Lance Henriksen (billed as Henricksen in the closing credits) plays the head of a prestigious private school that has roughly 7 students, 3 tutors and looks like a deserted office building. The staff are pornography consumers and alcoholics, the cook is mean and surly (hes French, you see) and the damn fool kids have just downloaded Mangler 2.0, a computer virus the web claims will destroy the lives of everyone you know. When Henricksen threatens to cancel the graduation prom following a practical joke, this annoys the kids no end so, taking advice from the Jack Torrance Book Of Extreme Measures, they upload the virus to the schools computer network. This proves to be a bad idea. The school has recently installed an ultra-modern, high-tech security system, complete with electrified fences that could take down a 300lb gorilla, so once infected it goes all HAL 9000 and attempts to murder the students when theyre not skinny dipping or getting high. It also turns Henricksen into a man-machine hybrid whose methods border on sadism instead of torturing people, he sings Wannabe by The Spice Girls. For an uber-villain bent on World Domination, though, Henricksen is shockingly easy to defeat. Pushing him backwards is enough to make him shoot sparks, spit milk and bow his head in surrender.as the actor probably did at the end of each days shooting.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
