Before reaching its incendiary ending, Over the Edge drags us through Lord of the Flies on suburban streets, from a basement party to criminal mischief, accompanied by a nearly-perfect soundtrack. The low-budget film touts its inspiration in "true events" at a planned community in CA, Foster City. The excesses of the alienated youth there were documented and perhaps amplified by the San Francisco Examiner in a 1973 piece, "Mousepacks: Kids on a Crime Spree" (November 11, 1973). By the time the film was made it was the late 70s, Blank rising, and the film firmly plants itself in those years. Released in 1979, given limited distribution-- pulled from many theatres-- it would take a few years to reach its audience, but that audience would include ill-fated rocker Kurt Cobain and filmmaker Richard Linklater, both of whom would cite its influence.
We're in New Granada-- "New Granola"-- a fictional and faltering planned community in Colorado. There are a lot of kids with a lot of nothing to do, and they turn to alcohol, sex, drugs, and crime. The poorer teens hang out in a community centre run by an open-minded but overwhelmed social worker. The wealthier ones throw parties. Matt Dillon makes his film debut at fourteen as juvie Richie. Michael Kramer gives a natural performance as his more affluent bud Carl, son of one of the town's would-be movers and shakers. Carl has eyes for stoner babe Cory (Pamela Ludwig), who might be interested. Other characters include criminally disturbed Mark (Vincent Spano), drug-addled Claude (Tom Fergus), petty thief Abby (Kim Kliner), dealer Tip (Eric Lalich), and enigmatic skate kid Johnny (Tiger Thompson). The acting can be uneven, but the use of real teens, on location and encouraged to improvise, invests the film with a disturbing power. While their actions can seem hyperbolic, they're not, for most of the film, implausible. If you were ___-teen in the general time-period, there's a fair chance you attended at least one party like the basement bash we see here. You knew people like Richie or Carl or Cory. The film presents us with a number of memorable scenes: Claude freaking out in art class while staring at the works of Hieronymus Bosch, Cory dancing to Cheap Trick while waving around a stolen handgun. We start to know these kids, though, and we come to understand them, even if we cannot endorse their self-destructive, generally destructive behaviour.
Hoping to attract investors, the Chamber of Commerce and the law crack down on the kids, only to meet with disturbing levels of resistance.
The ending really does go over the edge, as the teens take revenge in a far-fetched sequence that never happened in Foster City or, possibly, anywhere else. As a metaphor it works. In an ostensibly realistic, documentary-like film, it amounts to jarring excess, accompanied as it is by a sudden outbreak of action movie physics. They don't ruin the film, but a little restraint would have produced more credible results.
The dust and excesses settle for the finale. The whole proves greater than the sum of its hormonally-charged, drug-addled parts, and Over the Edge earns its cinematic cult status.
The late-night AM soundtrack enhances the film. Given the frequent references to Kiss, one suspects the filmmakers had hoped to include their music. Really, we should at least hear something from Alive! or Destroyer. In reality, the masqueraders had not yet imploded, and their songs likely would have been out of range of the movie's small budget. But we get a lot of Cheap Trick, essential listening for late 70s dirtbags, and The Ramones's too-perfect "Teenage Lobotomy." Richard Hell and the Pistols are MIA, but kudos to someone for licensing The Cars and Van Halen minutes before they became bona fide stars. There's one song by Hendrix, dead nearly a decade but still very much a part of the era's teen culture. Rounding it out we have Little Feat's "All That You Dream" and Valerie Carter's cover of "Ooh Child."
If you like the era or the issues or you want to have kids, you should probably seek out this movie.
Cast and Crew<
Director: Jonathan Kaplan
Writers: Charles S. Haas, Tim Hunter
Michael Eric Kramer as Carl Willat
Pamela Ludwig as Cory
Matt Dillon as Richie
Vincent Spano as Mark
Tom Fergus as Claude
Harry Northup as Officer Doberman
Andy Romano as Fred Willat
Ellen Geer as Sandra Willat
Richard Jamison as Cole
Julia Pomeroy as Julia
Tiger Thompson as Johnny
Eric Lalich as Tip
Kim Kliner as Abby
Frank Mugavero as Party Host Kid
Kristina Hanson as Lisa
Diane Reilly as Marcy
Jeff Fleury as Outlaw
Lane Smith as Sloan
Bill Whedbee as Johnson
Molly McCarthy as Principal
Brian Parker as Alan
Irene Lalich as Tip's Mother
Laura Brew-Sluder as Richie's Mom
James William Newport as Cory's Dad
Bonus Seventies Movie Check-list: Over the Edge
- Overwrought or cheesy score: Not really.
- Hip Hero Cop: No, though Doberman thinks he's one.
- Feisty Heroine: Antiheroine, sure.
- Liberated sexuality: yes, filtered down to the adolescents and yes, we're supposed to be uncomfortable with it.
- "Jiggle": Yes, though it's probably better to not notice.
- Tight pants: Yes.
- Dude with baaad outfit: If you count the party host's shirt.
- Precocious kid: Yes.
- Viet Nam Vet: Yes.
- Zany outsider: Everyone's an outsider here, but Johnny, while not exactly zany, proves a fascinating presence.
- Fat sheriff: No.
- Politically incorrect humour: Yes. The film, true to the era, is particularly heavy on homophobic references as "humour".
- Car chases: Yes.
- Custom Van: Possibly in passing. Otherwise, just Halen.
- Inexplicably exploding vehicle: Yes.
- Paranormal/occult gobbledygook: No.
- Official corruption: Yes.
- Drug references: Almost continuously.
- Social Issues: Pretty much all the social issues.
- Someone getting called "turkey": Yes.
- Stupid nicknames: possibly, "Tip," but otherwise, surprisingly absent.
- Ambiguous Ending: Yes.