Teaching Mrs. Tingle

Kevin Williamson’s directorial debut, Teaching Mrs. Tingle follows three high schoolers (Katie Holmes’ Leigh Ann, Marisa Coughlan’s Jo Lynn, and Barry Watson’s Luke) as they hold their vindictive history teacher (Helen Mirren’s Eve Tingle) hostage after she catches them with a pilfered copy of an upcoming test. It’s a reasonable premise that’s employed to persistently (and aggressively) underwhelming effect by Williamson, as the first-time filmmaker delivers an often painfully larger-than-life thriller that contains little in the way of compelling, believable characters or scenarios – with, especially, the one-dimensional portrayal of Mirren’s over-the-top title character ranking high on the picture’s list of inept elements. (She is, for the most part, too evil and menacing.) There’s subsequently never a point at which Williamson is able to cultivate an ounce of tension or suspense, and although the writer/director has infused the proceedings with a small handful of relatively compelling sequences (eg Mrs. Tingle lays out the uncomfortable truth to Leigh Ann regarding her life and ambitions), Teaching Mrs. Tingle, which builds towards an almost laughably abrupt climax, ultimately comes off as a complete misfire that’s devoid of the smart writing that defined Williamson’s earlier work.

*1/2 out of ****