Desperate Lives

This was Diana's first movie after Mommie Dearest, and it was fairly brave, at the time, for a TV movie. Yes, it's a bit of a mess, but it certainly deals with a messy subject -- one that can be dealt with any number of ways. When the students at an assembly, and Diana Scarwid goes around to their lockers with a shopping cart, it is an absolute scream. When she finally confronts the students, she is foaming with righteous anger and chews up the scenery like no other actress before her. When they burn all the contraband and the students begin to add their own stashes to the bonfire, Scarwid is victorious. GREAT performance in a campy movie...

This movie, a lovely "just-say-no" message wrapped up in a thin plot, contains more unintentional humor than anything else. Things to look for: Kids making PCP in the high school chemistry lab. Helen Hunt diving headfirst out of a second-story window (after her boyfriend convinces her to try his homemade PCP). A locker check (in a small-town high school) that turns up more drugs and paraphenalia than the evidence room at a busy LAPD precinct. The entire student body realizing what terrible things drugs are and adding another twenty pounds of assorted stuff to what's been pulled out of the lockers and burned. This movie isn't quite as trashy as "Reefer Madness," but it's in the same ballpark.

Until today I couldn't remember what the name of the movie was but I remembered the girl from Mommy dearest being in it. I finally pulled out IMDb and looked. All i really remember from the movie was the girl (apparently Helen Hunt) flying through a window. While some will classify this as a "warm fuzzy about saying no" I can say that that scene is EXACTLY what scared me to the point of NOT doing hard core drugs... I dabbled in pot when i was 13 or so and did so for awhile but I would never go harder because i was scared of how I would react. So in my case this movie did its job. I am sure kids today would see it as cheesy but in 1982 I was 6 so i would venture to guess i saw it when i was probably about 10 and it scared me to think those things could happen. I grew up in a small town not knowing about drugs and this really opened my eyes. I can't wait to see it again as i only saw it that one time YEARS ago.

I remember that it was quite bad acting, typical for those ABC After school Specials; however, we get to see a young Helen Hunt and Diana Scarwid (post "Mommy Dearest"), in all her over-acting! It doesn't come across quite humorous and unrealistic at many points. I mean, you knew kids were doing drugs in high school but for the counselor to go through all their lockers during an assembly, then emotionally storm into the assembly and light the drugs on fire was way over the top! As far as the poster who mentioned Helen Hunt and her scene being deleted during her better times, actually, I remember when she hosted "Saturday Night Live" in the early 90's, after she had her comeback hit with "Mad About You." She did a clip where she was doing something and then she walked over to a window, then the next shot was the inserted footage from this movie where she has her "PCP freak-out scene" and goes through the window! It was pretty hilarious! Anyway, those Afterschool Specials always meant well!

OK so the whole point was Nancy's Just Say No crap which didn't work any better than todays cigarettes is drugs crap that makes me want to smack the child with the snotty attitude that it's coming from. But my main two images are Helens swan dive and Tricia looking thru the steering wheel.. its SO prettttttyyyyyyyy... to this day still use that line with this movie's image in mind.

I think of this movie often in life, partly for the guy in my HS who jumped out the second story classroom to spend his remaining days in a wheel chair, and "weeeeeeeee! " Down the side of the cliff...

The rest of it is classic afterschoolspecial Cheesy drama class acting, shoot my middle schoolers drama performances are way better that those in this movie. .

I still love this movie. Good try Nancy! It stuck with me, but didn't help me just say no...