Student Confidential

Screened on Severin Films blu-ray

If the "so bad it's good" level of appreciation The Room received had attached itself to any film from the 1980s, it would have been with 1985's Student Confidential. There was a lot of unchecked ambition during that decade, full of people with high levels of "if they can do it, so can I" egos. While the director of this film, and the writer, and the lead actor, and the producer, and the editor, and the composer, and the casting director, all of which are Richard Horian, didn't achieve making a successful film (originally known as The Counselor before legendary B-movie studio head Lloyd Kaufman picked it up for distribution by Troma Entertainment), he wasn't an unsuccessful person. Horian was an eccentric of the time, an inventor and entrepreneur who essentially never came up with a passion project that he wouldn't at least try. The millions he made on products he invented wasn't enough, taking all those profits and investing all of it towards a move from Miami to Los Angeles to get into the movie business.

The end result of his cinematic ambitions was basically what you would have expected. Like Tommy Wiseau's The Room, it's stocked to the brim with "what the hell was he thinking" moments, from direction, to writing, to acting, to editing, to casting (including son of Kirk Douglas, and brother of Michael Jackson, and a Playboy bunny), all of which were the responsibility of Mr Horian. There's rarely a moment in its runtime that doesn't feel like a bizarre choice. If one can't even put nudity on screen without it feeling welcome to some degree, it's definitely being done wrong. But what ultimately is the film's undoing is not the director, but his ego. If he was able to bring it down even 50%, and took in advice (as he had received from aforementioned Kirk Douglas) from experts in the field, it could have gone a long way. The bare bones here are actually OK, it being a story about a high school guidance counselor who is the one who actually needs guidance, from the very students he has been counseling. Far from a bad idea, but definitely imperfect, full of correctable problems that ended up on screen instead of on the cutting room floor, if it weren't for one man's blind ambition.

Recommended for cinephiles and aspiring filmmakers as both a curiosity, and as a lesson of what not to do.