Over the Edge
Tags: cult, violence

Plot synopsis:
Carl (Michael Kramer) and his friends, Ritchie (Matt Dillon), Claude (Tom Fergus), and Johnny (Tiger Thompson) are hanging out at The Rec, a recreation center for the kids in New Grenada, a planned community full of condominiums and town homes. The Rec is pretty much the only thing in town for the children, as the Homeowners Association totally forgot about the fact that nearly 25% of the population of New Grenada is under the age of 15. So, naturally, the kids find themselves some other ways to have fun; sex, drugs, alcohol, vandalism, and rock n roll. One of the first scenes shown is Mark Perry (Vincent Spano), and his friend shooting his B.B. gun at oncoming cars on the overpass. However, when they hit a police cruiser, they laugh and cheer, and decide to leave before the cop sees them. They hop on their bikes, and ride down the road, passing Carl and Ritchie, who, when warned by the boys about cops, dive into the weeds behind an electric control box. The police car pulls up, and out steps Sgt. Doberman (Harry Northup), the most hated cop in town. He sees the boys, and, upon frisking them, finds a three-inch pocketknife on Ritchie. He take the boys to the station, and calls Carl's father, Fred Willat (Andy Romano), warning him about Carl's behavior.Fred is the local Cadillac salesman, an upper middle class job. Before getting Doberman's call, is talking to Jerry Cole (Richard Jamison), president of the Homeowners Association, about getting Mr. Sloan (Lane Smith), a wealthy Texas Landowner, to come to see the land across the street from The Rec, with hopes of building an industrial park there. Back at the police station, Doberman is questioning Ritchie and Carl about who had the gun, and Ritchie tells them that he has only 1 law; A kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid. Ritchie is then taken out of the room, and Doberman continues lecturing Carl about where hes going to end up if he keeps this up; The Hill, a correction center for the kids in the area. Then Carl and his father drive home, where Sandra Willat (Ellen Geer), waits. But instead of talking to his mother, Carl runs upstairs, and locks himself in his room, blaring the Cheap Trick.The next day at school, Carl and Ritchie tell Claude about their escapades with the police, and Claude announces that he took speed to prepare for the upcoming test. He then looks at a slide of a painting, and instead of seeing the actual painting he sees this mangled, horrid thing. Then they go to an assembly about the recent vandalism on the highway, where Carl gets a look at the love of his life, Cory (Pamela Ludwig), who hes absolutely crazy about. Later, after school, Carl is getting dressed to go out, once again listening to his music, only this time, its The Ramones. When Carl is dressed, he goes downstairs and asks his father about the land across from The Rec. but, upon getting an answer different from what he wanted, leaves for The Rec.The Rec closes at six o'clock p.m., but that doesn't stop the kids from having fun. The kids bring pot, music, and alcohol to The Rec after hours, and have their own little party, where Claude ends up buying a gram of hash from Tip (Eric Lalich), a friend. But the party moves when an announcement about a party at a boys house is made. The party is your basic teens; sex, drugs, beer, and Van Halen. Carl sees Cory on the couch making out with Mark, the boy who shot the cop car, and got Carl and Ritchie busted. Mark then warns Carl about mentioning his name to the cops, and when Carl gives a sarcastic remark, he leaves. Carl gets upset with Cory, telling her that she could do a lot better than Mark. Carl then leaves, followed (unknowingly) by Mark and his friend. While Carl is walking home alone, they jump him, beat him up, and take his money. When Carl gets home, he tries to avoid his parents seeing the cuts and bruises, but fails. Carl gets questioned, but, when refusing to tell them who jumped him, runs upstairs and locks himself in his room. Fred and Jerry Cole then talk about making sure The Rec is closed the next day, when Sloan comes to visit.The next day at The Rec, everyone is talking about Carl's event. But he only releases the names to Claude, Ritchie, Johnny, and Alan (Brian Parker), another friend of theirs. While they're talking, Julia (Julia Pomeroy), The Rec counselor, goes outside to talk to Doberman about The Rec staying open. Doberman goes inside and searches Claude, finding the gram of hash in his pocket, and taking him in. However, when they walk outside, Ritchie is standing on the cop car, and makes the cops chase him around the grounds. When the cops finally leave, Carl, and Ritchie go to get sodas, where Ritchie gives Carl firecrackers. They then get on their bikes and ride around the neighborhood, where they find Cory and her best friend Abby (Kim Kliner) running out of a house, carrying a plastic bag. They stop them, and grab the bag, finding a gun in it, which the girls stole from the house. They then all go to a half-finished town home, which Carl and Ritchie call their condo. After planning a picnic with a gun Cory gets up and starts dancing, with the gun in her hand, pointing it at Carl playfully. But the gun goes off, and Carl scares everyone into thinking he is shot. The group then goes their separate ways. When Carl gets home, he sees Sloan's car in the driveway, and, upset at his father, places the firecrackers given to him by Ritchie in the cars engine, so that when the car is turned on, they will light. Sloan and his boys, scared, then leave, but not before warning Fred that if he doesn't stop to listen to his son, it will come back to bite him.The next day, Carl calls Claude and Johnny, telling them to come to the picnic. They all show up, and after shooting the gun, and realizing that Carl is the only one with any sense of aim at all, they start walking. During the walk, Claude tells them that it was Tip who sold him the hash, and Cory announces that Tip had recently gotten busted for possession. They then decide to pay Tip a visit, and while the boys hold Tip down and interrogate him, the girls ransack his kitchen. Tip tells them that he told Doberman who he sold the hash to, because he was arrested. Ritchie then points the gun at him, and Johnny lights a firecracker, making a gun sound. Before leaving, the boys throw Tip in the water under his porch. Before Cory and Abby leave Carl and Ritchie, Cory runs over to Carl and gives him a kiss, showing him that she likes him as much as he likes her.When Carl gets home, he is told by his mother and father that he is forbidden to see Claude or Ritchie any longer, and that The Rec will be closed. Carl gets in a fight with his father, and when Carl takes a swing at him, he smacks him across the face, causing him to, once again, lock himself in his room. The next day at school, in science class, Carl sees Tips mother (Irene Lalich), and the schools principal (Molly McCarthy) talking in a connected classroom. Tips mother tells the principal the names of the boys that assaulted her son, and this causes Carl to snap. He then grabs Ritchie in the hallway and they run home. Ritchie grabs his gun, and they steal his mothers car, leaving town. However, Doberman sees them leave, and chases them. During the chase, Carl begs Ritchie to throw the gun out of the car, but he refuses. The car then gets flipped over, the two boys running in opposite directions. Ritchie points the gun at Doberman, who mistakes it for loaded, so Doberman shoots and kills Ritchie. Carl then runs away to his condo, but not before calling Johnny to confirm that Ritchie is really dead, and calling Cory to tell her to meet him. She brings a sleeping bag, and they spend the night together. After Cory leaves in the morning, Carl runs home to grab money, and along the way he sees Mark riding his dirt bike. He takes Marks B.B. gun, and shoots him in the shoulder (not harming him), causing him to flip over his bike. Mark then sits down with Carl, talking about what they're going to do about the parent situation. They then decide that their fight was stupid, and they make up. Then Carl goes home, and upon climbing into the house through an upstairs window, he sees his mother on the phone with his father about a big meeting at the school that night, to talk about the new trend of violence with the children. He then locks himself in his mothers room, and gets on the phone, asking his parents if they wish he got shot, too.After leaving his home that night, Carl goes to The Rec, where, all of his friends are. They then make a plan to show the parents that they need to listen to them; lock them in the schools auditorium, and wreck the school. Carl climbs onto the roof, entering the school through a sun window above a science classroom. The kids then take their bike chains and lock the gates surrounding the auditorium. The children decide that the only thing that will make them feel better is to trash the school, and all of the cars in the parking lot. However, when they find guns, all hell breaks loose. The kids run around shooting cars, causing massive explosions. When Cory almost gets blown up by an explosion caused by Mark, and cant find Carl, Claude and Johnny agree to take her home, but not before Johnny gives a phone to Julia, who is sitting by a gate in the school. Julia calls the police, and as soon as they hear sirens, all of the kids split, some getting arrested. The police unlock the auditorium doors, and Doberman runs out to find Carl. He gets in a cop car, and drives down the road until he finds Carl. He handcuffs him to the backseat, and tells him that he will have to go to The Hill. But, Mark is waiting down the road with his B.B. gun, and shoots the car, causing Doberman to run it off the road, into, of all buildings, The Rec. Doberman gets knocked out, and The Rec catches on fire. Carl grabs Dobermans keys, and unlocks himself from the car. He runs away, and stops and turns around just in time to see The Rec blow up. He then for sure knows that Doberman died.The final scene shows Carl in the morning, coming handcuffed out of the police station. Carl stops and hugs his parents, and is then escorted onto a bus (full of other kids involved with the school incident, including Mark and Abby) by Lincoln (Mike Osborne), another police officer. He is sat at the back of the bus, and driven down the highway to The Hill. But, when they go under the overpass, (the same one that Mark was shooting off of earlier) they see Claude, Johnny, and Cory waving from above. Carl then turns around to face the front of the bus, quite content with the fact that his friends are safe, and that Cory still loves him.

Review: I remember as I watched the movie thinking that the clothes the kids were wearing looked worn just enough, like they had come out of the actors' own closets.
The adults in the movie can't be bothered with them and are more interested in bringing people into New Granada and developing the town rather than meet the needs of the town's youth.
The frustration finally builds and builds until the movie's destructive climax.Based on a true incident, "Over the Edge" is a film which, unlike most teen movies, deals with more weighty topics than who's taking who to the prom.
This film very accurately portrays what life was really like for many teenagers who lived in the suburbs during the 1970s.Growing up, my own life was very much like those of the teens in this movie: I was a teenager in the mid-70s and I lived in exactly the same sort of constantly under-development, suburban wasteland where whole mobs of kids were pretty much left to their own devices by parents who were too busy chasing the American Dream to notice what we were really up to; a place where there was easy access to lots and lots of cheap drugs and alcohol, and where boredom reigned supreme (remember, these were the days before the Internet, VCRs, or even home video games).If you were ever rebellious and grew up during the same time period and in the same sort of suburban community, then I guarantee that virtually every character in this movie will remind you of someone you knew back then (maybe even yourself!)..
This was a teen movie that wasn't a 'teen' movie.The best thing about this was how it showed that the parents imagined need to raise their kids in a sanitized environment can lead to mind-numbing boredom.
I loved the scenes where we rioted in the Circus tent styled John Evens Jr. High School......made it hard to attend class the following year.History has proved that the film makers knew what kind of society America would become...Cookie cutter homes,strip malls and teen murderers......Art predicts life..
"Over the Edge" is a powerful, unforgettable 1979 film about a planned suburban community, New Granada, where all the adults are worried only about bringing much-needed money and business to the struggling, barren dump of a town.
Matt Dillon's film debut, and an unknown actor, young Tom Fergus, gives the most natural performance from a kid I have ever seen as Claude, the kid most heavily involved in drugs.
With all of today's problems plaguing teens and their parents, this movie may seem a bit tame, but at the time of its release, it had a pretty powerful message (assuming anyone paid attention).
Further than the imagery of white, middle-class American kids and teenagers getting high, speaking in an acquired voice and lingo to convey a both tastefully silly and unsettling angst, there's a visualization of America in Jonathan Kaplan's appealing, outlandish generation gap exploitation film that's anything but silly, and by now has basically become the norm.
It's the assertion of the filmmakers that the planners of New Granada made a grave gaffe in not bearing in mind that a quarter of its population would be 15 years old or younger, with nowhere to go except an old Quonset hut used as a rec center, nothing to consider and, most terrible, nothing to do.The hub of the film is Carl, an ultimately good 15-year-old boy whose dad, a Cadillac dealer, frets more about selling than about where the kids are, before or after 10pm.
Provoked by the case of his more experienced pal Richie, played by Matt Dillon, who auditioned for the role while skipping school, Carl starts to embrace the scornful, tough-guy characteristics of the rest of New Granada's youth, most of whom are on drugs of one kind or another.
Like a New Granada street, Carl's life doesn't seem to be progressing.Doberman's jumpy shooting of one of Carl's friends induces the film's furious climax: The New Granada youth charge the high school, where their parents are holding an urgent assembly to argue property values and teenage crime, lock their parents into the school auditorium, and go on a huge sabotage binge.
There's something unluckily amusing in the image of a smug child, who looks to be no more than 12, talking about scoring some hash for his friends, and about the quandary of another, just as young student who stumbles into an art class, having taken some LSD to begin the day, just to be faced with a projection of a Bosch painting.The movie can't help idealizing its generally stupid teenagers, their incoherent yearnings and doubts, their disheartenment and, ultimately, their fuming revolt.
If New Granada's kids are apathetic robots, they're only a spot more offensive and less self-righteous than their ignorant parents.I suppose, the performances by the grown-ups in the film, particularly by Andy Romano and Ellen Geer, as Carl's parents, and by Harry Northup, as the harrying Doberman, are more effective than those of the younger actors, but both Kramer and Dillon are equal as Carl and Richie.
I also think social workers, etc, who work with troubled kids should see this.The music is one thing that really, really makes this movie what it is.
One must think the police in this town moved from an area like California and became frustrated at the lack of any apparently autistic teens to violate.Haas also crossed the line when he tried earlier to exaggerate a real-life incident into a news story, upon which he based the screenplay.
I happen to feel that in years to come especially, those who live in communities like the one in this film are going to be hit the worst when the economics of transport become increasingly unviable.I gave Over The Edge a two out of ten.
I also think the parents shown ,in the movie, was accurate as well.Like New Granada, we were bored and pretty much left to our own devices to find entertainment.
We managed to con our parents and adults long enough to get away with most of what we did.For the longest time I thought it was just my particular generation and our area that was screwed up in the head...that was until I saw this movie.
This is the cult teen movie of all time and I'm glad I'm lucky enough to know it.In 1979 another film entitled "The Warriors" was released not long before "Over the Edge", and in LA and Newyork gang members in the theaters caused trouble and vandalized the theaters.
The message behind this movie is something that we, as a society are still dealing with twenty years later; trying to find a balance between the need for teens to rebel, do drugs, drink, experiment with sex etc.
Teens do need places to feel like their way of life is not threatened, and teen centers such as the one portrayed in the film were perfect examples of what needs to be done more often.
These kids had nowhere to go, and nothing to do, with parents and authorities not helping at all by constantly barging into places like the rec center, which for New Granada teens, was the only safe haven they had to get away from it all in the first place.
I think parents specifically, have tried more to accept the realities of teen life, and understand that they themselves went through the same things at one point too.Overall, I think this film was poorly directed, and the acting was less then satisfactory, but the messages behind it were very accurate and clear.
However, there are definitely ways to satisfy teens, parents, and authority alike, and it is movies like these that effectively spark up the efforts put forth to find them..
While this film didn't get a lot of press when it first came out (1979) because there were similar type movies at the time, it eventually got rediscovered and is now considered a cult classic.
Living in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, the bored and disaffected teenagers of a poorly resourced planned community are eventually driven to revolt against the oppressive adult population in this searing drama written by Tim Hunter, who also helmed the similarly themed 'River's Edge' a few years later.
Indeed, while the parents of the film come under scrutiny for not understanding their kids and how boxed up they feel, the poor planning of the town is really the villain of the piece.
It takes a long time for the film to make its point though, and with the revolt only occurring in the final third of the movie, there are a lot of repetitive scenes of the teens trying to score drugs, pick up girls and evade the sadistic police to firstly endure.
i love this film, my childhood was exactly the same, this movie should be talked about more and seen, its the best high school teen movie ever made.
movies like KIDS, BULLY, were inspired by this film.
for 1979 it was way ahead of its time, the high school movies made now are a joke, schools should use this film, its perfect, not one ounce of sentimentality if i was a 16-17 year old i would love this film.
sad thing is the film has become just a footnote, rather than a genre definer, if you kids think breakfast club is cool, once you have watched this you will change your mind.
Predictably as the children turn into teens they dabble in alcohol, drugs, bored heavy petting and sex, vandalism, and pranks that could turn dangerous - shooting a bee-bee gun at a cop car from an overpass and setting up fireworks to go off underneath cars.The parents treat the kids like they are some other species.
Matt Dillon made his acting debut in Over the Edge playing a punk kid, a character he would parlay into a few more coming-of-age movies in subsequent years.
It's only a matter of time before the garden-variety vandalism worsens, and sure enough, when two kids fire a BB gun at a police-officer's car from an overpass, tensions in the town become proportionally thicker.At the center of the movie is young Carl (Michael Eric Kramer), son of the homeowners' association president, who's trying to get Texas millionaires to buy some prime real estate in town (rather than build a bowling alley).
Sure, I can understand the boredom and frustration of youth but I, myself was brought up on a farm and so there was always work and things to do when I was their age and so didn't suffer with that particular affliction.I didn't mind their dalliance with drugs, at least as far as the film was concerned; that seemed very natural and added interest and I think it was these elements that bumped the certificate up to 18.
The soundtrack may have appealed to those who liked those bands, they were before my time, at least in '79, when the film was released, so I can't even say that the music was great.The young cast is undoubtedly the movie's strong point and much praise has been made on Matt Dillon's debut role.
Again, maybe because of my now tender age, I found the politics and economics of it all that were causing all the social problems rather more interesting than that of the youths, which could be a bit worrying!Despite what I've said about not fully appreciating Over the Edge, it is a good film and well made and I hope that when I come to see it again, sometime, I'll get into it more..
And while the adults scramble to boost the resale of New Granada's stores, offices, and condos, the kids are left to discover theire own values --- and come up with enough drugs, booze and discontent to push themselves and the entire community "Over The Edge.""Over The Edge" sounds a memorable warning to any society that makes no place for it's young.This movie is hard to find in video stores so if you want to see it you are going to have to order it.
From the turning point in music when corporate rock (The Bay City Rollers,The Bee-Gees, etc.)was being over-taken by punk and 'new-wave' (which we thought was all punk 'cause we didn't know better yet):The Cars, Hendrix, Elvis Costello, The Ramones...you get the picture.Pulled from theaters before it opened due to rioting at the opening of the trash B- throw-away flick "The Warriors"...the authorities feared the truth and censored teen reality.
Unlike the contrived 'Warriors', this true-to-life drama probably would have caused not just riots, but as a looking glass, could have been the beginning of a discussion for change in how new communities planned for youth entertainment, learning and overall community infrastructure.The movie is set in Texas - but we lived it in Orange County, CA...another county completely sold out to developers - and remains so even today..
I wasn't like the kids in the movie, but it really portrayed life accurately.
During the day, they go to school, and what they do on their spare time is hang out at the rec center and getting high.The teenagers even hated, Sgt. Doberman (Northup) the head of the New Granada Police Department usually falls off the deep end.
They even, know what the teens listen to part of their spare time; Cheap Trick (Speak Now (Opens the film), Surrender, Downed), The Ramones (Teenage Labotomy), Van Halen (You Really Got Me), Jimi Hendrix (Come On), The Cars (Just What I Needed, Best Friends Girl), Valerie Carter (Ooh Child (Closes the Film)..
Although the acting is quite strong and several of the actors went on to grown-up stardom, ultimately the strength of this piece lies in its social commentary of the times.This film perfectly encapsulates the feeling of anomie, disillusionment, and utter boredom that teens faced living in American suburbia in the '70's.
I don't really dabble in the plotlines too much in my reviews, but essentially there are 4 core characters: Carl (the bright middle class son of the local Cadillac dealer), Ritchie (Matt Dillion's first performance as the "wrong side of the tracks bad kid who happens to be Carl's best friend) Claude (Carl's other friend who comes from a broken home and loves to drink and do drugs) and Cory (Carl's love interest).
The dialog was correct and the music wasn't created for the film - it was music that we kids were already listening to.I don't know how well the movie holds up now because I watch it with a nostalgic eye.
I actually never saw the complete film until many, many years later and was like, "wow, I know these scenes from somewhere and, wow, that's Denver!" And then it hit me that this is the one I had seen being made!Personally, though the story is very representative of late 70's high school drug culture (to a "T"), I find the movie a little too cynical and contrived of a story without great depth (really, could the police and parents be any made any more black and white and idiotic?
What really endears this film to me was that it reminded me of my youth as I was a teen just after this movie came out and I ran the streets with older kids getting into all kinds of mischief.
Th film does not try to take the side of the parents or the teens but tells a cautionary tale that this is what can happen without a good balance between home life and community activities.
I feel it is a timeless movie because drugs, vandalism and general teen angst are very real today.
See this movie if you like teen rebellion films!.
It's little surprised that things end up the way the do at the end.The film benefits from fine acting (especially from the young actors, which includes a 15-year-old Matt Dillon) and a great soundtrack, which complements the film really well.
Over The Edge is the story of a planned community called New Granada and the movement of rebellious youth looking for a place to call home.
The movie is packed full of great rock songs of the era by artists such as Cheap Trick and The Cars.I highly recommend this film to anyone who grew up in the seventies or enjoy seeing Matt Dillon.
The story centers on Carl (Michael Eric Kramer), an easygoing guy, and Richie (Matt Dillon, making his film debut), his trouble making friend.What's so damn effective about "Over the Edge" is you believe it at every turn.
The hip soundtrack includes tunes from groups ranging from Cheap Trick to Van Halen to The Cars to The Ramones.The finale is troubling but the good news is that, in the end, the film does maintain a degree of hope for its main character.All in all, this is a teen film worth seeking out and remembering.
Well, the film meant good, tried to portray the mood of these kids and ended up just giving us another movie that is just unrealistic and unbelievable...
Matt Dillon seemed to be in every teen movie of my youth & was great in this one.
It tells the story of some troubled Colorado kids who cause havoc (gunfire, vandalism, drug dealing, etc...) in their neighborhood at the expense of their mostly misunderstood parents.Director Jonathan Kaplan (admittedly) filmed a lot of scenes with wide shots that let things play out naturally.
Over the Edge was a good movie, but the events in New Granada was similar to the way things were in The Winter of 1971.
The movie "Over the Edge" had the same problems as Denton Jr. High had & as the for the former child actor who had his bad times at Denton, he walks among us today & has a steady job.