Taglines: Talk Hard. Steal the Air.
Pump Up the Volume movie storyline. Mark is an intelligent but shy teenager who has just moved to Arizona from the East Coast. His parents give him a short-wave radio so he can talk to his pals, but instead he sets up shop as pirate deejay Hard Harry, who becomes a hero to his peers while inspiring the wrath of the local high school principal. When one of Harry’s listeners commits suicide and Harry- inspired chaos breaks out at the school, the authorities are called in to put a stop to Harry’s broadcasts.
Pump Up the Volume is a 1990 comedy-drama film written and directed by Allan Moyle and starring Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Annie Ross, Andy Romano, Scott Paulin, Mimi Kennedy, Billy Morrissette, Anthony Lucero, Ellen Greene and Lala Sloatman.
The movie won the Golden Space Needle Award at the Seattle International Film Festival, beating out the festival favorite, Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal. Reportedly, some audience members booed when the film was named the winner. Moyle’s film also won the Audience Award at the Deauville Film Festival.
About the Story
Mark Hunter (Slater), a high school student in a sleepy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, starts an FM pirate radio station that broadcasts from the basement of his parents’ house. Mark is a loner, an outsider, whose only outlet for his teenage angst and aggression is his unauthorized radio station.
His pirate station’s theme song is “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen and there are glimpses of cassettes by such alternative musicians as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Camper Van Beethoven, Primal Scream, Soundgarden, Ice-T, Bad Brains, Concrete Blonde, Henry Rollins, and The Pixies. By day, Mark is seen as a loner, hardly talking to anyone around him; by night, he expresses his outsider views about what is wrong with American society. When he speaks his mind about what is going on at his school and in the community, more and more of his fellow students tune in to hear his show.
Nobody knows the true identity of “Hard Harry” or “Happy Harry Hard-on,” as Mark refers to himself, until Nora Diniro (Mathis), a fellow student, tracks him down and confronts him the day after a student named Malcolm commits suicide after Harry attempts to reason with him.
The radio show becomes increasingly popular and influential after Harry confronts the suicide head-on, exhorting his listeners to do something about their problems instead of surrendering to them through suicide—at the crescendo of his yelled speech, an overachieving student named Paige Woodward (who has been a constant listener) jams her various medals and accolades into a microwave and turns it on. She then sits, watching the awards cook until the microwave explodes, injuring her. While this is happening, other students act out in cathartic release.
Eventually, the radio show causes so much trouble in the community that the FCC is called in to investigate. During the fracas, it is revealed that the school’s principal (Annie Ross) has been expelling “problem students,” namely, students with below-average standardized test scores, in an effort to boost the district’s test scores while still keeping their names on the rolls (a criminal offense) in order to retain government funding.
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
Directed by: Allan Moyle
Starring: Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Annie Ross, Andy Romano, Scott Paulin, Mimi Kennedy, Billy Morrissette, Anthony Lucero, Ellen Greene, Lala Sloatman
Screenplay by: Allan Moyle
Production Design by: Robb Wilson King
Cinematography by: Walt Lloyd
Film Editing by: Larry Bock, Janice Hampton
Costume Design by: Michael Abbott
Set Decoration by: Tina Treglia
Music by: Cliff Martinez
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: August 22, 1990
Hits: 107
