The Chumscrubber

The Chumscrubber
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Arie Posin
Produced by	Lawrence Bender Bonnie Curtis
Screenplay by	Zac Stanford
Story by	Arie Posin Zac Stanford
Starring	See cast
Music by	James Horner
Cinematography	Lawrence Sher
Edited by	Arthur Schmidt
Production company	Newmarket Films Equity Pictures Lawrence Bender Productions
Distributed by	Go Fish Pictures (through DreamWorks)
Release date	August 26, 2005 (2005-08-26)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United States Germany
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$351,401

The Chumscrubber is a 2005 American-German comedy-drama film, directed by Arie Posin, starring an ensemble cast led by Jamie Bell. The plot, written by Posin and Zac Stanford, focuses on the chain of events that follow the suicide of a teenage drug dealer in an idealistic but superficial town. Some of the themes addressed in the film are the lack of communication between teenagers and their parents and the inauthenticity of suburbia. The titular Chumscrubber is a character in a fictional video game that represents the town and its inhabitants.

Posin and Stanford had originally planned to shoot the film using their own funds, but they sent the script to producers Lawrence Bender and Bonnie Curtis who agreed to produce the film and help to raise the budget. Bell was cast in the lead role after an extensive auditioning process, and the film was shot in various California locations over 30 days in April 2004.

The Chumscrubber premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2005 and was released theatrically on August 26, 2005. An accompanying soundtrack, composed mostly by James Horner, was released on October 18, 2005. The film was both a critical and commercial failure, receiving mostly negative reviews and earning back only US$350,000 of its $10 million budget.

Troy Johnson (Josh Janowicz), the supplier of prescription drugs to fellow high school students in the fictional southern California town of Hillside, commits suicide. Troy's best friend Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell), is prescribed more antidepressants by his psychiatrist father Bill (William Fichtner) after discovering the body. When Dean returns to school, he is antagonized by drug dealers Billy (Justin Chatwin) and Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci), who were supplied by Troy. Their friend, Crystal Falls (Camilla Belle), flirts with Dean, but he soon realizes that her true intentions are for Dean to retrieve the remaining drugs in Troy's home and refuses to cooperate. To force Dean to procure the drugs, Billy and Lee plan to kidnap Dean's brother, Charlie (Rory Culkin), as a ransom, but they end up kidnapping another boy named Charlie Bratley (Thomas Curtis) instead.