Strange Behavior

Strange Behavior is a horror and science fiction mystery set in a small Illinois town where teenagers are being killed. John Brady, the local police chief and the father of a high school student, suspects a link between the deaths and secret experiments conducted at a nearby university. His investigation draws him toward a psychiatric institute where volunteers take part in tests that appear harmless, and where he believes a scientist may be connected both to the killings and to the death of his own wife.

The film was directed by Michael Laughlin, who wrote the screenplay with Bill Condon. It was produced by John Barnett and Antony I. Ginnane, with a cast led by Michael Murphy as John Brady, Louise Fletcher as Barbara Moorehead, Dan Shor as Pete Brady, Fiona Lewis as Gwen Parkinson, Arthur Dignam as Dr. Le Sange and Dey Young as Caroline. It runs 99 minutes.

Released in October 1981, the film drew a modest response. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.6 from around 2,700 votes, and on TMDB 5.5 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 6.1 from ten reviews places it slightly above those audience scores. Decades later it remains a minor entry in early 1980s horror, remembered chiefly for its mix of small-town murder mystery and laboratory science fiction.