Every now and then, a movie shows up that makes you question not only cinema, but the human condition itself. The New Kids is one of those movies. On paper, it’s a teen thriller about two clean-cut kids moving to a new town and running afoul of the local psychos. In execution, it’s like The Karate Kid got blackout drunk, married Deliverance, and woke up divorced in a swamp behind a gas station. It wants to be a cautionary tale. It ends up being a commercial for moving back in with your deadbeat dad.
The setup: Loren and Abby McWilliams, fresh-faced siblings played by Shannon Presby and Lori Loughlin, are orphaned after their army-hero parents die in a freak car accident. Because, of course, they do. It’s the kind of opening that screams, “We needed them out of the way fast.” The kids get sent to live with their kindly relatives in Florida — and when I say “kindly,” I mean they own a gas station-slash-amusement park, which is about as Floridian as you can get without a gator in a beer hat.
Lori Loughlin, to her credit, is easily the best part of the movie. She’s luminous in that mid-’80s teen idol way — wholesome, plucky, and somehow untouched by the deeply unwholesome events unraveling around her. She acts circles around most of the cast, which isn’t hard when the rest of them appear to be reading cue cards off a dog’s forehead. Shannon Presby, playing her brother Loren, is there. That’s about the nicest thing I can say. He’s got the charisma of a wet sock and the fighting skills of a guy who once lost a slap contest to his own reflection.
The real problem, though, is the villains. This isn’t just a case of some punk kids causing trouble. No, these are full-blown sociopaths roaming around small-town Florida like they’re auditioning for a meth-fueled Road Warrior remake. The ringleader is Eddie Dutra, played by James Spader with bleached hair, dead eyes, and the attitude of a guy who microwaves ants for fun. He’s obsessed with Abby — because she’s beautiful and new in town and apparently that’s enough to justify full-on stalking and attempted murder in 1985.
Spader deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award for committing to this role, because he’s just the right mix of sleazy, sadistic, and unhinged. His character has no backstory, no logic, and no brakes. He shows up, breathes heavily, kills pets, and makes threats in the same tone one uses to order a sandwich. This is James Spader before Sex, Lies, and Videotape, before he leaned into the whole “sexually ambiguous genius” shtick. This is feral Spader, baby, gnashing his teeth and snarling like a JCPenney model gone rogue.
But while Spader goes full rabid possum, the rest of the film seems unsure of what tone it wants. Is it a teen drama? A revenge flick? A slasher? A public service announcement about the dangers of underfunded theme parks? The movie jerks around like a bad transmission, switching gears from high school awkwardness to gory murder attempts with no warning. One minute the kids are serving ice cream; the next, someone’s being bludgeoned with a tire iron.
The climax — and I use that term very loosely — takes place at the aforementioned amusement park, where Loren is forced to defend his sister and his adopted Floridian dignity in a series of set-piece showdowns that feel like rejected Home Alone traps. There’s a haunted house, a guillotine, and enough questionable mechanical safety violations to make OSHA spontaneously combust. By the time the killer is skewered on a ride mechanism like a deep-fried county fair corndog, you’re not so much thrilled as you are relieved it’s finally over.
The direction, courtesy of Sean S. Cunningham (yes, the Friday the 13th guy), is workmanlike. You can almost feel him wondering why he left Camp Crystal Lake behind for this. The pacing drags when it should sprint, and speeds up when it should breathe. There’s no suspense — just noise. Characters make decisions that can only be explained by concussions or a death wish. At one point, a teacher warns Abby about Eddie but does nothing. Later, a cop shows up, sees a bunch of carnage, and basically shrugs. It’s a town full of people with goldfish memories and the morality of old turnips.
What makes the movie truly insane, though, is the utter lack of proportionality. These kids aren’t just being harassed — they’re being hunted. We’re talking stalkings, attempted sexual assault, arson, murder. It escalates so fast you’d think you missed a reel. This isn’t bullying. This is a horror film in disguise — but the disguise is so cheap it keeps falling off, revealing the dollar-store prosthetic underneath.
The musical score tries to convince you this is a touching story about family resilience, but every synth swell just makes the next machete attack more confusing. The film wants us to believe in the goodness of the heartland — but everything in this small town feels cursed, like a Stephen King story without the budget or the cocaine.
Final Verdict:
The New Kids is a mess. It has a few moments of accidental tension, a strong performance from Lori Loughlin, and Spader going full psycho, but everything else feels slapped together like a school project done the night before. It’s too ridiculous to take seriously, too grim to be fun, and too sloppy to be clever. The plot hinges on characters acting like idiots and the assumption that nobody in small-town Florida knows how to dial 911.
Watch it only if you’re a diehard James Spader completist, a Lori Loughlin nostalgic, or someone who really enjoys watching abandoned theme parks double as third-act battlegrounds. Otherwise, steer clear. There are better revenge thrillers, better teen dramas, and better public service announcements about not moving to Florida.
This ain’t the Sunshine State. This is the Wacky Murder State. And these new kids should’ve stayed home.
