In Cradle Bay, the teenage success rate soars above the norm. No drunk driving accidents, no drug overdoses, no passionate suicides. The teens are busy with wholesome activities like bake sales, community service and making the grade. But new kid on the block Steve (James Marsden) hooks up with town outcasts Gavin (Nick Stahl) and Rachel (Katie Holmes), who are suspicious of their peers disturbing behavior. The school psychiatrist has convinced the parents of Cradle Bay that a "Stepford-like" surgical procedure is the answer to their teenagers nasty habits. And Steves parents are just a meeting away from agreement.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Jon Shestack and Scott Rosenberg had been wanting to work together for many years and "This," says Shestack, "was the right thing." "This story was conceived at the tail-end of the Bush administration," Shestack explains. "The national rhetoric was ridiculous...Prozac was topping the charts and Ritalyn was running a close second. Whats both touching and frustrating about interacting with teenagers is that they feel things very directly - they dont have much of a filter and sometimes not much perspective. Disturbing Behavior takes the Ritalyn generation to the next level, and in this case the teenagers have a very good and legitimate reason to be paranoid about what their parents are planning for them."
Shestack and Armyan Bernstein had a director in mind whose career has included some of the most compelling and cinematic television that had ever aired. "David Nutter really carved his own niche with his work on shows like The X-Files and Millennium," Bernstein notes. "He was in a position to do any project he wanted and we were really lucky that he wanted to do this." "Ive read a lot of horror movies lately, but what made this one so terrifying is that its not so far out there that you cant touch it and be affected by it," Nutter says. "It was very important to me to make a film that has enough dimension that people can see themselves in it. Not just teenagers, but also parents as well."
Production began on January 19 and shot for three months on location in Vancouver, B.C., a popular filming locale known for its rich environmental diversity. "Vancouver is the place where you can make this much money look like a lot more," Nutter says. "It was very important to come to Vancouver and find people that wanted to do something very special." Nutter brought director of photography John S. Bartley, who previously worked with Nutter on The X-Files and created that series trademark moody cinematography. Bartley relished the opportunity to create a whole new look for Disturbing Behaviors Cradle Bay. "The key idea for this film is plausibility," says Bartley, "so there cant be any far-fetched lighting -- nothing that calls attention to itself. We also wanted to give this film a very high contrast look to provide a feeling of heightened tension between the surface presentation of Cradle Bay, where we've used a lot of saturated colors like the blue and yellow of the Blue Ribbon Club's jackets, and Caldicott's underground laboratory, which is very dark and where there is an obvious absence of color."
Production Designer Nelson Coates echoes David Nutter's commitment to grounding the bizarre and macabre elements of the story in a very naturalistic setting. "I'm constantly trying to work common everyday things into the design, things that I tweak a little so the overall effect is a plausible kind of warp," he explains. "Ultimately, this is a cautionary tale, so it's important that the audience have something invested in it."
"As a teenager your clothing is very much a uniform of belonging," says costume designer Trish Keating. "In order to emphasize the opposing camps within the school, we took the costume elements to extremes so we could place Steve, our protagonist, somewhere in the middle."
For the Yogurt Shoppe where the schools "Blue Ribbons" hang out, Coates designed the set with a retro feel in mind. "Its kind of decrepit and the paints peeling but, yet again, theres something familiar about it. The letter jackets, the sweaters that they wear -- most people dont wear letter sweaters anymore, but they do at Cradle Bay High because theyre just a little bit tweaked. And the high schools motto is "Go forward" -- very self help, positive mental attitude kind of thing. So, its really creepy when you start putting the mold together in the same movie."
"Another element we're playing with is translucency," Coates adds. "Objects partially obscured by distorting glass or diaphanous draping produce a certain ambiguity, so you're never quite sure what's on the other side. Visually, this is intended to put the audience in touch with Steve's fear and frustration as he tries to break through the barriers that obscure the truth."
