Disturbing Behavior

On his first day in Cradle Bay, Steve Clark befriends three outcast students—Gavin Strick, U.V., and Rachel Wagner—and meets school psychologist Dr. Caldicott, who pitches the Blue Ribbons workshop. The town hides a grief-stricken past, as Steve's family has moved after his eldest brother Allen's suicide. Steve remains skeptical about the program but keeps an eye on the new crowd.

The Blue Ribbons make their move to recruit Steve, but Gavin warns that the group is a 'murderous cult' brainwashed by Caldicott. Steve stays wary and keeps his distance from the clique, sensing something is wrong behind the polished image. The tension sets up a theme of control versus independence that threads through the story.

Outside a grocery store, Chug assaults a man after spotting Rachel in a cropped top, leaving the scene with brutal intensity while Officer Cox does nothing. Rachel dismisses it as 'roid rage', but Gavin's photos of former 'burnouts' reprogrammed by the Blue Ribbons keep fueling the conspiracy theory. The incident underscores how violence threads through Cradle Bay's surface calm.

Gavin takes Steve to a hidden school hideout where they eavesdrop on a parents’ meeting led by Caldicott. Gavin reveals his protest of the program by showing Steve a gun he intends to use on potential 'brainwashers', and Steve wrestles it away, calling Gavin paranoid. The event deepens Steve's fear that the Blue Ribbons and their mentor hold dangerous power.

The next day, Gavin returns with a total Blue Ribbon makeover, adopting the clean-cut, confident persona of the group. Steve tries to approach him again, but other Blue Ribbons block him. Gavin delivers the final blow in a beating that marks the group's intimidation and control over their members.

Back at Steve's home, Lorna—another Blue Ribbon member—is in his living room tutoring his younger sister Lindsay. She attempts to seduce Steve, but as she becomes aroused she erupts into violent rage, smashing a wall mirror with her head and attacking Steve with a shard. Steve subdues her, and Lorna snaps out of the episode.

Rachel is cornered by Chug in the school boiler room, and a rat-repelling device begins to emit a high-pitched whine and drives Chug into a frenzy. Rachel escapes as Chug destroys the device. Mr. Newberry, a janitor who befriended Steve, witnesses the incident.

Steve and Rachel visit a nearby mental hospital and learn Gavin's warning: Caldicott implants brain microchips in teenagers with parental approval to reprogram delinquents into model citizens. Hormonal impulses trigger violent fits, and the doctors cannot 'turn off' the hormones. The revelation confirms the breadth of the conspiracy.

Returning home to fetch Lindsay, Steve and Rachel are ambushed by Caldicott and Steve's parents, who intend to enroll Steve in the program. They are incapacitated and wake up inside the programming facility. Steve seizes a scalpel, injures a technician, and escapes with Rachel.

On the way out, Rachel kills Chug with a pipe. U.V. and Lindsay arrive in a truck and the group races toward a ferry, but a roadblock stalls them as Caldicott and the Blue Ribbons close in. Newberry drives up and activates rat-catching devices strapped to his car, scrambling the mind-control tech inside the Blue Ribbons' heads and sending them after him.

Newberry is fatally wounded by a gunshot from Caldicott and drives his car off a cliff, taking many of the Ribbons down with him. The act disrupts the mind-control operation and clears a path for the protagonists to act.

Steve and Caldicott clash in a final struggle, and Steve pushes the doctor off a cliff to end his tyrannical scheme. He reunites with U.V., Lindsay, and Rachel, and the four teens leave Cradle Bay to start a new life elsewhere.

In the final scene at an unnamed high school, a substitute teacher reveals himself as Gavin, alive but still programmed by the Blue Ribbon technology. The moment hints that the cycle could begin again in a new setting.