Duell bis zum Verrecken

You should know what you're going to get from this low-cost midnight drive-in schlock that represents the sleaze and sadism in a decade of scuzzy low-brow exploitation. It gets all the ticks of being raw, gritty and sordid. Yes, it's rough around the edges and director Earl Barton's minimal handling makes sure it works to its strengths, and surprisingly strikes up a bit of tension, and unease. However it couldn't escape that cheesy daftness, which loomed largely by its repetitively funky and racy music score. It was quite an unusual one though, which doesn't always fit in. The shallow story is plain and simple, if a little meandering from time to time and few senseless occurrences are hard to believe. I don't know how many opportunities arose to escape, or do something, but everyone seemed happy to sit and watch. While the obvious script starts off awkwardly and melodramatic, it then gains control and builds tension. Sure it isn't first-rate, but it holds your interest and includes a surprise or two. Performances are workable enough. Zalman King terrifically chews it up as the menacingly neurotic loon biker, that along with his brother (played placidly by Robert Porter) go onto terrorise a small group of teenage school girls (Cathy Worthington, Dina Ousley, Susie Russell and Jill Voight pull off their parts), teacher (a fiery Brenda Fogarty), and a fellow biker (a fine Robert Gribbin) in the forlorn California desert. Due to the relaxed pacing, it gives you time to soak up the situation and the harshly captured bare-desert backdrop that complements the bare-knuckle survival tag. Then it pulls out the punches, and ups the notch. Some of the action scenes are over-the-top, and corny but amusing. The cruel violence is sexually scathing, and nasty. While we see little flesh, the leering camera-work focuses on the scummy side of things, and can get up within the action.

That bad… not that bad. Definitely nothing special though, but the intensely bold theatrical turn of King makes it worth-a-peek.

The horror! Cheesy, campy film that dared to show more than the "normal" drive-in theater experience. Scary for a young woman to watch, especially if she's a high schooler or a teacher taking a group of girls on a school field trip.

1.7 out of 10 is a ridiculously low rating, even for a miserable and long-forgotten 70's exploitation flick, but here in the case of "Trip with the Teacher" I'm tempted to think it is better this way. For you see, such a low grade automatically discourages random viewers to check it out whilst avid and fanatic cult purchasers might find it an extra motivation to track down a copy. And this really is such a film that should only and exclusively be seen by admirers of gritty and low-key exploitation. People – you know who you are – who couldn't get enough of the shocking impact of such films as "Last House on the Left" and "I Spit on your Grave", but simultaneously also people with a high level of tolerance for errors in continuity, amateurish acting performances and copious amounts of gratuitous sleaze. The violence and sheer nastiness in "Trip with the Teacher" is totally uncompromising (raping a teacher in front of her petrified pupils, pushing a girl's face in the mud until she chokes …) but the whole thing is never as truly disturbing as it aims to be because of the inept production values. The devoted teacher Miss Tenny is out on a summery field trip in the desert (oh yeah, loads of stuff to sightsee there) with four of her sexiest and lewd students and one friendly old chap behind the wheel. Their ramshackle bus breaks down in the middle of a godforsaken place and the sexy posse quickly becomes the target of interest of a trio of bikers. One of them is actually a good guy and only just joined the two siblings who have far more malignant intentions regarding the poor and defenseless stranded girls. Especially Al is a deranged and nihilistic psychopath, and when he kills the bus driver, he pulls his scared brother Pete into a scheme to terrorize, humiliate, rape and eventually kill the teacher and her girls. Zalman King, future creator of the soft-core erotic TV-show "Red Shoe Diaries", is undeniably the main attraction of this film. His appearance and villainous performance is shamelessly based on David Hess' legendary pervert character in the aforementioned "Last House on the Left", but King is nevertheless an effectively menacing and unpredictable bastard. He continuously raises the impression of being high on drugs even though we never see him take any and he spends most of his screen time just staring at his young preys with diabolical eyes. Obviously, "Trip with the Teacher" is largely devoid of suspense and substance and quite stuffed with improbabilities and flaws. The tagline states "How far should a teacher go to protect her students?" but, in reality, Miss Tenny actually does very little to protect them! She sits around motionless when the bikers attempt to sexually assault her scarcely dressed pupils and she's even directly responsible for the death of one of them. The most innocent of them all, I may add. The girls also react very unnaturally to some of the shocking events and, if you ask me, they let several chances to escape go by. But now I'm just splitting heirs, of course, as logic and intellect is the absolute last thing you should expect in a trashy Grindhouse feature. Most importantly, "Trip with the Teacher" is a genuine 70's exploitation effort with a grainy atmosphere and provocative sleaze. The film has a prototypic (and thus terrific) exploitation soundtrack, with tunes that get repeated over and over and over again, and loads of depressingly remote outdoor filming locations. If you like to consider yourself a fan of smut, you can't afford to miss out on this.

I bought this movie as part of a 12 movie boxed set from the dump bin at the local department store and gave it a try. At first, I wasn't sure if it was one of the many sleazy 70's exploitation flicks featuring explicit sex, rape, and full-frontal nudity, or more reminiscent of the much tamer teensploitation ventures from the 60's. Right around the time the first nipple made its appearance, I realized the former was true.

As the movie opens, we are introduced to two groups of people. First, we have a (short) bus containing the driver, a very young teacher, Miss Tenny, and four female students, all heading out to Los Angeles through the desert for an educational field trip of some sort that is never fully elaborated upon. Second, we meet two brothers who are either on the run from the law or have been recently released from prison (again, no further elaboration), who have had the misfortune to wind up with motorcycle problems. The brothers, Pete and Al, are visited on the side of the road by nice guy motorcyclist Jay, who decides to stop and help them out, then join them to make a trio. As it turns out, they're heading the same direction as the bus full of hotties, and they all end up fueling up at the same gas station. It is, at this point, that we see the nature of the three bikers--Jay is the nice guy, and Pete would like to be, but Al, his brother, is completely f**ked in the head. We learn this after Al intensely crushes a handful of stamps then kills the gas station attendant by lowering a car on the poor old man.

Shortly after the encounter between the two groups, the bus breaks down and Marvin, the bus driver, has no idea how to fix the problem. While doing this, the four students have a fun little conversation about sex, which leads to a rough and dirty cat-fight between the easy girl and the Bible-banger. The three bikers then encounter the bus again, and seem about halfway willing to assist--although crazy Al starts showing his true colors to the teacher while flirting with Bobbie, the feisty and logical slut of the group. While Miss Tenny would prefer to have the three leave and never come back, Pete and Jay, trying to be civil, offer to help the group out and Al, snickering mischievously, agrees. Having precious little choice, the school folks allow the bikers to tow them (yes, three motorcycles are shown towing a short bus), but Al doesn't take the bus to safety. Oh no. They take the bus to isolation, and the mayhem begins.

This flick does have a few extreme situations, including rape and murder, and a bit of female nudity as well. It also has a distinct but thin story to go along with it--although characters aren't well developed and we never do find out the background of either the protagonists or antagonists. This movie is genuinely a product of its own time--I say this because, for example, it does portray the dominance of a group of five women by two men after the male hero, Jay, is incapacitated. I dare say that if this movie were to take place only ten years later, the five women would have knocked Pete out and beaten Al's skull to a bloody pulp. Hell, there was at least one scene when the lone Al was writhing on the floor in existential anguish while three of the young women stood and watched--if only one of them had the fortitude to boot him square in the head, the movie would have been over at that point. Let's face it: modern audiences would never tolerate that sort of weakness being portrayed by characters for no other reason than their gender.

This flick isn't for everyone, but when it comes to cinematic sleaze, there's always going to be an audience. For those expecting something along the lines of Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, prepare to be disappointed, as TRIP WITH THE TEACHER isn't nearly as extreme. Overall, it's really a minor entry into the exploitation genre. It's worth watching if part of a cheap boxed set, but I honestly could not see hunting this down.

Trip with the Teacher is standard exploitation fare that just doesn't fully embrace what it is supposed be, namely, exploitive. The premise has the right formula of sleazy ingredients: Miss Tenny and her group of gorgeous twenty-something women exploring remote desert vistas are joined in their travels by three wayward bikers and are soon stranded somewhere in the desert. After the mentally unstable Al, played by Zalman King in all his face contorting madness, runs down the bus driver in one of his many fits of rage he talks his laid back and seemingly stoned brother Pete into eliminating any witnesses. Unfortunately for them the brothers rode along with good samaritan Jay who attempts to protect the utterly useless women from these two buffoons. Of course Jay manages to screw that up leaving the lovely ladies to fend for themselves by cowering in corners of a dilapidated shack. This is what drove me insane. The women constantly outnumbered their captors and could have easily escaped if they all weren't so helpless. What would be more satisfying than watching a bunch of half-naked tormented women tearing these guys to death? It's an exploitation movie! Exploit! Zalman King with his humongous bug-eyed sunglasses is more annoying than terrifying as his bouts of madness consist of a mess of hair, nose, and giggling. The only redeeming quality of this film is the beautiful women in various states of undress. I was particularly enamored with the bad girl portrayed by the stunning Dina Ousley. With her yellow short-shorts she is definitely the hottest thing in the desert. Trip with the teacher does capture the feel of the early seventies southern California hippie biker culture well. Sadly, after you watch it once you will have no desire to see it again.