Malibu High

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.

Jill Lansing, the main lead in this grindhouse gave a excellent performance but sadly it was her only movie she played in. Never heard of seen her again. And let me tell you that this is pure grindhouse. In the first minute Kim (Jill Lansing) wakes up , naked of course and the first thing she does is putting on a fag. Imagine this in today's film standards. The clothes, hair, even the score is so typical for that era, men, do I love those flicks. After Kim is dumped by her boyfriend for a rich girl she's on the loose. School doesn't work and she just don't care. But without any money she decides after a disco night (listen and watch it) to become another woman. One that teachers don't dare to flunk because she's seducing and making love to them. But Kim goes a bit further and goes into the world of hookers. Naturally, things go awry for Kim. You don't watch it for the acting because some are really wooden. The editing, sound and vision was really well for a grindhouse. The so-called erotic scene's are a bit dull, you just see the acting but anyhow you still want to know what is going to happen to Kim. And Kim does gives the breast, sorry, best she can. The ending is a bit weird, you can see it coming but how the cops arrive at the beach is still a bit weird. I mean, no cell phones in those days. I surely recommend it to the grindhouse geeks out there, you won't regret it.

I saw this (or a very abbreviated version of this) film on TV back around 1985. It was a puzzle. I found of copy of the film, then bought my first VCR. I was not disappointed. It is the silliest movie I have ever seen! Every aspect of it's production (acting, writing, sound, composition, cinematography, etc.) is truly bad and hence it rates an 11 on the scale of 10 all-time-bad movies.

Malibu High improves with age like a fine wine - each viewing brings new insights into how bad (and how entertaining) a film can really be. I'd recommend a group viewing with like-minded friends who occassionally need to kick back and have a great laugh.

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!

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.