I am shocked I never say this earlier. The entire time I was watching it, I knew I had not seen it, yet it felt so familiar, turns out this is part of a trilogy and I saw the sequel several years ago.
Anyway! This was fantastic! I was expecting silly '80s trash, but this was a tense, well-written crime thriller. I would compare the tone to _Dirty Harry_ (1971) or _Death Wish_ (1974).
There is a very simple plot here: A teacher starts at a new high school, which is plagued by a violent gang of punks. That's the movie, but there is so much depth. The characters are fleshed out more than I could have imagined.
Not a flawless film, the dialog did dip a little in the second act, but that is more of a nitpick.
Moving onto the cast: we get to see a young Michael J. Fox. Roddy McDowall plays a teacher, in what might be the best role I've ever seen him in. Andrew Norris is great as our lead. The entire gang of punks are all amazing, they each have their own look, and never felt fake. Truly a tremendous job by the hair/makeup, and wardrobe teams for making them so believable.
The two standouts from the members are the leader, Peter - looking like a young Tre Cool - and Patsy. I have an inclination toward punk chicks, and she is a dream girl - so what if she's a sadistic psychopath? I can change her.
So, yeah, I was totally blown away by how good this was.
Gritty, dark, violent, deep, and serious.
I'd recommend this to anyone. Just masterfully made.

Post script: There is a scene where a collection of animals are killed. Thankfully this was all offscreen. The carcasses did look rather convincing, so I hope they were not real, but given how good the effects were, I take it they were fake.
The point being made within the scene is that the gang members are true psychopaths; hurting animals is a common action for those who lack empathy or remorse.

It's 2020 and, frankly, I miss movies like this.

Hollywood has tanked, they really aren't putting out anything worth watching any longer... and it's debatable if Class of 1984 is really worth watching. I guess it depends on your mood.

But we need that padding back. We need a whole bunch of ridiculous, low budget exploitation films to pad and help finance the bigger ones. That might actually stop Hollywood from actively attacking the people that didn't go see the trash movies they spent millions on and still tanked.

Because, honestly, I'm not going to spend $25 a ticket to go see a gender and race swapped remake of a beloved childhood lecture with a heavy handed one sided political message and no real story or plot.

But I will spend a few bucks to stream a trash exploitation movie, with no real message, no real budget, and a plot that was made to just be fun and entertaining.

Class of 1984 is one of those movies, one of the movies where you can sit back and just be entertained for an hour without having to suffer through anything that you're not allowed to make fun of because... meh politics.

This is the type of movie where it's almost encouraged that you make fun of it... while you are watching it. This is the home movie market, where you don't view it in theaters because a little audience participation makes for a better viewing experience.

This I will pay to see on a rainy weekend.

The plot sucks, it stars the funny dude from Rip Tide, and its over the top and silly... in other words, it's escapist entertainment. And ENTERTAINMENT is what movies should be all about

I am the future!

Class of 1984 is directed by Mark Lester and Lester co-writes the screenplay with Tom Holland and John Saxton. It stars Perry King, Roddy McDowall, Merrie Lynn Ross, Timothy Van Patten, Stefan Arngrim, Michael Fox, Roddy McDowall and Lisa Langlois. Music is by Lalo Schifrin and Alice Cooper and Cinematography by Albert J. Dunk.

New music teacher Andrew Norris (King) is shocked to find the pupils of Lincoln High rule the roost. Refusing to kowtow to Peter Stegman's (Patten) gang of thugs, he decides to fight back...

It's always tricky revisiting later in life films that have cemented themselves as cult favourites. Class of 1984 is one such cult favourite of many who eagerly digested it back in the early half of the 1980s, a time when censorship was rife and banning orders the order of the day. The word of mouth back then was that Lester's film pushed boundaries, a frightening vision of a future where education as we know it would be replaced by anarchy, the youths of the day running amok with violence, sexual aggression and copious amounts of drugs. was this an astute portent by Lester and his crew?...

Essentially this marks one of the turning points in the trashy filmic timeline of films dealing in educational establishments collapsing within via youth rebellion. Where the likes of Blackboard Jungle kicked things off with grim textures, Class of 1984 picks up the baton and urinates on it with a glint in its eye - for better or worse. As a whole the pic is given over to being ridiculous for the sake of shock value, yet it's strangely magnetic, managing to strike a nervous chord. Exploitation? No not really, that was just a marketing ploy that worked...

Viewing it these days it looks part of a tired formula, but that in no way should denigrate the importance of it, for it helped turn the tide in said formula. Ultimately it becomes a visceral revenge thriller, where some scenes are well constructed, others not so much, with the finale outrageously over the top. The acting from the younger cast members is mostly ok, though Patten is difficult to take serious as the gang leader. King is splendidly committed to the lead, garnering our support, while McDowall is the class act on show.

Lurid colours, eye splinter fashions and a rocky sound track round it out as a trashy "B" movie of much ebullience. One for the nostalgic amongst us for sure, but also for film historians interested in the sub-genre this sits in. 7/10

Streamed via Shudder

I had put this on my watchlist for a while because I saw Michael J. Fox is in the cast (yes, I'm a big fan of Back to the Future trilogy!). Decided to watch and I'm glad I did. The story is simple. It's about these spoiled, violent, and evil school punks led by Stegman making their teachers life harder and the music teacher, Mr. Norris decided to chase them down. I think you know how it's gonna end. When it starts I like it right away because of the music. The acting is cheesy and over-the-top, I enjoyed it. I liked how two of those punks don't look like teenager at all. The moment when the biology teacher loses his shit was awesome. It's more intense than I anticipated, at some points plain disturbing and triggering like some racist moments, calling a woman merchandise, animal killing, gang rape. As much as I hate it, this film works great as commentary. I loved the ending, those punks got what's coming. I'm glad Michael J. Fox played the good guy role in here. If I had an unbelievably good-looking teacher like Mr. Norris, I'd sit and stay. Not a horror film but a great campy action thriller!