Killing Mr. Griffin

I must say that this was one of the finest made for TV movies I have ever seen. It was a part of the post Scream teen movie boom, but this one was actually good (unlike I've Been Waiting For You" and "Teaching Mrs. Tingle") The acting was surprisingly good by the cast of up and comers (it was great to see Michelle Williams pre Dawson's Creek) the script was intense and the direction made us feel we were part of the scheme. If you liked "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (both movies were based on the books by Lois Duncan) you'll get a kick out of this one too. It's not a slasher story, but a story about covering up secrets and how they can ruin your life. Amy Jo Johnson is terrific in the lead, and Scott Bairstow is creepy and sinister. This was a good movie. Too good to be a TV movie. It should have at least got a limited theatrical release!

The book is much better. It is more realistic and the charcters' motivations are better presented. Their back stories are absent in the film. In real life, any student would have broken down much earlier.

The acting, especially Tori's, is not good at all. However, the end was much more dramatic and exciting than in the book.

Poor Lois Duncan. She's written many good-to-excellent thrillers aimed at the teen set, but their video adaptations almost never do them justice. "I Know What You Did Last Summer" was turned into a teen slasher flick; "Gallows Hill" was butchered into "I've Been Waiting for You", and "Don't Look Behind You" (one of Duncan's best, about a girl whose family enters Witness Relocation) was turned into a vehicle for "Dallas" has-been Patrick Duffy! Only "Summer of Fear", aka "Stranger in Our House", managed to survive intact (though you still have to put up with the dog/horse plot switch, as well as Linda Blair's scary perm).

The "Killing Mr. Griffin" movie, sad to say, is a middling effort, not at all worthy of the excellent source material. Most of the characters survive the transition to the screen, but are watered down and robbed of their distinctive traits. Mr. Griffin himself, a well-meaning guy who has trouble relating to kids in the book, is simply a jerk here. But worse is what happens to Mark Kinney. In the book, it is slowly and frighteningly revealed that Mark is actually a sociopath, whose history of violence and ability bend the group to his will is even more troubling than what happens to Mr. Griffin. But in the movie, Mark is just another troubled kid who is reacting to the pressure his parents have put on him to succeed. Too bad, because his original incarnation is much, much scarier.

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it, as well as the other books I've mentioned above. It would be a much better use of your time.

Although I'm way past the high-school age, I still liked this movie. I do believe that people in high-school would give it a higher grade though.

The actors are alright, the story is alright, but the believable manipulation and "wanting to be part of the crowd" made this movie better than average.

I give it a 7.

'Killing Mr. Griffin' isn't a remarkable film, and the production values could best be described as "B+." However, it is saved by its willingness to tread into the darker territory of high school peer pressure and cliques with reasonable verisimilitude (unlike, say 'Cruel Intentions' or 'She's All That') and strong performances on the part of the lead cast, especially Amy Jo Johnson as Susan McConnell. Despite her lovely looks and renown for her breakout role as Valley Girl Queen Bee and Pink Power Ranger, Johnson is more than convincing as a socially awkward "Plain Jane" bookworm who nonetheless won't miss a sudden chance to join the cool kids and who tragically casts aside childhood loyalties and moral scruples along the way. The frame story also works wonders to that effect, providing the character introspection that would otherwise have been lost in the screen adaptation.

Nevertheless, the writers seem to have treated the adaptation of the source material a bit hastily in some respects. Mr. Griffin is here portrayed as an anti-social jerk as opposed to the somewhat brash drill sergeant and ultra-strict grader he was in the book, and so it's somewhat more difficult to have empathy with respect to his ill fate. The script also loses texture relative to the novel by its abandonment of the very well-done psychiatric dimension to the character of Mark Kinney (probably due to the difficulty of adapting his or the other characters' backstories in a single-shot film) and its under-exploitation of the Shakespearean parallels in the original plot.

Overall it's reasonably entertaining, certainly better than your average 'Movie of the Week,' and it's definitely a treat if you're a fan of Amy Jo Johnson, but if you've got time to kill consider reading the novel.