult Movie Guernsey doesn’t really get this movie, as the Robin Williams character never seemed to do any marking and the kind of desks Cult Movie Guernsey had to deal with in classrooms would have collapsed if anyone stood on them. So, to celebrate the imminent end of term and tired teachers everywhere, Cult Movie Guernsey would like to recommend some school-based movies – and some movie teachers out there who are inspiration too, but perhaps in a very different way to Robin Williams’ John Keating – and for anyone, anywhere, who has looked out at a sea of teenagers and thought less than positive thoughts.
This lot are more likely to get the kids hiding under desks than standing on them.
The Substitute (1996) — Jonathan Shale (Tom Berenger)
This is Cult Movie Guernsey’s all-time favourite inspirational teacher movie and the best film set in a school ever.
Tom Berenger plays Jonathan Shale, a Vietnam veteran and mercenary who goes undercover in a high school as a substitute teacher, to discover the school is being used as a drugs distribution centre by some very nefarious and ludicrously entertaining crime bosses and their student helpers. So, the school is definitely in ‘special measures’, and it’s going to take ‘special forces’ to sort this lot of naughty school kids out. And sort them out he does, with an array of machine guns, very impressive looking knives, and most memorably, by catching a pool ball thrown at him and instantly lobbing it back into the face of one young scallywag (if you do anything this weekend, watch that scene on YouTube, it should be shown at the start of every teacher training day). When Tom Berenger purrs the line ‘I’m the new substitute’, it sounds like he’s about to either teach Of Mice And Men or dismantle a cartel, and honestly, this inspirational teacher is capable of both. Shale teaches with the energy of a man who thinks safeguarding relates to bodyguards, worksheets are for checking weapons inventory and his idea of pastoral care is making sure the kids don’t get shot, by anyone except him.
Shale is the dream of every teacher who’s ever wanted to say ‘Class dismissed’ and then make a shotgun do that cocking it noise. And the kids definitely learn something.
Ofsted rating: Excellent education while providing aerobic activity.
Whiplash (2014) — Terence Fletcher (JK Simmons)
Terence Fletcher teaches jazz the way drill sergeants teach obedience – and he does it looking really cool dressed in black. JK Simmons plays him like a bald, muscular demon who escaped from a music conservatory and now feeds exclusively on the tears of percussionists.
When he hisses ‘Not quite my tempo’, it’s not feedback, it’s his equivalent of Travis Bickle’s ‘You talkin’ to me’ in Taxi Driver. Despite his somewhat, errmmm, unconventional teaching methods, what he gets out of his students is just storming. That jazz drum solo at the end is really quite something. And let’s be honest, the threat of having a cymbal chucked at your head throughout rehearsals is certainly going to build resilience.
Ofsted rating: Excellent exam results.
Kindergarten Cop (1990) — John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Arnie as primary school teacher!
Arnie’s stand-in primary school teacher, John Kimble, stands at the front of his class of moaning, over indulged moppets and delivers this exact speech:
‘Stop whining. You kids are soft. You lack discipline. Well, I’ve got news for you. You are mine now. You belong to me. You are not going to have your mummies behind you to wipe your little tushes. It’s time now to turn this mush into muscles. There will be no more “Mr Kimble, I have to go to the bathroom”. THERE IS NO BATHROOM.’
The kids are about six.
By the end of the film, those kids have a sense of purpose and can deliver the Gettysburg Address while wearing a fake Abraham Lincoln beard and a stove-pipe hat better than Daniel Day-Lewis. There are no ‘time out’ cards for this lot. And the mums really fancy him.
Arnie, somehow the best early years educator in cinema.
Ofsted rating: Outstanding classroom management skills.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) — Dr Henry ‘Indiana’ Jones (Harrison Ford off of The Secret Life Of Pets 2)
We often forget that Indiana Jones is actually a teacher. He gets an apple off one of his students, they sit in rapture as he waxes lyrical about ancient history, and one of them manages to write ‘I Love You’ on her eye lids without skewering her own eyeballs – which considering what fountain pens were like back in 1936, is quite the achievement.
When I was a teacher, I spent my summer holidays in Greece for a week snoozing on the beach, and the rest of the five weeks in the pub garden or the cinema. I certainly didn’t hop across continents, take out a hugely impressive number of Nazis, manage to look away when their faces fell off and use a bull whip without once catching the end of it on the tree behind me.
I think the only thing I had in common with Dr Jones was a fear of snakes and a real aversion to right-wing monkeys with a penchant for poisoning.
To be fair, not a lot of school-based action or inspirational speeches to the students from Dr J, but if you asked any teacher whether they wanted to be Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society or Indiana Jones, I reckon they will be running for that trilby, bull whip and leather jacket before you can say ‘Oh Captain! My Captain!’
Ofsted rating: Excellent extra-curricular activities offering.
Cult Movie Guernsey would also very much like to recommend a ‘kind of’ school-based movie, the brilliantly exciting Battle Royale from 2000, because naughty school kids get a really imaginative way of dealing with their unruly behaviour in that one.
Ofsted would definitely raise an eyebrow at the methods employed by the teacher here. Definitely worth a watch.
Cult Movie Guernsey presents Carrie, in all its end of term prom night explosive glory, in Screen 1 at The Mallard, at 7pm sharp on Thursday 2 July. No ads, no trailers. Tickets are available via The Mallard website now.
