The second film in our Didaskaleinophobia, or fear of going to school, experiment is Disturbing Behavior. Similar to The Faculty, Disturbing Behavior was released in 1998 and contains a host of famous faces. Our second grade teacher will once again be strapped to a heart monitor to see if this teen thriller can disturb her vitals enough to affect her pulse.
Where to Watch:
SYNOPSIS:
The new kid in Cradle Bay, Washington stumbles across something sinister about the town’s method of transforming its unruly teens into upstanding citizens.
Test Subject: Leah
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Fears: Failure
Resting HR: 60-65bpm
Walking HR: 80-85bpm
ANALYSIS:
Dramatic opening credits led our subject into a steamy opening scene which raised her heart rate into the seventies. Unfortunately, this would be the first and last spike for quite some time. The film took its time building the mystery while introducing a cast of angsty teens. So long in fact that our subject had time to point out continuity errors in the film. Eventually, disturbing aspects began to reveal themselves. At 48:00, a smashingly painful scene kicked our subject’s pulse to 81bpm. This would be one of only two scenes able to produce that level of fear. The other unsettling moment brought on her peak heart rate of 82bpm but the film deteriorated during an underwhelming finale.
CONCLUSION:
Disturbing Behavior (1998) works as a teen sci-fi flick but fails to produce the heart rate numbers seen in previous horror movies we have monitored. The film struggled to keep our subject rooting for the main characters. The minimal level of concern was due to the one or two actors our subject could empathize with. Also, the slow burn did not help boost our subject’s average heart rate during the film’s extremely short runtime. The few spikes we did record were impressive but these unsettling scenes did not sustain the momentum. With the current state of the world you may see more disturbing visuals on the local news. And as parents continue to navigate through difficult family decisions, we can only hope our children (unlike these characters) manage to function at a stable level in society.
Disturbing Behavior: Burns an average of 116 Calories
Cafeteria Cheeseburger: 273 Calories
How many Fear Calories did you burn watching Disturbing Behavior? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
