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-.

You don't go into seeing this one with any grandiose notions, and, if you are like me, you should be pleasantly surprised that this is one of those vintage "bad" movies that is just loads of fun to sit through. Kim Bentley loses her boyfriend and so she begins failing her classes, etc... when she decides to become a prostitute and then later an assassin picking up booze, weed, and coke along the way. Jill Lansing appearing in what seems to be her only screen credit gives a credible performance as the "hooker to hit girl" as she frequently disrobes and lets her breasts get lots of air, seduces two of her teachers for grades, and runs a profitable business from the back of her pimp's van. We get lots of stereotypes here and the plot is pretty threadbare when it comes to anything other than giving us lurid and "shocking" behaviours to be witnessed. The rest of the cast is better-than-average for a movie of this ilk, and I laughed out loud several times at the bizarre going ons and what I was suppose(perhaps not) to take seriously. In addition to all this Kim has a few hazy flashbacks about her father hanging himself. Malibu High is sleazy and fun - and entertaining. It has what you would expect in a picture like this but packages it well. As some have noted the soundtrack is weird to say the least as we get an instrumental People's Court theme used in a most inopportune moment and that bizarre SCTV strident tone used when something significant is being conveyed - at least that is what the director is trying to convey.

Overlooked by a lot of bad movie fans, this is one of the worst films ever. It's not just the sleazy attitude, this one is filled with technical ineptitude, lazy writing, poor acting, and that mystery ingredient that makes a film really bad. This switches gears a lot, and you get the feeling that a lot of things were cooked up as it went along. It has shots out of focus, some bad sound, camerawork that doesn't deserve the name, poor lighting, and no sense of grace, artistry, or credibility, whatsoever. Also, although she gives the most memorable performance, our lead actress displays what has to be some of the ugliest tan-lines in movie history, nobody notices, and her "customers" all act like she's a beauty queen! Don't miss!

--Judexdot1--

This film is really a surprise and not in a good way. It's about an alienated teenage girl who starts to lose respect for everything when her boyfriend dumps her. Rather than turn to drugs or cults, she turns to murder. It's incredible how quickly the change happens. Sounds like it might be entertaining on a trashy level but's it so amateurishly made, downbeat and cheap looking that it fails to impress. It is however somewhat amusing to watch as the main female character paints herself further and further into a corner and the unhappy men she leaves behind due to her very promiscuous behavior.

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.