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Overall Rating : 3/10
Directed By : Andy Anderson
John S. Davies
Marsha Dietlein (Return of the Living Dead Part II)
Susana Gibb
Meason Wiley (Powder)
Supplied By : MTI Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick Blalock
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| PLOT Public high school is a private hell for the teachers and weaker students at Donner High; a beautiful young teacher is molested at gunpoint, and several students are beaten and intimidated. But that's all before the arrival of Mr. Walmsley, a new substitute who decides to teach the bullies a lesson they won't forget. Soon, his savage "reform school" becomes a house of horrors where students only survive if they truly learn their lesson. |
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| THE REVIEW LEARNING CURVE, is a film that starts out as what appears to be a promising and fulfilling story...only to have it sour and go stale, leaving you to be somewhat disappointed. Our story is about a teacher named Mr. Walmsley, whom after a 20 or so year layoff accepts a job replacing a recently deceased teacher. Upon his arrival at Donner High, Walmsley is immediately encountered by a few rude and obnoxious students whom refuse to abide by his set rules and abruptly try to defy them. Frustrated, the teacher just does not know what to do with these students. It is until Mr. Walmsley witnesses a student attempting to rape a female art teacher, with whom he had befriended on the first day on the job, that he knows that is up to him to make a difference in the students lives. Mr. Walmsley presents to the students an IQ test, it is if the students pass this test that they will be given the opportunity to intern in any job field they so choose. Excited that they may able to pursue a position at any job they can dream of if they pass, the students genuinely accept their teacher's challenge. Well as fate would have it in these films, all of these students miraculously pass. The students all board a bus, to which they thought were to transfer them to their job locations, their bus driver is Mr. Walmsley of course. What these kids do not know is that their dreams, or even the test that they took might have never been reality at all, and that it might be just a piece of the evil plan that their teacher may have prepared for them all along. Well first off people, this movie's plot, (which I got from Netflix) and tag line which happily reads "This Ain't No Breakfast Club". may make this seem like a gruesome Horror film. But in reality, LEARNING CURVE is NOT actually a Horror film at all. All this film is, is a well marketed, well packaged psychological thriller...if even that. This film started out great in the first thirty minutes, it was like STAND AND DELIVER, with balls. I mean it had profanity, guns and rape...all within the first thirty minutes... I was really enjoying it. It is not until you find out that their job opportunities were all a scam all conjured up by the teacher, that this Titanic begins sinking. It turns out that the evil Mr. Walmsley drugs and kidnaps his students and hides them in secluded location in the mountains. In one of the movie's most bizarre scenes, the nest day all of the students wake up...all of them nude, and all of them in a huge steel cage that is equipped to shock when touched. This was just bizarre and wacky I mean, I was watching a great film for almost forty five minutes and then it just changes into an entirely different film in an instant. Walmsley then declares that this is "his" way to get these students to learn if they refuse to listen. He even resolve to starving the students until they answer historical questions. This film was an absolute mess and really had no sense at all to it. To prove that it didn't make sense, by the end of the flick the students are all now Einsteins and they are all praising Walmsley for helping them better themselves. To top it all off it Just so happens that the art teacher whom was the victim of the attempted rape, has found them, but instead of saving the kids, she elects to join Walmsley in his "teachings". What the hell is wrong with this picture? A lot! The performances are highly and dangerously unbelievable, who would actually believe this. I could not see this occurring in real life....just plain ridiculous. The only actor actually worth mentioning here is John S. Davies as Walmsley...all of the rest is below average filler. |
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| GORE
METER N/A |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 3/10 The score had very little effect in the film. It seemed more outfitted for a Horror effort and was just simply out of place. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM I really believed I was going to enjoy this based on the many positive reviews I have read. I did in fact enjoy the first 30-45 minutes as I have noted, and also the message of learning it brought to the table. I just thought that the way the film qas presented was bizarre, it seemed like they paid too much attention to the shock value and not the film's sensibility. I only recommend this half-heartedly, I really didn't enjoy this too much, it does exactly what the title implies, it "curves". |
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