Wonderfully camptastic, but with a good message. Bruce Davison is GREAT.
I can't help but think that the young reactionaries of the early Reagan era got a thrill out of watching a then-modern high school go Nazi. Just stop watching in the last 5 minutes and write your own fanfic Holocaust.
Here's part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXi71XBdh1o
I haven't watched this again, but I remember from when I was a kid, that good character, in a uniform, bawling at the end of the movie when he realizes he's become a fascist dupe.
That's the part I remember the most clearly. He needed something to believe in more than anyone and when he finds out what's going on it just destroys him. This is one of the best subversive films ever made for a teenage audience.
I'm guessing they had to condense a lot to fit in the TV movie time limit. My favorite is one kid yelling out of nowhere, "Everyone wear blue shirts!" and then magically having hundreds of pairs with matching armbands in time for the rally later that day. It's like watching a Simpsons episode where the town turns into an angry mob at the drop of a hat.
The best is the class goob finding direction in his life. I want to see the sequel The Second Wave where he takes 6th graders and storm a government building...