#david spader

Atkins' screen time is unfortunately brief, as he meets his untimely demise after the opening sequence via an off-screen car crash. Following the tragic loss of their parents, Loren and Abby are adopted by their Uncle Charlie (Eddie Jones, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) and Aunt Fay (Lucy Martin, The Edge of Night). They move down to Florida to stay with them at Santa's Fun Land, a derelict theme park that Charlie recently purchased with the dream of fixing up and reopening.

Despite quickly hitting it off with the opposite sex - Abby falls for her nerdy but sweet algebra tutor, Mark (Eric Stoltz, Mask), while Loren begins a fling with the local sheriff's daughter, Karen (Paige Price) - the new kids in school are quickly targeted by gang of drug-fueled bumpkin bullies led by the ruthless Eddie Dutra (Spader). Their feuding escalates from verbal abuse to property damage to physical altercations before coming to a head when they drunkenly attempt to rape Abby. While the film’s midsection is a bit slow, the tense final showdown is a battle of brains versus brawn that plays out like Home Alone at an amusement park - but with an actual body count.

The New Kids' biggest flaw is its tone, which is all over the place. Although a few sequences see Cunningham flexing the suspense muscles he built with Friday the 13th, the film only flirts with the horror genre. Written by Stephen Gyllenhaal (Homegrown), who shares a story credit with Brian Taggert (Poltergeist III), the picture is mostly a revenge thriller; but some sequences feel like a lighthearted, '80s romp, while others lean toward melodrama, and it occasionally veers into exploitation territory. Cinematographer Steven Poster (Donnie Darko, Rocky V) and composer Lalo Schifrin’s (Dirty Harry, Enter the Dragon) expertise in their respective fields help to pull it all together.

While neither the concept nor the execution are particularly noteworthy, the cast makes this one memorable. Spader, in an early villainous role, lights up the screen in the manner he has continued to do in the three decades since. Loughlin - now the center of controversy amid the college admission scandal - is charismatic even when she's relegated to being the damsel in distress, and she has good chemistry with both Stoltz and Presby. The latter gave up on acting shortly after the film's release. Atkins is a treat, per usual, chewing the scenery in his limited screen time.

The New Kids is available on Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment. It would have been nice to see any special features, as Cunningham always seems open to discuss his work, but at least it's finally out there to be discovered in crisp high definition. While the disc is bare, it's packaged in a cool slipcover featuring the original VHS artwork. As was often the case in the '80s, the poster includes striking imagery that never appears in the actual movie. In this case, it's people wearing creepy masks; a fitting ploy for the creator of Friday the 13th.