Nowadays, parents worry about teens and social media use…back in the late ’70s, adults seemed to think teenagers were about to start a violent revolution and overthrow the world. As proof we have movies like The Warriors, The Wanderers and another film so controversial that movie theaters were afraid it would incite young audience members to violence: Over the Edge.
Released in 1979 and directed by Jonathan Kaplan, Over the Edge starred a cast of adolescent actors recently discovered in New York City schools; most notably, a 14-year-old Matt Dillon in his first role (and the one that would propel him to teen idol status in movies like Tex, Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, all adaptations of S.E. Hinton novels).
For those who haven’t seen it, Over the Edge tells the gritty tale of a bunch of rebellious kids in a Colorado suburb who go, well, over the edge after one of them gets killed by a police officer.
It’s pretty dark (especially the ending), but even more disturbing is the fact that Over the Edge was based on real events, according to Dazed; in fact, the movie announces this right off the bat with titles reading: “In 1978, 110,000 kids under 18 were arrested for crimes of vandalism in the United States. This story is based on true incidents in a planned suburban community…where city planners ignored the fact that a quarter of the population was 15 years old or younger.”
The real town wasn’t in Colorado; it was in California. In a November 1973 article titled “Mousepacks: Kids on a Crime Spree,” the San Francisco Examiner exposed the situation in Foster City, which once had the highest rate of vandalism in the country (per Vice):
“Mousepacks. Gangs of youngsters, some as young as nine, on a rampage through a suburban town. One on a bike pours gasoline from a gallon can and sets it afire. Lead pipe bombs explode in park restrooms. Spray paint and obscenities smear a shopping center wall. Two homes are set ablaze. Antennas by the hundreds are snapped off parked cars in a single night. Liquid cement clogs public sinks and water fountains. Streetlights are snuffed out with BB guns so often they are no longer replaced. It sounds like the scenario for an underage Clockwork Orange, a futuristic nightmare fantasy. But all the incidents are true. They happened in Foster City where pre-teenage gangs—mousepacks—constitute one of the city’s major crime problems.”
(It makes sense that the script was initially called Mousepacks.)
Unfortunately, concerns over rioting teen moviegoers prevented Over the Edge from getting a wide theatrical release. As a result, it wasn’t a huge commercial success, but it was reviewed favorably by The New York Times and Roger Ebert, who called the film “a funeral service held at the graveside of the suburban dream.”
“It tells a ragged story that ends with an improbable climax, but it’s acted so well and truly by its mostly teen-age cast that we somehow feel we’re eavesdropping,” Ebert wrote.
Over the Edge went on to gain a cult status with Gen X viewers in particular, including Kurt Cobain, who included it among his favorite movies.
“That (movie) pretty much defined my whole personality,” Cobain said in the 1993 biography Come as You Are by Michael Azerrad. “It was really cool. Total anarchy.”
Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images
In addition to the palpable teenage angst, another thing that Over the Edge had going for it, as far as Gen X-ers were (and are) concerned, was its hard-rocking soundtrack packed with hits from Cheap Trick, The Cars, Little Feat, Jimi Hendrix, the Ramones and Van Halen.
Eddie Van Halen was another rock star who gave Over the Edge his seal of approval, calling it a “neat movie” in a 1978 interview with Steve Rosen (before the film was released).
“Everyone’s going to relate to that,” Van Halen continued. “It’s high school kids up north in New Granada, some new housing development. They destroy everything, they lock it…they had a PTA meeting, because all the parents were getting together to talk about their problems they were having with all the students and kids destroying the town. And then while all the people were in there, they lock them in, they chain the doors with all the cops inside and stuff. They went out and started smashing the cars and blowing everything up — it was insane…It was supposed to be a true story.”
Looking back on the film in 2009, 30 years after its release, Dillon reflected on the movie’s enduring qualities and the role it played in his own life.
“When I look at that film now, I see myself as a little kid — I was 14,” he said, adding, “Of course, I didn’t think of myself as a kid when it was all happening. I just believed in that film and in my role from the beginning. Maybe I was naïve or whatever, but I always thought there was something great in the movie. It really resonated. I wasn’t a child actor — I didn’t come up that way. If I had gone in and auditioned for a Disney family movie, I wouldn’t have connected with that in any way, shape, or form. But this role came very naturally for me.”
Related: 1987 Cult-Classic Ranked ‘Best Comedy Movie of All Time’ Was Made on a Shoestring
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