I am very fearful of today’s punk youths, mostly because they will strangle me with their tight jeans, swollen lip rings and stylishly tousled hair, taking me down without a moment of regret or misunderstood bloodshed. As a matter of fact, their rakish behavior makes one yearn for the semi-tuff kids in 1979’s well-acted, oversexed and non-complex teen drama, Over the Edge.

Besides tucking their shirttails, smoking in designated areas, and knowing the proper word for “urination,” the lower-level, white-trash kids of Edge take down the entire high school system with only some bottle rockets, some dirt bikes and, of course, total pubescent angst.

As the title crawl tells — against some serious power-chord action, natch — kids under 15 are horrible miscreants and this primo story is based on this nonexistent fact. We’re introduced to the suburb of New Grenada and their unofficial teen leader, Richie (Matt Dillon), and his buddy, Carl (Michael Kramer).

They and their friends brag about small-time vandalism, attempted date rapes and other minor crimes, not to mention going to see Kiss in their Dynasty disco era (wowza!) at the well-to-do youth center. For the most part, for youth of the 1970s, they’re pretty civil, a little douchey and most vaguely docile.

But when the community center is temporarily closed by some rootin’-tootin’ Texas land developers, do Richie and the gang try to save it by learning breakdancing? No, they go and tear apart a police car. Eventually, they come across a gun and things really get bad when Richie is shot by the cops. So, of course, Carl and his friends come together to take down not only the cops, but also their parents, teachers and teacher’s pets — the whole damn system, man!

Like The Warriors or Rock ’n’ Roll High School,  Over the Edge is an antisocial wish-fulfillment fantasy directed by Jonathan Kaplan, one of Roger Corman’s enfants terribles. With the total power of hard rock, hard times and hard crime, Kaplan does a commendable job here, with most kids tired of the Afterschool Special themes normally crammed down their throats.

The scenes of Greeley, Colorado — a hop, skip and jump from my former home, Fort Collins — and other nearby locales are pretty staid with washed-out suburban colors, but it beats, say, Los Angeles and other California dreams. Even better, the soundtrack featuring the Ramones, Cheap Trick and early Van Halen — I want my ’70s stereophonic headphones now! Turn it up, man!

Over the Edge is a late ’70s picture of classic teen alienation and vintage youth rebellion, with the teenagers waving their stolen shotguns in a true celebration of fist-pumping uprising and personal dirtball freedom.

So take a swig of this 50/50 as I blow up this car … but, please don’t do any of this if my parents are home! *gulp* —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

When I was a kid and didn’t know any better, I was enthralled with Texas-area, Texas-born wrestlers the Von Erichs and their contribution to the (fake) sport of pro wrestling. Back in the day, you could actually believe in their superheroic leaps and bounds, no matter how trashily presented.

In our small town in Blooming Grove, my father would buy The Dallas Morning News on Sundays, when the sports section had posters on the last page, giving us prime opportunities for experiencing the Saturday night fights, all without pay-per-view. To hell with the WWF!

I had switched to watching Saturday Night Live and its comical ephemera around ’86 or ’87, around the time the brawny Von Erich brothers had some “trouble” in the extreme sense of the word. They and, for the most part, wrestling became a Lone Star-sized blip on the cathode tube, never to be seen again.

Now, some 40 years later, The Iron Claw brings those memories flooding back.

The biopic sets us sometime in the early 1980s, with the thudding boom of the small-time wrestling Von Erich family. The depressive Kevin (a very buff Zac Efron) leads his equally fit brothers to total takedown victories in the ring — only for all it to be taken by cruel fate, which comes for each of them in the saddest way possible.

Besides sparring with the family’s own demons, their dad is former wrester/then-current WCCW owner Fritz (Holt McCallany). Emotionally abusive, he grinds his sons into the dirt, saying their shortcomings are for their “own good.”

While I knew about the Von Erichs’ mythical stories when their dynasty ruled, I wasn’t privy to much of what’s detailed in the film. From drunken amputations to shame-based suicides, it’s a truly sad story that director Sean Durkin peacefully delivers.

As shown in the epilogue, Kevin was able to break through and turn his life around; for that, I am happier. While some people need to know the whole story, warts and all, The Iron Claw does the legend justice. Even better, I don’t need to watch wrestling again to know it. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.