Themes: Post-Apocalypse, High School Life, Teachers and Students
Main Cast: Bradley Gregg, Traci Lind, Malcolm McDowell, Stacy Keach, Pam Grier, Patrick Kilpatrick
Release Year: 1990
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Mark L. Lester's follow-up film to his Class of 1984 is a rancidly violent peek at a near-future high school world of terror -- The Jetsons meet The Terminator. In Lester's world, total anarchy rules (at least in Seattle). Classrooms are sinkholes of violence, and around the kill-zone high schools "Free Fire Zones" are set up that look like re-creations of Dachau. Rival youth gangs roam these areas with enough artillery for a second Vietnam War. The gangs' insane violence is exacerbated by a drug called Edge. When the Department of Educational Defense needs to supply new teachers, they look to a secret government agency headed by Dr. Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach) who sends new teaching recruits (Pam Grier, John P. Ryan, Joshua Miller) to the beleaguered high school. These novice teachers are not your ordinary teaching-college graduates, however. They are "tactical education units" -- cyborgs reprogrammed to teach readin' and writin' and 'rithmetic. If the students don't learn their daily assignments, they learn an even bigger lesson -- learn or die. The strict disciplinarian robots compel the student gangs to unite and fight the new educational menace. Under the leadership of Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg), who has just gotten out of reform school and has seen that there is more to life than killin' and cuttin' and Edge, the punks take up arms against the cyborgs who are invading their high-school turf. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
John Ryan - Mr. Hardin; Darren E. Burrows - Sonny; Joshua Miller - Angel; Sharon Wyatt - Janice Culp; Jimmy Medina Taggert - Hector; Jason Oliver - Curt; Jill Gatsby - Dawn; Sean Haggerty - Reedy; Sean Gregory Sullivan - Mohawk; Lee Arenberg - Technician; Linda Burden-Williams - Secretary; Barbara Coffin - Matron; Brent Fraser - Flavio; James McIntire - Technician #1; Barry M. Press - Gould; Lanny Rees - Desk Sergeant; David Wasman - Guard; Landon Wine - Noser
Credit
Phil Peters - Art Director, Stanley Mann - Associate Producer, Cathy Henderson - Casting, Eugene Mazzola - Co-producer, Leslie Peters Ballard - Costume Designer, Mark L. Lester - Director, Scott Conrad - Editor, Lawrence Kasanoff - Executive Producer, Ellen Steloff - Executive Producer, Michael Hoenig - Composer (Music Score), Seth Kaplan - Musical Direction/Supervision, Derek Power - Musical Direction/Supervision, Steven G. Legler - Production Designer, Mark Irwin - Cinematographer, Mark L. Lester - Producer, Steve Karatzas - Set Designer, Eric Allard - Special Effects, Rick Stratton - Special Effects, Bruno Van Zeebroeck - Special Effects, Ray Brown - Special Effects, Scott Forbes - Special Effects, Paul R. Baxley, Jr. - Stunts, Mark L. Lester - Screen Story, C. Courtney Joyner - Screenwriter
The time is the future and youth gang violence is so high that the areas around some schools have become "free fire zones," into which not even the police will venture. When Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell), the principal of Kennedy High School, decides to take his school back from the gangs, robotics specialist Dr. Robert Forrest (Stacy Keach) provides "tactical education units." These human-like androids have been programmed to teach and are supplied with weapons to discipline problems. These kids will get a lesson... in staying alive.
Class of 1999 was initially released on VHS via Vestron Video in 1991 and was later withdrawn. The film was released on DVD in other territories such as Korea and Australia. Lionsgate released the film on DVD for the first time in the USA on September 16, 2008.
Awards
Class of 1999 was nominated for Young Artist Award (Joshua John Miller).
