Trip with the Teacher

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.

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.

This movie starts out reminding me of the even more awful film "Manos: the Hands of Fate" as you see a vehicle driving through the countryside. The vehicle in question is a bus and yes I do believe it is the short bus because everyone in it is incredibly stupid from the teacher, to the students, and even the bus driver. And speaking of stupid, one dude comes across two brothers, one of whom has a bad wheel on his motorcycle. The guy proceeds to offer his assistance, no harm there, but then he keeps on driving with them like they have been friends forever and they all proceed to stalk the girls on the bus. The girls are very cute and have that 70's natural look I love, in fact all the girls look like the cuties from the porn film "Little Girls Blue". Though none of them were actually in that film. The bus eventually breaks down and the one of the brothers really shows his colors to the teacher, the dude who was helping, and the girls and they still let themselves be towed into the middle of nowhere. I am not sure if the helpful guy would have even minded the crazy guy dropping a car on some old dude in the gas station if he had seen it. Pretty soon the crazy guy and his brother hold the others hostage even though there are two of them and six of the others. The idiots had ample times where the crazy guy would just fall to the ground having a fit and they would just watch. At one point the one girl could have smashed the other brother with a bottle, but did not. In the end this film was rather boring, needed more nudity not the violent stuff, but maybe a scene with the girls taking their tops off to skinny dip. Virtually no blood, which is kind of strange considering I got this in a twelve pack of movies called Gorehouse legends. I would say it is nice to look at the pretty 70's girls and the crazy guy's performance as it is well done. Other than that you are not missing much.

Trip with the Teacher (1975)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A teacher takes four of her students on a bus ride through the desert when it breaks down. Three motorcycle riders come across them but the problem is that one of them, Al (Zalman King) is a psychopath and soon they're holding the girls hostage.

TRIP WITH THE TEACHER came from Crown International and I'm going to guess that it was a hit when it was originally released. It was certainly a hit during the VHS boom because the film has grown to become a cult favorite among many people. This here is basically another take off on THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT as a group of young women are terrorized by some maniacs and must try and find a way to survive. This genre had been done to death throughout the 1970s and to me this here isn't a good film.

The problem with this movie is that it's just too tame for its own good. Yes there's some nudity when the girls are forced to take their clothes off but there's really nothing overly violent or shocking here. Perhaps had there not been dozens of these types of films then this one would have come off better but when the genre is so full it's hard to make your mark and that's the problem here. The idea of the schoolgirls being attacked by the biker boys is something that could have worked but there just aren't enough good moments in the film.

It's basically the same thing over and over. They are held hostage. One tries to escape. There's a chase. Another one tries to escape. There's another chase. This pretty much happens throughout the running time and it grows rather tiresome after a while. The cast are certainly entertaining enough and King makes for a nice bad guy. The problem, again, is that there's just nothing here that makes the film stand out in a popular genre.

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.