Customer Reviews

Malibu High (1979) / Trip With The Teacher

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Another exploitation double feature disc emulating the formula of the 2007 film, "Grindhouse", which featured two simulated 70's-era low rent thrillers (contributed by Robert Rodiguez and Quentin Tarantino), along with simulated trailers and concession-stand ads from the same era. Here, though, you get two actual low-rent, 70's-era epics featuring babes, guns, and some nasty violence. "What?" you say. "The cover of the DVD makes it look like you get lots of sexy fun. Where do the guns and violence come in?"

Well, that's the fun of these independent thrillers from a bygone era, an era when independent fare 90% consisted of sleazy gems like these, not the latest Jane Austen adaptation. And added fun always came from the fact that, regardless of the poster art, you never knew what you were actually going to get from these unpredictable movies. So, what are you getting from "Malibu High" and "Trip With the Teacher"? Glad you asked...

"Malibu High" delivers the nudity and high school hijinks promised in the poster... at first. But then it slowly goes off on a kind of descent-into-crime-and-madness riff where the central teen-age girl character, in an effort to gain independence from her nagging mother, becomes a prostitute (first small time, then as a busy, going concern), then- I kid you not- a cold-blooded hit woman working for a mob kingpin.

Oh, yes, during all of this the girl is still concerned about getting good grades, so she bribes her teachers with sexy fun at the local lovers' lane in return for A's. So, yes, the producers do drift back from time to time to the sexy exploitation theme promised on the poster, but it's soon back to assassinations in parking garages and rich guys' mansions.

While many "grindhouse" movies are unfairly lumped into the "so bad it's good" category, this one probably rightfully belongs in that particular bin. But it's definitely worth a look, preferably with a group of friends and a case of beer.

"Trip with the Teacher" doesn't want to distract you with a complicated plot, so it simply employs that old stand-by, "teens on a field trip get terrorized by crazed motorcycle thugs", and uses the rest of its energy to come up with particularly brutal ways for the thugs to terrorize the girls. Though the poster art indeed suggests that there's some kind of menace in the film and not just naked girls, it really doesn't prepare you for the unsavory deaths in store for several of the characters, and not just the girls. Yes, these thugs are mean to everybody, so it would be unfair to hit this creepy little epic with a lot of "another movie that hates women" reviews.

Things are lightened up a bit by a "good" motorcycle guy who comes to the girls' aid, but it's still all rather unpleasant. In the end, though, I have to concede that "Trip with the Teacher" is ultimately an edgy, and (unlike the earlier film) not at all ridiculous example of the grindhouse form. And since you all want to know this: Yes, there's a fair amount of nudity, but none of it is really fun to watch, due to the violent context in which most of the nudity takes place.

Extras include trailers for something called "The Stepmother", offering more thriller/exploitation fun, as mom gets it on with everyone but her husband; and "Weekend with the Babysitter", a silly movie that examines the "relevant" issue of white-haired, late middle-aged married guys suddenly taking up with their teen-age babysitters and their "now generation" friends. This trailer appears on at least one other "Welcome to the Grindhouse" double-feature DVD, but it never gets old. The disc features one or two other trailers from the 70's, but those were the best ones.

The prints used for the main features are generally fine, but both show some wear and tear. But you're not supposed to let that bother you, as scratchy prints and even the occasional missing reel were supposed to be part of the classic grindhouse experience.

In the end, I'd say that "Malibu High" is about 80% worth seeing because it's "so bad it's good" and 20% worth seeing because it's genuinely sort of interesting. "Trip with the Teacher" reverses things: it's 80% actually involving (but only if you can tolerate violent exploitation fare) and 20% fun-to-laugh-at badness.

With that said, if any of this sounds at all interesting to you, go pick this DVD up and see for yourself how you'll respond. After all, what's to lose considering the dirt-cheap price?

Feature #1:
Let me start off by saying that this movie is really bad - the acting, the sound, the directing, the plot... Everything was just so bad - but in the end I cleared off a little room in my heart just for it.

Malibu High was about Kim and how she seemed to think that she was getting a raw deal. She got a raw deal with her boyfriend who hooked up with someone else - she got a raw deal at school when she was about to flunk out - she got a raw deal with her pimp when he kept her at a 60/40 cut - she got a raw deal with life. So, what does she do? She lets down her hair - and her shirt - and sleeps her way out of all her problems.

What I loved about this movie was that she created all her own problems and blamed it on the world. What I also loved about this movie was the sheer 70's cheesiness. The movie glorifies her achievements as a prostitute making all the perks of becoming a prostitute - the fancy cars - the 70's style - and the hairy men - seem amazing without casting any shame on her (which usually makes for the best kind of exploitation flick). Of course since she goes down this dark path of prostitution - she also becomes the #1 hit-woman in town - killing everyone from Tony to Mr. Elmhurst (and you'll love the way she kills the principal). Also, the music is something to behold - a little musical interlude that sounds like Pac-Man dying was the "oh snap" of it's time - and the chase music at the end which is the People's Court theme!

This movie was highly entertaining - but chalk full of nudity - no one under 18 should be admitted!

Feature #2:
Trip with Teacher was a whole different ballgame - I found it to be entertaining in a different way than Malibu High. I almost took it as a serious movie - something that Hollywood should remake instead of remaking proven commodities - simply because there was `something' to the story. I use the qualifier `almost' because the movie was in no speck of the imagination a good movie - but the story was far more interesting.

The movie is about a bus of 5 girls who go off for a summer camping trip - the `Teacher' that the title refers to isn't as much of a teacher as she is the acting guardian. They run into 3 bikers - one crazy guy, one follower guy and one nice guy. They all seem to get along with one of the bikers - but not the other two (I forget which one though). When their bus breaks down and the bikers are there to "help" - they tow the bus deeper into the desert and then the trouble begins.

What I liked about this movie was that there was some pretty good suspense - not great - but good for a b-movie. The acting was terrible by several of the girls as well as the evil biker dudes - but some of them actually had some decent moments. What cracked me up about the movie was the girls break-a-way clothing - one quick tug and the evil biker guy could strip a girl bare. What I also like about this movie was they color coded the girls so I couldn't get confused - there was the green girl - the blue girl - the yellow and white girl - and the all yellow girl. It's so easy when you don't care about the characters to forget who died - but this movie makes it easy! One thing I really disliked about this movie was the sound transfer as it buzzed quite a bit - but it did add to the whole watching a crappy movie experience.

This movie also features some rape scenes that may be too strong for some - but if you can stomach that - it's not a horrid bad movie - it's just regular strength bad.

As part of the whole Grindhouse package you are treated to 2 previews in front of each film when you select the `experience' option. The previews are of `The Stepmother', `The Teacher', `The Virgin Witch' and `The Babysitter' - I hope from the titles you would be able to figure out what these movies are about. If not - they are about naked women running around not acting the way they probably should if they were indeed a teacher, stepmother, babysitter or virgin witch (though I've never met a virgin witch - I would have to assume that since she kept her virginity - that they wouldn't be running around naked in public).

I highly recommend this DVD for anyone who enjoys bad movies - as they are both fun movies to watch and you will get plenty of laughs from them both.

Can someone please tell me why I like these movies? I should hate everything about them: Bad Quality, Horrible Acting, Random Porn Shots, etc... What am I saying? I love everything about these movies, especially the random porn shots!

Listen, these movies are very funny! They are so cheesy that you can't help but watch. If you are looking for a good party movie, put this one in the DVD player and enjoy!

This is a cheesy twofer that is so bad it will make you groan. I gave it two stars strictly for the camp value found on the disc, not due to any inherent redeeming qualities the movies have. The films are both idiotic, implausible, horribly acted, and full of plot holes: you have been warned.

"Trip With The Teacher" is a typical schoolgirls-in-peril-from-bikers film. A couple of mean bikers and one nice biker meet up with the girls on their geology field trip (yeah, right) first at a gas station, and later when their bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere. The most evil biker, Al, who looks like Bono in Liz Taylor sunglasses, is a murderous thug with unwholesome intentions. As soon as the bus breaks down a catfight immediately erupts, halted only by the arrival of the dangerous bikers. The bikers tow the bus full of willing victims to a deserted cabin, where they quickly dispatch the bus driver, and quickly raise a question: did anyone even consider killing the bikers when their clothes were off and they didn't have access to their weapons? The good biker decides to become a hero and get help (who bothers to carefully don and adjust their helmet when running for their life in a bike chase?) While the boys are out dueling in the desert there are long, painful passages of staring at each other, which does nothing to further the plot, but pads the running time immensely. Then one of the most annoying actresses in screen history is dispatched to run and get help, but whines and snivels about how she is scared for what seems like hours: I was actually pulling for the biker in this instance. The ending requires quite a suspension of disbelief and concludes with smiles all around, except on the audience's face. This is a truly awful film, but as bad as it is can easily be topped by "Malibu High".

In "Malibu High" Kim is a lazy, homely, stoner, drunk high school senior working her way through her teachers to get A's to enable her to graduate. The skank is trying to forget her high school sweetheart, Kevin, who is now dating a rich brat. I will particularly warn you about the high school disco scene, which requires a very high pain threshold to get through, and which does not go the way Kim intends. After the disco she gets the idea to use her wily feminine charms to seduce her male teachers to enable her to graduate. I will tell you that if you are expecting this to be erotic in the slightest, you will be gravely disappointed. Through her serial seductions, she turns pro, and then becomes an assassin for hire as well. This is perhaps one of the least plausible life-of-crime conversions in film history, and you will be especially entertained by the way she bumps her principal off. Eventually she is assigned on orders "from Chicago" to kill the father of Kevin's new girlfriend (how's that for justice?), and is assured by her handler "There's absolutely nothing that can go wrong!" Needless to say, he's horribly incorrect, and the hit turns into a disaster (although there is some elimination of annoying characters). The film concludes with a run down a beach and is very reminiscent of the conclusion in "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies", although without the deft directorial or acting skills of the Ray Dennis Steckler classic.

This is a set that is representative of 1970's exploitation cinema. View it as a historical document or for its generous camp value if you will, but don't for a second think it'll be good.

If you're looking for good movies, go elsewhere. If you're looking for a great recreation of the "grindhouse" experience, then look no further.

"Malibu High" is deliciously bad, with just the right amount of corniness and kookyness that it will instantly become a guilty pleasure.

"Trip with the Teacher" fails where "Malibu High" succeeds. It is almost a good movie, meaning that with a little tweaking it could have been a solid idea for a mainstream hit. It was too bad to be good, and too good to have the cult level of goodness that "Malibu High" has.

The trailers are great, (most notably, "The Stepmother") and all in all this DVD set makes for a great experience. Skip it though if you're looking for an Oscar winning masterpiece. You're buying the experience here, not the movies.

After viewing both of these movies I feel that they could have been better. 'Trip With Teacher' was a better movie than 'Malibu High' possibly because I enjoyed it more. At any rate, they were both about what I expected them to be.

The WELCOME TO THE GRINDHOUSE series pays tribute to the exploitation classics that served as inspiration for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's 2007 homage. This program presents a grindhouse double feature: in Malibu high Kim, an ambitious and lovely coed, sets off on the road to ruin by instigating extracurricular liaisons with her teachers. Soon thereafter, she advances her knowledge of vice by becoming a teen hitwoman for a notorious Mafioso; and in Trip with The teacher two misogynist bikers ambush a group of attractive female students and their female teacher.

both movies on this disk are rubbish. Poor quality transfer, poor quality sound, poor quality acting, script, etc.

Plenty of fun teen-trash exploitation is to be had in this fine Crown International Pictures double-feature. Read on, 70s shlock fans...

TRIP WITH THE TEACHER (1975, directed by Earl Barton)
Zalman King is known today, if he's known at all, as the purveyor (producer-writer-director) of sleazy softcore smut like RED SHOE DIARIES - in the early-mid 90s a "Zalman King" film definitely had some meaning in the straight-to-video market, I can tell you.

But in the 70s, Zalman King was a struggling actor doing guest shots on network TV series, and appearing in cheesy low-budget exploitation films like Trip With Teacher. Here he's Al, very tall and hook-nosed but otherwise a near dead-ringer for Bono (well, for Bono 15 years later), a creepy and mentally deranged biker who with his more sane but no less unpleasant brother Pete (Robert Porter) is stuck by the side of the road at the beginning of the flick. The brothers have bike problems, but they're soon bailed out by nice-guy motorcyclist Jay (Robert Gribbin) who gets Pete's bike going well enough to get them to the next service station.

Along the way the three bikers come upon a school bus with several young women - coy waving and less-coy glances from the 2 brothers for a bit, then all stop at the gas station. I think you might be able to guess where this is headed....if it were made 10-15 years later you'd expect a bloody horror film, but back in these pre-Friday the 13th and Halloween days it's just going to be the two creepy guys trying to have their way with the cute girls and get rid of nice-guy Jay and bus driver Marvin (Jack Driscoll). It's all rather long and tedious - bus breaks down, bikers tow it to near a deserted shack, get rid of driver, seemingly get rid of Jay....and all fairly stupid and silly (how dumb are the girls, Jay and the driver that they don't see that the brothers are sickos? and sickos without any weapons apart from one switchblade...but overpowering them would have been too easy and we wouldn't have a movie and an excuse for some nude scenes) until the kind of cool ending as Jay comes back seemingly from the dead and shows that he's a Real Man after all.

All in all, to judge as "objectively" as possible, one of the weakest Crown International pics I've seen so far, but worth it for the cool ending and for King's deranged and freaky portrayal of Al, with one of the creepiest snickering laughs I've ever heard. Richard Widmark, eat your heart out.

MALIBU HIGH (1979, directed by Irwin Berwick)
I'm not sure who posed as the sexy topless babe for the poster reproduced on this DVD boxcover, but it sure wasn't lead actress Jill Lansing - in her only film role - who at best looks moderately cute, and definitely a few years too old for high school, and at worst looks like she's ready to start taking Joan Crawford parts. She's definitely the most memorable element in this sleazy, very much over-the-top sexploitation-crime film - though not necessarily in a good way.

Lansing plays Kim Bentley, a bored high school senior on the verge of flunking out of school, because she just doesn't care. Her mother is annoyed with her but also doesn't seem to know how to help, apart from yelling a lot and obsessively cleaning things, and her best friend Lucie (Katie Johnson) also can't get through to her. Kim smokes, bitches about how her boyfriend Kevin has dumped her for the rich girl Annette, and thinks more about drinking, dope, and sex than anything else. Finally after a boring night when she and Lucy leave a party early, dateless, and end up smoking pot at Lucy's parents' house, she decides she's had enough, and next morning decides to get good grades and make something of herself with the only tool she has - her body.

Yup, it's high-school-hooker time, and from here on Kim starts dressing provocatively (which just SHOCKS everyone - really? in 1979?), seducing teachers and ensuring As, and turning tricks for the local pimp Tony (Alex Mann) in his white conversion van/pimpmobile. Soon she's bought herself a small convertible - but ex-boyfriend Kevin still doesn't notice her, and even punching out his girlfriend (with perhaps the worst fake punch I've ever seen in any film) doesn't seem to do the trick. And she's tired of getting the short end of the stick, so Kim moves on to bigger things, and a bigger pimp named Lance, for whom she falls into being an assassin in addition to her prostitutional duties, after an icepick stabbing of a violent client. Soon she's got a black Jag identical to her rival Annette's, and she's moving out of her mom's house and planning a trip to Tahiti with Lance (who, by the way, is very, very hairy, something we get to see more than once). And she's loving every minute of it, including the killing of her old boss Tony - and her assignment eventually to rub out enemy Annette's bigwig father.

MALIBU HIGH has an awesome enough plot alone to make it an exploitation classic, but it's really the acting that takes this puppy to extraordinary heights - or depths, depending on how you think of it. I don't think there's a single performance in the film that rises to the level of "adequate", with lead actress Lansing (hmmm, why did she never get another role?), mother Phyllis Benson, and teacher John Harmon probably treading farthest from what we commonly think of as "thespians". Nearly all of the line readings sound and feel just-memorized, most of the emotional content of scenes seems to be misunderstood, and the many scenes that call for intense outbursts are almost always ludicrously overplayed - except when they're seriously underplayed. And it also beggars belief, frankly, that Kim would be so "hot" that she literally can get any teacher - any guy in the film, basically - to drop everything to have her with the flip of her curls; it would beggar belief even if an actress much, much hotter than Ms. Lansing were playing the part, but as it is nearly every other female high school student who has a line in the film is much fitter and prettier. Not that she's ugly - just somebody who probably wouldn't actually get noticed much in a California high school full of rich girls. Add to this the mediocre to poor lighting (usually overexposed outside and underexposed inside - you can see what's going on, but it's usually not pretty) and camerawork which is just this side of competent, and you've got a film that kept me wondering over and over, really, how did this get made, and did anybody at all take a look at it before it got publicly screened?

Other fun touches worth mentioning include the dark wood panelling that seems to be in just about every interior - including the principal's office in the school, which looks designed by the same people that built Lance's pad and Kim's mother's house - and the cheesy music which seems to run the gamut of 70s low-rent styles, from soft and vaguely hippie-folk to quasi-funk stuff you'd expect to hear in a blaxploitation flick. And check out in particular the driving fuzz-driven theme that accompanies the final chase scene - if you grew up in the late 70s or early 80s and watched any after-school TV, you'll know it for sure. I'll leave it as a surprise...

By any rational measure then, MALIBU HIGH comes up short. It's easily the most incompetently made and flat-out stupidest film from Crown International that I've seen yet, and offers no real entertainment value except as a camp bad movie. But that, it offers in spades.

my husband, who back in the 70s did some modeling and was in ONE movie, Malibu High, just told me about being in this and I laughed thinking we'd never find the movie..was I wrong... He plays the paperboy in the opening scene. what I'm confused about is what's the "welcome to the Grindhouse"? part? I've heard of it but I'm not sure what that means-is it a b-movie series or something?
my husband (Scott Walters) didn't even know it was out anymore, much less on DVD-I looked him up on IMDB. Now if only my old cheerleading videos could get me on Amazon....:)