Cutting Class (1989)

Directed by Rospo Pallenberg. Starring Jill Schoelen, Brad Pitt, Donovan Leitch, Roddy McDowall, Brenda Lynn Klemme, Mark Barnet, Robert Glaudini, Eric Boles, Dirk Blocker, Martin Mull, Tim Ligon, Nancy Fish. [R]

Low-rent slasher whodunit (or parody of the same, difficult to tell) with a mystery killer going to town on high school students, parents, teachers, and anyone else who may offend him or her. Red herrings aplenty, but even more inexplicable details without purpose or payoff—screw-loose janitor cleaning up blood without concern, subplot about the lecherous principal’s (a slumming McDowall) designs on a pretty student abandoned before the halfway mark, cutaways to a wounded Mull dragging himself through the woods during the entire movie, and so on. Aside from a memorable death scene on a gym trampoline, the movie is completely lacking in style and invention (and certainly has no scares whatsoever). Not painful to watch, just a total waste of time; of note today only because it featured Pitt’s first major film role to reach theaters—it’s hardly a star-in-the-making performance, but he’s no worse than anyone else here.

28/100