Malibu High

OK, this is a B movie. Let's just start there and realize that this film is just not a great piece of cinema. Now, knowing that, we can move forward. This is the best film of its type there is. Here's the synopsis. Girl is in high school. Girl's mother suggests that she get a job. Girl becomes prostitute. Girl kills pimp. Girl becomes HitGirl-for-the-Mob. Lots of other subplots to keep you entertained. Probably too many. But the lines in this groaner are worth the price of admission, if you can find it anywhere. "I'm a hooker - not a hitgirl!". Come on! Does it get better than that? MH belongs in the Hall of Fame with Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, They Came From Within and Attack of the Killer Tomatos, and is the best of the bunch. This film is an A+ in the world of the B-.

Worst Movies of ALL Time! Saw this twice in the early 80's on some dinky, weird station that my local Cablevision company had (channel 10) on LI.

There's just so much about this movie that's atrocious. It's a hoot all the way as the girl goes from HS renegade to killer. The sex scenes are not erotic, the "acting" is riotously bad and the music! No idea who the hell threw this crapola thing together but we should be grateful it's around.

Why more people who like BAD movies don't know about this one is beyond me!

It's definitely the best story I've ever seen about a girl who wants better grades and then becomes a prostitute and then becomes an assassin. Part of the excellent "Welcome to the Grindhouse" series complete with trailers for other good trash. This movie also contains the ODDEST music cues ever; one was used on the old SCTV and they also use the song that became "The People's Court" theme. Bad acting, unbelievable plotting make this is a "MUST OWN" for connoisseurs of bad cinema. The DVD is paired with "Trip with the Teacher" another grade Z champion seemingly "inspired" by "Last House on the Left." The entire "Welcome to the Grindhouse" is essential DVD.

It's no wonder that the Drive-ins were drug, booze and party havens in the '70s with this type of fare being shown! Even with all of it's flaws, there is something I really like about this movie. The plot alone was what made me want to watch this hooter flick in the first place. High School flunky, turned Hooker, turned Hitgirl! When Kim gets bad grades, she seduces her Teachers and it escalates from there to becoming a full blown hooker. Not on the street mind you, but in the back of a van! What more of a classic Drive-in masterpiece could this be? The acting is awful and stiff. Speaking of stiff, the sex scenes are almost, if not worse than the acting! The camera work looks more like a home movie than a theatrical presentation. The fashions in this movie look more like mid '70s than 1979 fashion. What really cracks me up is when Kim (Jill Lansing) decides to become a hooker and shows up to school in a halter top and mini skirt! Where did she get that mini skirt from? It looks like it was made of cardboard! Didn't anyone tell Kim that mini skirts were out of fashion by 1974? The other thing that makes me laugh about this movie is the music. It sounds like what you used to hear at the supermarket. That canned piped in music called "Muzak". It's not offensive, it just doesn't really suit the movie. At the same time though, it is what gives this movie it's charm. There are a couple of music selections I had heard before. One was the music that plays after Kim tells her Mom off. This music was used for the station identification on the comedy show SCTV, which ran in the early '80s here in Canada. The next selection was during the chase scene at the end. The music being used is the same music for the syndicated TV show "The People's Court" opening! The one thing that stands out in this movie is the 1971 Mustang convertible. It's the real star of the show! It is nice to see this version of Mustang caught on film forever without rust and holes all over it, which these cars were known for. If you like movies like "The Van", "The Pom Pom Girls", and "H.O.T.S.", you may find this movie disappointing. But if you are like me and can appreciate trash flicks like "The Lonely Lady" and "The Seduction", then you will enjoy this made-for-drive-in classic!

The absolute optimum in trashy titillation, MALIBU HIGH is unquestionably one of the sleaziest movies ever made, and a classic of its kind. This deliciously contumelious soap-opera centers around Kim, an embittered and mean-spirited high school senior. She's a "bottom drawer" student, thankless daughter, and calculating bitch who gradually advances to a street-hooking, avaricious, drug-addled mob hit-woman. Her race down the road to ruin begins when she's dumped by her scrawny feather-haired boyfriend, and transpires over the course of a single school semester. All the while, she remains fiercely determined to graduate with honors, and does so by way of seducing and blackmailing her male teachers. Several scenes conclude with a bizarre electronic music soundbite which sounds a lot like the one PBS used in their 70s/80s period station-identification spots.

The ignoble elucidation of Kim's spiraling self-destruction provides one of the most hysterically unbridled marvels of transgressive debauchery in drive-in movie history. MALIBU HIGH is a zestfully artless discourse in John Waters-flavored exaggeration, though of an entirely unpremeditated nature. Rarely has a film been as unconscionably libertine and unapologetically ostentatious...it's a priceless endowment for all lovers of nethermost cinema.

This is apparently the only film credit for leading lady Jill Lansing, which is unfortunate because she manages to flesh out her fairly complex character with surprising vibrancy . Tammy Taylor, playing the school's snobby rich girl, went on to a fruitful TV career and starred in the hot-mess gore howler DON'T GO NEAR THE PARK.

9/10...a must-see.