Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999)

- written November 2005

Summary: Leigh Ann Watson is a student at Grandsboro High and needs an "A" in history would make her valedictorian and let her go to Harvard. When she turns in her history project, she receives a "C" from her teacher, Mrs. Tingle, the meanest teacher at the school. This turn of events gives an opportunity for Marybeth Carter to achieve an "A" and become valedictorian. As Leigh Ann tries to catch up doing extra credit by setting up graduation seating with her best friend, Jo Lynn, the “class failure” Luke Churner, enters with the history class’s final exam cheat sheet. Leigh Ann gets caught with it and Mrs. Tingle threatens to tell the Principal about it and since the result would have been expulsion, the trio of teenagers attempt to regain Leigh Ann's innocence by reasoning with Mrs. Tingle. When their attempt fails, they kidnap Mrs. Tingle and tie her up until they can figure something out. Then...all hell breaks loose.           Overall: Well to start with, the film was originally called "Killing Mrs. Tingle" named after the book. However the events at Columbine High School involving kids killing students and teachers all but ensured this film's title would change. So they released the film soon afterward with this new title...which still was a decent idea. The basic problem to this film is not that the teacher wasn’t mean and evil and deserved to be “taught”...it’s just that you never feel all that bad once the kidnapping starts. I never felt like this was an appropriate solution nor would it work...nor was it all worth this. As the film progresses, you really start to feel bad for the teacher. The film therefore fails in its attempt at either “Black Comedy” or even “horror” (which the trailers tried to make you buy it as) because frankly there aren’t many places that seem funny. The film comes across more of a serious version of “Nine to Five” and that isn’t a good thing.           Comparison: Nine to Five meets Pep Squad

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