Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Excellent but underrated film

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This film has a lot to offer in terms of entertainment, mostly, as many have noted, because of the performance of Helen Mirren as Ms Tingle. Her musings on life when abducted, referencing the great literature of the past, are exciting, and informative.Katie Holmes and the other younger performers are all solid as well.Where the film goes wrong is at the end. Perhaps if Ms Tingle HAD killed a student accidentally, then the young abductors would have been let off the hook, but since she did NOT really kill anyone, it seems clear she could've still filed charges against the students for kidnapping, for which there was ample forensic evidence.Still, for the great lines given Helen Mirren, and her interaction with the younger students, in a teaching role, the movie is unique and entertaining.

Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999): Dir: Kevin Williamson / Cast: Helen Mirren, Katie Holmes, Barry Watson, Marisa Coughlan, Jeffrey Tambor: Dreadful horror film meant to represent dislike for unpleasant teachers. What is really being taught here? That revenge and blackmail are humorous comebacks that pays off? Mrs. Tingle is a cruel minded teacher bent on failing students and how she caught the smartest girl in the class with a cheat paper, which was planted on her. Three students travel to her home in hopes of reasoning but it all ends with tingle being tied to a bed in a lame scene involving a crossbow. It is crude, vile and hopelessly dumb. Lame idea brought down by predictable and juvenile storytelling. The concept worked in Nine to Five where three office secretaries kidnap their boss, but that film had wit and characters to root for. Not so in this junk. Kevin Williamson directs as if spoofing from experience. Helen Mirren is much too talented to be playing a woman as unsympathetic as Mrs. Tingle. The roll is about as broad as most slasher film villains. Katie Holmes, Barry Watson and Marisa Coughlan are despicable as the three students who give viewers no reason to believe that they should have ever left grade school let alone graduate. Jeffrey Tambor is a gifted comedian stranded in this cruddy garbage as Coach Richard. Message misfires thanks to complete idiocy. Score: 1 / 10

This is one of those movies you hate to hate, and love to love. Teaching Mrs. Tingle was not the least bit original, but at the same time it was good.Mrs. Tingle is the teacher from hell, she hates her students and her students hate her. She is a nasty, nit-picky teacher who has been doing the same thing for 20 years, and that's destroying people's dreams!After catching Leigh Ann Watson"cheating" off her social studies final (when she was just returning it after a friend stole it) she gives her an atomic F. Leigh Ann and her friends Jo Lynn and Luke go to other house to try and figure things out, but while there all hell breaks loose and it ends up in a hostage situation.I am a huge Kevin Williamson fan, but this movie is just something I can't say that I hate, or like. I give it 6/10 because it's first movie for gods sake, have you seen Scorsse's student films!?

History teacher Mrs Tingle seems to have it in for student Leigh Ann Watson, who has her heart on achieving a writing school scholarship. She receives another low grade from Tingle, which doesn't help. When one of her classmates Luke steals the paper of the final history exams and pops it in her bag, Mrs. Tingle finds it sticking out. She threatens the three that she will go to the principal about it, but he's not available. So before she reports it the next morning. Leigh, her friend Jo Lynn and Scott head to her place that night and try to convince her not tell the principal. However due to Tingle's stubbornness, that find themselves reverting to drastic measures to stop this getting out.Wasn't fan of it when I first saw it, and after another viewing, I'm still not one. Writer Kevin Williamson was on a roll after penning the successful contemporary teen horror films; 'Scream (1996)', 'I Know What You did Last Summer (1997)', 'Scream 2 (1997)' and 'The Faculty (1998)'. He was riding the success (also not to forget the TV show 'Dawson's Creek), but this project would be the final bump. The difference there, compared with this entry was other then writing the screenplay, he was also making his debut in directing. The strange thing though, was that I found his direction to be competently done, but material he stormed up to flavourless and tired. It seemed to get caught in playing both a black comedy and straight-out thriller, without making it gel. The script is cluttered with quick-wit, on-going gags, trivial stretches and gimmicky references towards other films, but the problem is that it's too watered-down with so many contrived developments and sappy moral currents disrupting the flow. The fractured script had to be more strong and potent, since it's a small-scale production that feels like you're watching a stage show because of its mostly confined sets. It tries to play mind games with the characters, but these moments are there to only serve the story's poor progression into a puddle of stupidity and senselessness. The film's ending takes the cake. Williamson's polished direction is sound, but more so in a pedestrian way and therefore it lacks suspense and the pacing even with its taut surroundings can really plod on. You eventually feel it after the halfway mark, and it shows up how minor the story is. The performances are tolerable enough, although if it weren't for Helen Mirren's classy, icy portrayal of manipulative prowess as Mrs. Tingle and a buoyant Marisa Coughlan, we would have been stuck watching a vapid goody-to-shoes Katie Holmes. Barry Watson is modest in his slacker part and Molly Ringwald has a lesser role. The soundtrack packs enough energy, but I found it terribly overwrought and shapeless in its choices.Watchable, but mechanical all round.