That's a question posed by the new horror film Disturbing Behavior, which fitfully offers clever satire on the teen caste system and on adults' concern that their kids are hanging with "the wrong crowd." James Marsden stars as Steve, a sullen high-schooler whose family moves to the idyllic island village of Cradle Bay. On his first day at Cradle Bay High, he meets Gavin (Nick Stahl), a pot-smoking underachiever with a gift for dissecting the school's many cliques. Gavin points out the skaters, the auto-shoppers, and the geeks; above all, he warns Steve away from "the blue ribbons," a clean-cut band of letter-sweater community activists who appear to represent some twisted memory of a '50s that never was.

Which, of course, they do. As it happens, the Blue Ribbons are victims of a perverse mind-control experiment, wherein the seemingly benign Dr. Caldicott (Bruce Greenwood) has, at their parents' request, placed a chip in the teens' brains that channels all of their hormonal energy into athletics, studying, and bake sales. But if the chip goes haywire (as it does whenever the kids get horny; which is to say, frequently), the "perfect kids" turn into adrenaline-fueled, skull-crushing maniacs.

Disturbing Behavior is a horror film of ideas, like Dawn of the Dead, The Stepford Wives, or all three adaptations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Although it is nowhere near as good as any of those predecessors, director David Nutter and screenwriter Scott Rosenberg deserve credit for avoiding the temptation to grind out a quickie teen-slasher flick. They should also be praised for finding Nick Stahl, a quirky young actor whose sardonic commentary in the film's early scenes never fails to amuse.

Unfortunately, after a half-hour or so, the film's focus shifts back to our hero Steve, who as played by the blandly handsome Marsden never seems unique enough to worry about. Making matters worse, he's paired up with a mumbly punk girl (Katie Holmes, from Dawson's Creek), who seems to have no personality to modify. Between their absent charisma, and Nutter's inability to work up a good shock scene, Disturbing Behavior collapses into tedium during the homestretch.

The real problem, though, is that Nutter and Rosenberg's welcome commentary on the cult of child therapy never develops any real teeth. We never get into the mind-set of parents who long for the sort of ideal family that they've seen on TV. Meanwhile, Caldicott is so obviously evil, and the Blue Ribbons are so blatantly cranked, that the film never approaches that creepy edge of reality that makes other "idea-based" horror films so unnerving. Which begs the question is there a program for films that aren't as good as they should be?