Sex, drugs and a radioactive monster

Class of Nuke ’Em High (1986), directed by Richard Haines and Lloyd Kaufman, is probably one of the worst films of all time.

It’s about a public high school located next to a nuclear power plant. At first, it seems like it might be a fairly decent film about the danger of leaving nuclear waste lying around.

But when you add a bunch of prep-school-students-turned-drug-dealers, a radioactive monster that wanders around killing people and a conveniently placed laser beam in a science lab, things just get weird.

One element that does work is the film’s heavy focus on youth culture. There is a gang of thugs at the high school called the Cretins who ride motorcycles, have promiscuous sex, beat people up and smash things. These thugs are former prep-school students who have chosen to reject the moral values of their society. They embody resistance to the establishment, opposition to conformity and the empowerment of youth.

This offers a fascinating study from a sociological or psychological perspective, and places these characters in the antagonist roles. You love them because they are rebels and do whatever they want to do. Yet you hate them because they steal from and beat up people’s grandmothers. And they demean themselves by pretending to be so stupid.

There’s some warning about the dangers of drug use. A couple goes to a party and smokes radioactive marijuana that induces them to have sex and, later, hallucinate and have weird nightmares. The guy mutates in his sleep, gains superhuman strength and kills two people. The girl gives birth to a horrible, disgusting, radioactive monster.

The lesson: If you have sex while high, you may end up killing people or giving birth to a creature that will kill people.

Meanwhile, radioactive materials from the nearby plant start mutating people and making them act funny. This plot point is really just a convenient excuse to bring youth culture themes to a forefront in a way that is completely over the top, which could’ve been accomplished without the radioactive creatures and zombies spewing blue gunk out of their ears, nostrils and mouths. It is more of a gimmick than anything else and is utterly disgusting to watch.

This is one film you should never watch without a paper bag handy. Some scenes are so revoltingly nutty that it might make the viewer stop watching. This film tries to blend a teen drama with a horror flick, making some scenes seem out of place. But despite the horror, there isn’t enough suspense, so the movie ends up less exciting than it should be, especially at the end.

The film is definitely not appropriate for younger audiences. It explores themes that are sometimes violent, sometimes erotic and sometimes ugly. It is about peer pressure, sex, drugs, gangs and other things associated with troubled youth. For that reason, the film is highly upsetting and controversial. It wants to intentionally make the viewer uncomfortable so that we become more aware of these very real issues affecting teenagers.

While Class of Nuke ’Em High is notable for its celebration of rebellious counterculture and anti-intellectualism, it also contains gross scenes of people getting melted from the inside out and killed by zombies and mutants. This combination simply does not work and only distracts the audience from the central notion of the film.