by Frank Calvillo
Box Office Alternative Column
Box Office Alternative is a weekly look into additional/optional choices to the big-budget spectacle opening up at your local movie theater every Friday. Oftentimes, titles will consist of little-known or underappreciated work from the same actor/writer/director/producer of said new release, while at other times, the selection for the week just happens to touch upon the same subject in a unique way. Above all, this is a place to revisit and/or discover forgotten cinematic gems of all kinds.
Time to tune in once again for the continuing saga of the X-Men. Those delightful bunch of mutants are back in full force for X-Men: Apocalypse. Bryan Singer returns to the directing chair for his fourth outing with the unstoppable series, which has seen a definite rejuvenation as of late since making a foray into prequel territory.
While I’ve always liked what Singer has done with the X-Men property, I’ve yet to find a single effort by the director which comes close to equaling the chilling power of his 1998 offering Apt Pupil.
Based on a novella by Stephen King, Apt Pupil sees Singer directing this dark tale of a 1980s Southern California teenager named Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro). After a school project leaves Todd enamored with the holocaust and Nazi Germany in general, he is shocked, and somewhat delighted, to discover that one of his next-door neighbors is actually a former Nazi officer named Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellan). Rather than turn this information over to the authorities, Todd blackmails his neighbor into telling him stories of past deeds and actions he committed during the war. However it isn’t long before things begin to get out of control as Todd discovers what true evil really is.
The most compelling factor about Apt Pupil is the exploration of how innocent curiosity can transform itself into something far more greater than anticipated. For Todd, his exploration into the world of Nazi Germany isn’t troubling initially, because that’s not the kind of person he believes himself to be. However, when faced with an actual living illustration of what wasn’t part of his reality before, obsession begins to take over him until he is unrecognizable to himself. The irony of it all is watching Todd believe he actually has control over his actions. Tormenting animals and threatening counselors are acts which feed and enliven Todd in what can easily be seen as a one of the darkest coming-of-age stories ever put to film.
While the story is told more or less from Todd’s point of view, it should also be known that watching the transformation of the elderly Mr. Dussander provides its own level of chills. As a retiree living anonymously, Dussander feels that he has successfully outrun his past. With the appearance of Todd and his information, things quickly change. Revisiting the world he left behind awakens something in him, which he is unable to shake as Dussander finds himself becoming more and more menacing, his human darkness resurrected and slowly creeping back in. When it does, Apt Pupil becomes a hypnotic cat and mouse tale against two distinct and powerful forms of evil.
Many may argue the claim, but I don’t think that Renfro and McKellan ever found two better roles than they did with Apt Pupil. Both actors wonderfully feed off of each other’s unique styles, resulting in some fascinating on-screen chemistry. The majority of the scenes in Apt Pupil rely on just the two of them and the pair do not disappoint, working harmoniously to create some of the most morbidly intriguing scenes between two people in any King adaptation to date.
Released in the fall of 1998, the film was more or less lambasted by critics who, while praising the lead performances, cited a deep uncomfortableness with the film’s darker themes. If the critics weren’t going to be behind Apt Pupil, neither were the audiences, who stayed away in droves, making the film a critical and commercial flop.
There was originally to be an earlier version of Apt Pupil which had begun production the decade before and starred Rick Schroeder in the lead role. The film was halted due to lack of funding, despite a good portion of footage having already been completed. I often wonder what that version may have been like, but then in a way I’m happy that the film doesn’t exist. For me, Singer’s movie is the definitive execution of King’s vision. No other film can come close to brilliantly tracing the path from innocent curiosity to unstoppable evil quite like Apt Pupil.
