Apt Pupil

Apt Pupil is a 1998 American psychological thriller film based on the 1982 novella of the same name by Stephen King. The film was directed by Bryan Singer and stars Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro. Set in the 1980s in southern California, the film tells the story of high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro), who discovers a fugitive Nazi war criminal, Kurt Dussander (McKellen), living in his neighborhood under a pseudonym. Bowden, obsessed with Nazism and the Holocaust, persuades Dussander to share his stories, and their relationship stirs malice in each of them. Singer has called Apt Pupil "a study in cruelty", with Nazism serving as a vehicle to demonstrate the capacity of evil. The film was released in the United States and Canada in October 1998 to mixed reviews and made under $9 million. The main actors won several minor awards for their performances. Plot In Southern California in 1984, 16-year-old high school student Todd Bowden discovers that his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker, is Kurt Dussander—a former Nazi concentration camp commandant who is now a fugitive war criminal. Todd, fascinated with Nazi atrocities perpetrated during World War II, blackmails Dussander, forcing him to share disturbing stories of what it was like working at Nazi extermination camps and how it felt to participate in genocide. Todd purchases an SS uniform from a costume shop and forces Dussander to wear it. As he spends more time with Dussander, his schoolwork suffers, he loses interest in his girlfriend, and he conceals his bad grades from his parents. Dussander begins blackmailing Todd in return, forcing him to work to restore his grades by threatening to expose the subterfuge and his dalliance with Nazism to his parents. Dussander even poses as Todd's grandfather and goes to an appointment with Todd's school counselor Edward French. Talking about the war crimes affects both the old man and the young boy. An intoxicated Dussander tries and fails to kill a cat with his gas oven. Dussander also takes pride in Todd's remarkable turnaround, going from near-dropout to straight As in a matter of weeks.