Class of 1984

United Film Distribution Company (UFDC) | Release Date: August 20, 1982

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

49	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Roger Ebert

It is violent, funny, scary, contains boldly outlined characters, and gets us involved. It also has a lot of style. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

While there can be no doubt that in true tabloid style Class of 1984 feeds on everything it is condemning, as an energetic comic strip it has considerable fascination. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Class of 1984 is pure exploitation with plenty of action and a manipulative plot [from a story by Tom Holland] designed to have audiences cheering on the blood. Read full review

Scott Tobias

Class Of 1984 anticipated Lean On Me, The Substitute, and a spate of other high-school thrillers and docudramas that advocated a fight-fire-with-fire approach to teen violence, but it’s vastly more entertaining. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Violent update of The Blackboard Jungle. Read full review

Eric Henderson

No matter how much director Mark Lester attempts to hide his sermonizing behind sensationalistic-pedagogic terrorism, he does himself in whenever a jaded cop shrugs his shoulders and grunts, for the umpteenth time, What can we do, they’re juveniles? Read full review

Peter Schorn

While not as sweeping as The Warriors - lacking that film's epic underpinnings - Class of 1984 is a goofy jolt of low-octane ultra-violence. Read full review

Vincent Canby

Class of 1984 is sort of crudely funny. The movie's idea of punk culture is also picturesque. But it quickly gets worse and worse until it achieves a degree of awfulness that, though rare, isn't much fun. Read full review

Jack Kroll

One of the nastiest movies of our time, it pretends to be horrified by endemic violence in our schools while actually exploiting violence with a coldblooded cynicism that's worse than the violence itself. [30 Aug 1982, p.61]

Bill Cosford

Lester's film is so clearly about getting even rather than about troubled youth or any other societal problem that it seems, like Death Wish II and a hundred others, a waste of that energy. [16 Nov 1982, p.B4]

Richard Harrington

Everything is utterly unbelievable; it's Blackboard Jungle without a moral intelligence, Rock and Roll High School without a soundtrack. Sitting through it is like paying for detention on a sunny day. [14 Oct 1982, p.D15]