We will readily admit that guilty pleasures — movies that is (don’t have a dirty mine) — are every bit as good as Oscar-winners. Yes, both ends of this art argument are true.
MVD Entertainment Group will open the New Year with just such a guilty pleasure, which takes the form of a full spread of physical media product offerings of director Rospo Pallenberg’s 1989 direct-to-video slasher flick, Cutting Class. And yes genre fans, this is a “Rewind Collection” release!!
This 4K film restoration — from the original 35mm camera negative — has a street date of Jan. 16 for a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack, as well as Blu-ray and DVD editions.
There is just so much to admire about this high school slasher film, even though the body count is rather slim. First, there’s Roddy McDowall as the principal of the school (gotcha, you were thinking about that superstar who also appears here). McDowall plays everything over the top … and in doing so you begin to suspect that he might actually be the killer (red herring alert).
Next, Brad Pitt before Thelma and Louise!! Somehow Pallenberg landed Brad Pitt in a direct-to-video production … buy your 4K Ultra HD “Rewind Edition” copy of Cutting Class on that alone.
He’s not the killer, but he plays a cocky high school jock who becomes the number one target of the high school slasher.
Another cool thing in this guilty pleasure is the running joke that plays out over the length of the film. Paula (played by Jill Schoelen — fresh from The Stepfather … other films include Curse II; The Bite, The Phantom of the Opera and as Maggie in Popcorn) — the high school hottie — who is the female lead, is told by her father, William Carson (played by Martin Mull), to stay out of trouble while he is gone on a hunting trip.
He’s the local DA and we follow him out to the wilds where is he stalked and shot by an unseen assassin with a bow and arrow … he survives and spends the rest of the film literally crawling back home.
Rounding out the cast is Donovan Leitch (The In Crowd, The Blob, Glory, etc.) as Brian Woods, who is (spoiler alert) the creepy new kid in school who turns out to be the killer (circle back to Paula’s dad being shot with an arrow for clues).
Cutting Class is a guilty pleasure. Period!
Bonus goodies video sessions with Jill Schoelen and Donovan Leitch, plus the featurette titled “Kill Comparisons.”
