Cutting Class 4K UltraHD + Blu-ray

By 1989, slasher tropes were nothing but healed over scar tissue on cinema screens. Audiences knew exactly what to expect and had generally moved on to other genres.  So Cutting Class must have felt like a particularly strange exercise in deja-vu.  With its high school setting, blasé characters and subdued kill scenes there just wasn’t enough there there to be of much interest.  But as with so many horror films, it was the launching pad for cheap talent to make a first impression.  And in this case, that happened to be one Brad Pitt.

Left alone for the weekend, Paula (Jill Schoelen) is torn between her feelings for high school hunk Dwight (Pitt) and the creepy new kid, Brian (Donovan Leitch).  As they spar over her affections, a series of murders take out random teachers and students, with most of the suspicion falling on Brian, who’s just been released from a mental institution.  But something just doesn’t add up.  And Paula is having  conflicted feelings about who she suspects is the real killer.

 

While he only gets third billing, Cutting Class is definitely Pitt’s movie.  Not because he’s particularly good in it (although all his mannerisms are in place) but because of the odd narrative choice to make him a “final boy” in a genre that typically emphasizes heroic females.  As the academically and romantically frustrated Dwight Ingalls, Pitt is the focus of Steve Slavkin’s confused script, even though he’s a suspect for most of the running time.  There’s some not-so-subtle homosexual subtext and a character arc that delivers much more emotional payoff than anything for the passive Paula, who drifts through the movie in a daze.

 

It's a brave creative choice; if it was intentional.  But everything else about Cutting Class is utter nonsense.  Characters die horrible deaths only never to not be mentioned again, dramatic backstories involving cannibalism go nowhere and Martin Mull wanders the California countryside with an arrow stuck in his chest for the entire movie.  The directorial debut of Rospo Pallenberg, screenwriter of some of John Boorman’s finest films, it’s no wonder he was never allowed behind the camera again.  It doesn’t take much to make a competent slasher, but Pallenberg manages to muff every opportunity at scares and laughs.

 

So we’re left with admiring the talent that is wasted, starting with cute, raspy-voiced Jill Schoelen, who would soon become a short-lived scream queen in her own right.  In the bonus features she admits to regretting every moment she appeared on screen…and it shows.  The film gives her nothing to do.  Donovan Leitch (The Blob) makes for a competently mysterious bad boy and it’s always fun to see Roddy McDowall in anything…even if he’s a lecherous cross-dresser.

 

In fact, many of the murder scenes have serious scare potential (that under the bleachers throat slitting…so close!) and attempt to make the most of the high-school setting (see that sparks-flying metal shop finale).  As slasher fans, we make allowances for even the most tedious entries.  Cutting Class will stretch your patience…but probably look great on the shelf anyway.

 

And you know what?  It does…thanks to MVD’s retro-styled 4K LaserVision edition which emulates the old laserdisc release packaging and includes a slip-over and fold-out poster.  Containing a UltraHD and Blu-ray (a 2018 restoration from the original negative), it’s nice to see things future-proofed and the extras are worthwhile too, including a refreshingly honest interview from Jill Schoelen, another from Donovan Leitch, the R-rated cut which removes some slight instances of gore and a Kill Comparison so you can cut right to the chase.

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