School's Out

A substitute teacher is put in charge of a class of future geniuses after their teacher commits suicide. A replacement teacher arrives in a class of elite students after their professor jumps out of the window. He soon notices the strangely violent behavior of this united group of six. Unusually smart and precocious, the teens spread hostility and fear across the school. Soon, the teacher discovers their dark vision of a doomed future and their contempt towards the powerless adults who can no longer protect them. For reasons unknown, the troubled teacher of an experimental, twelve-member group of teenage geniuses commits suicide in front of his entire classroom. A few days later, the long-term, forty-year-old substitute teacher, Pierre Hoffman, takes over for the rest of the school year, and right from the start, he notices a bizarre undercurrent of icy arrogance stemming from precocious Apolline and her small, close-knit clique. Already covering next year's material, and intent on wasting no more time after the incident, Apolline, and her friends, are cutting themselves off from the rest of the school, engaging in activities that resemble the creepy rituals of a sect. But, what lies beneath their strange and hostile behaviour? Is this the result of the shocking death, or is there a dark secret hidden in plain sight waiting to be revealed? —Nick Riganas