Trip with the Teacher

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.

This was a mediocre grindhouse flick for me. If it wasn't for the fame of Zalman King I guess you wouldn't have seen it that much. Zalman became famous in the eighties for producing erotic flicks. Most of the actresses played in grindhouse flicks but Cathy Worthington was the one who made it into the scene even appearing in Dallas, Jill Voight was seen in Friday The 13th Part 2. As I said, grindhouse and of that kind with the bad bikers in it. We had so many in it but due Zalman this do stands out because Zalman really carries this flick. It is a bit slow and campy sometimes, just watch the tow scene with the bus. The quality of the movie itself was really bad, even on DVD, a lot of scratches, bad sound and hiss. It really takes you 45 minutes before the girls are getting a bad trip with their teacher after their bus broke down and the bikers come in handy. Of course as a grindhouse there is a bit of nudity but not to mention. Not really my cup but a must have due the well known reasons explained earlier.

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.

Stranded during a bus tour of the remote California countryside, a feisty teacher and her small group of sexy teenage students become the terrified targets of two nasty bikers who are intent on rape and murder.

Whilst Trip With the Teacher might not be the all-out sleaze-fest that the above short synopsis suggests, there is still enough gratuitous nudity (from most of the girls), well handled action, and nasty violence to ensure that fans of low-to-no-budget 70s exploitation flicks should not be too disappointed.

Director Earl Barton certainly keeps things moving along at a brisk pace with his no-nonsense direction, and the cast all put in solid performances for this kind of fare, with Zalman King (future producer of soft-core porn) being particularly memorable as the more unhinged of the two bad-guys. His portrayal of deadly nut-job Al brings to mind David Hess's Krug from The Last House on the Left: a cold, heartless killer whose capacity for cruelty knows no bounds. As the film progresses he goes from merely menacing (in his bug-eye wraparound shades), to total psychotic lunatic—complete with facial ticks, incoherent rambling, and uncontrollable outbursts of violence.

Pete (Robert Porter), Al's brother, isn't quite such a reprehensible fellow, but he just can't say no to his degenerate sibling. So when Al starts to rape and kill, good ol' Pete joins in, rather than upset his li'l bro'.

Fortunately for the trapped teenagers and their teacher, a third biker, Jay (who joined the brothers on the road after helping them fix a tyre), turns out to be a nice guy, and risks his life to save them from their plight.

As I write, Trip With The Teacher has an IMDb rating of 1.4, which is a downright tragedy. The film might be nasty, cheap and sometimes plain silly (the reappearance of a character who is presumed dead is particularly daft), but it's always entertaining. Don't watch this film expecting slick visuals and Oscar winning acting; enjoy it for what it is—a raw piece of 'drive-in' style 'trash'.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

One of Kings' first sexploytation movies( long before the Red Shoes Diary). The teacher sacrifices all for the sake of her students, all for naught. King is his usual loathsome self, a master at "bad" guys. A good movie to waste 90 minutes with, I'd love to have a video of this flick.