CLASS OF 1999 II: THE SUBSTITUTE (1994)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

As the above poster makes clear, someone over in France paid attention to the actual time-frame of this "Class of 1999" sequel, since the script specified that the action of this DTV film took place about two years after the events of the original film. 

It wouldn't be startling had SUBSTITUTE had been a "sequel in name only," particularly none of the creative personnel from the previous film are involved in it. The setting is also shifted from Seattle to the fictional "Monroeville" in California. However, director Spiro Razatos and writer Mark Sevi found a way to keep a loose connection that's actually important to the story. Further, the narrative forges some thematic connections to the original TERMINATOR from which the first film was derived. I'm a little surprised that SUBSTITUTE is as clever as it is, since Razatos's career consisted largely of stunt direction, while Sevi's other sequel-films-- notably, the fun but very stupid GHOULIES IV -- are not particularly noteworthy.

Before the film gets to Monroeville, viewers see a substitute teacher in Oregon ambushed and implicitly slain by a robotic-seeming young man, John Bolen (Sasha Mitchell). Bolen hangs around Oregon long enough to kill some rowdy punks, after which he also kills the school principal and heads south, seeking gainful-- and violence-filled-- employment in California. Trailing behind Bolen is an individual named Ash (Rick Hill of DEATHSTALKER fame). Thanks to Ash recording his progress on a tape machine, the viewer learns from him that it's two years after Bob Forrest unleashed military robots on the students of a Seattle high school. Ash is trailing Bolen in the belief that he is one of these robots, though Ash's motives are not disclosed.

Bolen finds a new berth as a substitute teacher in Monroeville. The script makes no attempt to show this California high school as being as nightmarish as Kennedy High was, but there are some nasty gangs attached to the school. We focus on two teachers persecuted by the gangs: Jenna (Caitlin Dulany) and her boyfriend Emmett (Nick Cassavetes). Jenna in particular is scheduled to testify about the criminal activity of one gang-member, and at one point some of the thugs get her alone and molest her. Bolen shows up and disperses the punks, though privately he makes plans to begin a campaign of war against them, much as his predecessors had. He shows himself to be a martial arts master and apparently impervious to bullets, though he stops short of sprouting ordnance from beneath his skin.

Jenna befriends the emotionless-seeming substitute, little suspecting that he's orchestrating the more low-level slayings of local scumbags. Jenna somehow gets hold of Bolen's diary, in which he's recorded strange, rambling poetry about his war experiences. Speaking of war, though we know next to nothing about boyfriend Emmett, he too is implicated in the business of combat, in that he manages a small military museum. He and Jenna apparently aren't that afraid of gun-violence, for the conclusion hangs upon their arrangement of a paintball-tournament for their students. The gang shows up to take advantage, but Bolen does too-- and this time, he's against everyone.

The Big Reveal is that Bolen is not a robot. Ash, who's been trailing the substitute with the idea of using him somehow, figures out that he's actually the son of the late Dr. Forrest, traumatized by his experiences of war and wearing body armor that repels bullets. Bolen kills Ash and all the gang-members, wounds Emmett, and then comes after Jenna, who, in approved "final girl" style, manages to end Bolen's rampage.

All of the actors are decent enough in their roles, though headliner Mitchell doesn't quite come up to the standard raised by Patrick Kilpatrick in the first film, much less than to Arnie Schwarzenegger. Another point of interest: Jenna's character arc is much like that of Sarah Connor in Cameron's original TERMINATOR: that of a basically ordinary woman pressed to dig deep in order to survive a threat to her life. I'm not going to say Cameron should be exactly flattered by the emulation, but Razatos and Sevin do come closer to that chosen theme than did a lot of TERMINATOR sequels.