Trivia / Class of 1984

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• Banned in China: Banned in a few places due to the violence and sexual content.
• Cast the Expert:
  • The punk kids at the club were actual slam dancers called in for the film.
  • Stegman at one point shows some talent on the piano, which is in fact Timothy Van Patten showing off. He also wrote that concerto himself.
  • They also cast a real high school orchestra to play the band.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Lisa Langlois was originally brought in to read for the Nice Girl Deneen. However she lobbied to play Patsy instead, and came to a second audition dressed like a punk.
  "I explained that I grew up with four brothers. I’ve been around a lot of their friends and I’ve seen these kinds of tough people. I know how to do it. So I came back in, did the role and they loved it."
• Creator Backlash:
  • Upset at the violence in the film, screenwriter Barry Schneider had his name taken off the credits.
  • The cast were initially ashamed of the film, due to its violent nature and the hectic filming conditions. However they became more receptive to it as time went on. Lisa Langlois even says she wishes they'd made a more connected sequel.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Mark L Lester calls this the best film that he's directed.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Timothy Van Patten and Lisa Langlois were both 23.
  • Keith Knight (Barnyard) was 27.
  • Stefan Arngrim (Drugstore) was 26.
  • Michael J. Fox was 20 playing a freshman!
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Lisa Langlois dyed her hair rather than wearing a wig, a process she regretted.
  • Keith Knight got the part of Barnyard after the original actor refused to shave his head, but he negotiated not having to go skinhead.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • The dead animals used were real, and the smell was horrible on set. Those are genuine reactions from the actors.
  • Stefan Arngrim didn't speak to most of the other actors to stay in character.
• Executive Meddling: A positive version. Stegman's death originally would just have him fall trying to cut himself loose from the rope. Producers were unsatisfied with this, so it was re-shot to have Andy punch him to give him a more karmic death.
• Fake American: The British Roddy McDowall as the American science teacher Terry Corrigan. A good portion of the actors were Canadian as well, particularly Al Waxman (best known at the time for King of Kensington), which, along with the band Teenage Head and the Yonge Street city exteriors, really dates the film as an early 80's Toronto production.
• Hey, It's That Place!: That's the same police station as Black Christmas (1974).
• Hostility on the Set: Lisa Langlois said that most of the actors and extras hated working on the film, as they were barely paid and felt very mistreated. The girl who takes her clothes off for the punks was very reluctant to appear nude and got pressured into doing so (Lisa recalls "That poor girl was literally shaking. I remember it was so sad"...)
• No Budget: The budget was so tight that the local Canadian talent got asked to work for scale, with the promise they'd get a buyout later.
• Playing Against Type: Roddy McDowall. My God. He plays a gun-toting alcoholic biology teacher who snaps after Stegman kills all of his lab animals and teaches his class at GUNPOINT, very nearly blowing Stegman's head off.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: You may notice that Patsy is nowhere to be seen in club sequences where there are lots of people. According to her actress Lisa Langlois, she'd "literally disappear" because the extras were real punks who could sense the actors weren't like them and she felt unsafe.
  "For me personally, they knew I wasn't a real punk rocker. I had my hair purple, pink and some other colors. So a) they knew I was an actor and not one of them, and b) they didn't appreciate me wearing a dress. Several times, I had punk rocker women come up to me and say, 'We're gonna get you.'"
• Sleeper Hit: Lisa Langlois recalls getting a phone call from her boyfriend in Paris when he saw a massive poster of her on the side of a building advertising the film. She and the rest of the cast did not expect it to be so successful.
• Throw It In!: Lisa Langlois admits to not having a lot of dialogue in the original script. She ended up doing a lot of improvisation, most of which was kept in. For example, it was her idea that Patsy would be excited whenever someone got beaten up and she'd take a Polaroid picture of Mrs Norris getting raped.
• What Could Have Been: The rape of Mrs. Norris and the table saw kill had to be edited down to prevent an X rating. The film was later released uncut.
• Write What You Know:
  • Word of God is that the story was partially inspired by a collection of stories he read in the news. The incident of a teacher bringing a gun to school to control his students actually happened.
  • The dialogue that Detective Stewiski says to Andrew was reportedly based on what a police officer said to the director during research.

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