Class
of 1984 had proved to be a relatively successful exploitation pic for
director Mark Lester, so in the late 80's he decided to revisit his earlier
success with a view to remaking it as a sci-fi action pic.
Working in elements of "Terminator", "Westworld", "Escape from New York" and even "Mad Max", "Class of 1999" takes place in the not too distant future (remember this was filmed back in 1989), where schools have become more like high security prisons owing to the extreme gang violence that has taken over the inner cities.
Many places in America have become "free fire zones" where gangs can do virtually as they please as the police won't go there. One such area lies in the middle of Seattle, where Kennedy High School has decided to take drastic measures to help combat class disobedience.
The headmaster, Mr Longford (Malcolm McDowell), has volunteered the school to take part in a Government program, replacing teachers with experimental androids who will be more than able to instil discipline into the undesirables. But when the new teachers go haywire and start attacking the kids, the schools 2 main rival gangs have to put aside their differences and combine resources to stop them.
Also starring Stacy Keach (sporting a really bad mullet hair-style) and Pam Grier, despite its low budget and being substantially different to the director's earlier "Class of 1984" the film is quite an entertaining piece of low budget sci-fi hokum and is almost impossible not to enjoy on a pure entertainment level anyway!.
