Without spoiling anything, I'll note that the story features horrors I've never seen before.
Teacher's Pet
The film opens Friday, February 6, only in movie theaters, via Quiver Distribution.
From its first moments, writer/director Noam Kroll's film is disquieting.
Tight closeups of dead bodies tend to do that. The opening sequence also features a closeup of a white man shaving off facial hair in a bathroom mirror, as well as a long shot of a man crouched down near a dead body.
The next sequence moves to a typical, anonymous high school, located Somewhere in the U.S., where Clara (Michelle Torian) arrives to her classroom just in time to be informed, along with her classmates, that their English teacher has died by his own hand. The school's principal then introduces the same white man -- glimpsed in a mirror previously -- as Mr. Heller (Luke Barnett), who will be taking over the class.
Mr. Heller appears to be rather anonymous himself, with no distinguishing features. His voice is calm, and his teaching style is methodical. In other words, he's just like many high school teachers in the view of their students: BORING!
Except that we've already seen an average white man who looks suspiciously like Mr. Heller in close proximity to a dead white girl. So when he takes a shine to the very bright Clara, who has just been accepted to Yale University, the audience has reason to become anxious.
An above-average student in a school where many of her classmates appear to be economically advantaged but none too bright, Clara certainly stands out, especially as her background and circumstances are revealed. She is living in a foster home with another teenage girl who appears to have mental health issues.
As soon as Clara arrives home, her foster mother Sylvia (Barbara Crampton) asks her to sign a declaration that she will continue living in their home past Clara's 18th birthday, just so Sylvia and her husband Jack can continue to receive a sizable stipend from governmental authorities. Jack is a big brute who quickly threatens Clara if she doesn't sign.
Small wonder, then, that Clara buys drugs from a classmate who is sweet on her and falls prey to the compliments showered upon her by Mr. Heller, to the point that her catty classmates begin treating like a teacher's pet.
Michelle Torian's strong and utterly convincing lead performance builds empathy for Clara, who is treated with sympathy by writer/director Noam Kroll, who also served as his own cinematographer and editor. (Shades of Steven Soderbergh are inevitable.) Clara is not a stereotypical 'good girl': she does drugs, gets a boyfriend, and stands up for herself throughout.
Yet even Clara begins to melt under the increasingly stern and disapproving glare of Mr. Heller in the classroom, as he visits unholy horrors upon her -- not through physical assault, but repeated demands that will feel familiar and terroristic for any writer. (No spoilers! But, yeah, as a writer, I felt her pain.)
Even as Mr. Heller's treatment of Clara slides from congratulatory and upbuilding to something much less pleasant, his behavior outside the classroom and the school is manifested upon other people, mostly strangers, and all hapless, which makes the horror even more deeply felt.
Luke Barnett portrays Mr. Heller as an ordinary-looking fellow who is clearly creepy and a little off, but otherwise doesn't immediately jump out as a greater threat than the average high-school teacher. Sara Tomko (Resident Alien) makes a notable impression as a compassionate school counselor, while the always-welcome Barbara Crampton adds a further compassionate note in her role as a foster mother, who cares about Clara, but is sadly locked into her relationship with the abusive Jack, to her own detriment.
Keeping the kills off-screen may mute Teacher's Pet effectiveness as a horror movie; it's more accurately described as a psychological drama that becomes more intense as it goes. As discreet as it is, though, the concluding scenes reinforce the disquieting tone, and serve as a reminder that some horrors never end.