(There are Spoilers) Arriving at Central High to begin classes David, Darrel Maury,is confronted with this gang of bullies, The Young Gestapo,lead by Bruce, Ray Underwood, who terrorize the students at the school.
Mark, Andrew Stevens, a good friend of David's, from a previous high school, and member of "The Young Gestapo" wants him to join them and stuck his neck out to assure Bruce & Co. that he will but David is unmoved and unimpressed and tends to stays by himself.
Keeping a safe distance between himself and the school bullies David for the most part is left alone with his friend Mark being more or less a buffer zone between them. It's when David see's Bruce and his gang grab Jane & Mary (Lani O'Grady & Cheryl Smith) and after dragging the girls into a deserted school room he jumps into action and makes short work of the bullies having them flee with their tails between their legs. Humiliated by the beating that David gave them and feeling that their control of the student body is slipping away the school bullies plan to get even with him but only after they offer David the "privilege" to join their gang and become one of them.
Driving out one evening to the beach Bruce has Mark go out and talk to David about joining but he sees David and his girlfriend Theresa, Kimberly Black, skinny-dipping in the ocean. This has an upset and bitter Mark come back to Bruce and his fellow bullies Craig & Paul, Steve Bond & Damon Douglas, telling them that David refused to take them up on their offer.
Finding David the next day fixing a car Bruce has the lift lowered on David's leg crushing it and leaving him a cripple. Mark who was mad at David for being with Theresa later found out from her that all they did was swim and nothing more, David refused to hurt his friend Mark by sleeping or having sex with Theresa, making Mark feel guilty for what happened to David.
It's then when the movie takes a political and ultra-violent turn with David back in school, after recovering from his leg injury, and slowly and methodically putting away Bruce Craig & Paul. David does this by causing them to fall to their deaths from high places, like the heights of power that they were on. In the end David unknowingly creates a power vacuum that's filled by the very students that the "Young Gestapos" victimized and they turned out to be even worse, and more vicious, then the bullies that they replaced.
Not your average teenager movie or a rip-off of "Rebel Without a Cause" "Massacre at Central High" shows what the saying "Power Corrupts" really means and uses the setting of students in a high school, not dictators or leader of nations, as the metaphor.
David sees that he personally created a monster by ridding the school of Bruce's gang of bullies and thus slowly and quietly goes insane because of it. The only way David can make things right again is to the destroy the very system that he created, the new students bullies, and goes about it with even more determination and ferocity that he did against Bruce's "Young Gestapo".
You know right away in the movie that this is not about teenagers in high school or another "Happy Days" like sitcom when you notice almost at once there's no teachers and adults in the cast except for the Alumni Ball at the end of the film.
David's plans to blow Central High up with everyone there including Theresa, who he's in love with, who's the only person in the world who can stop David from doing it. Can in this situation Love overcome the hatred that David has for the new order that he created? Or has David's hatred of the monster he spawned by now gotten so far out of hand that even Theresa's death isn't enough to make David change his evil sick and destructive plan!
Mark, Andrew Stevens, a good friend of David's, from a previous high school, and member of "The Young Gestapo" wants him to join them and stuck his neck out to assure Bruce & Co. that he will but David is unmoved and unimpressed and tends to stays by himself.
Keeping a safe distance between himself and the school bullies David for the most part is left alone with his friend Mark being more or less a buffer zone between them. It's when David see's Bruce and his gang grab Jane & Mary (Lani O'Grady & Cheryl Smith) and after dragging the girls into a deserted school room he jumps into action and makes short work of the bullies having them flee with their tails between their legs. Humiliated by the beating that David gave them and feeling that their control of the student body is slipping away the school bullies plan to get even with him but only after they offer David the "privilege" to join their gang and become one of them.
Driving out one evening to the beach Bruce has Mark go out and talk to David about joining but he sees David and his girlfriend Theresa, Kimberly Black, skinny-dipping in the ocean. This has an upset and bitter Mark come back to Bruce and his fellow bullies Craig & Paul, Steve Bond & Damon Douglas, telling them that David refused to take them up on their offer.
Finding David the next day fixing a car Bruce has the lift lowered on David's leg crushing it and leaving him a cripple. Mark who was mad at David for being with Theresa later found out from her that all they did was swim and nothing more, David refused to hurt his friend Mark by sleeping or having sex with Theresa, making Mark feel guilty for what happened to David.
It's then when the movie takes a political and ultra-violent turn with David back in school, after recovering from his leg injury, and slowly and methodically putting away Bruce Craig & Paul. David does this by causing them to fall to their deaths from high places, like the heights of power that they were on. In the end David unknowingly creates a power vacuum that's filled by the very students that the "Young Gestapos" victimized and they turned out to be even worse, and more vicious, then the bullies that they replaced.
Not your average teenager movie or a rip-off of "Rebel Without a Cause" "Massacre at Central High" shows what the saying "Power Corrupts" really means and uses the setting of students in a high school, not dictators or leader of nations, as the metaphor.
David sees that he personally created a monster by ridding the school of Bruce's gang of bullies and thus slowly and quietly goes insane because of it. The only way David can make things right again is to the destroy the very system that he created, the new students bullies, and goes about it with even more determination and ferocity that he did against Bruce's "Young Gestapo".
You know right away in the movie that this is not about teenagers in high school or another "Happy Days" like sitcom when you notice almost at once there's no teachers and adults in the cast except for the Alumni Ball at the end of the film.
David's plans to blow Central High up with everyone there including Theresa, who he's in love with, who's the only person in the world who can stop David from doing it. Can in this situation Love overcome the hatred that David has for the new order that he created? Or has David's hatred of the monster he spawned by now gotten so far out of hand that even Theresa's death isn't enough to make David change his evil sick and destructive plan!