Screwballs

After I finished watching this, I checked the description, and saw that it was described as being the "granddaddy of teen sex movies." It seems hard to describe it that way when it was released in 1983. There's a very minimal amount of plot to the movie. In fact, it seems strange for a movie that is so laser-focused on having a series of sex gags back to back. If I were back in 7th or 8th grade, I would absolutely love this movie. I would have found it hilarious, and probably pretty erotic. But as an adult, I didn't find it terribly funny. In fact, this is one of the strangest movies I've seen. Usually, in a teen sex movie, there's a serious plot of some sort. There will be a romance, there will be some sort of lesson learned. There will be someone struggling to pass a class... This one doesn't. This one is so singularly focused on just providing one titillating moment after another. There's only a single character who isn't fully sex-obsessed, and that's a teacher that has been bound in a wheelchair. Most of the other teachers are portrayed as being anti-sex, although later, they are shown to be just as obsessed as the core cast is. There are a few things that are memorable, but ultimately, the movie is an example of what happens when you pull all of the heart out of a movie. It narrows the audience that will enjoy it.

Well, I guess I asked for it. I don't know what I was expecting except for some skin and laughs. What I got was plenty of skin and a few laughs. Trouble is there was no let-up to the goofiness, sort of like a flood that eventually overwhelms you. I wish there were a few slower moments, less packed with repetition, so I might enjoy the the more memorable ones. But no, it's like the film-makers couldn't stop piling it on, like a cup of sugar and spice pouring into an open mouth. After all, there are only so many instances of girls playing with wieners or humping their butts before amusement weakens. And that's too bad, because there're touches of imaginative humor, especially the first part with the Detention segment or the verbally constipated French teacher. Anyway, don't expect a high school diploma after viewing, otherwise you too may end up in detention with all the bra-less girls that go with it. Now please, how can I get put into that strip-tease detention!

This film will definitely cause you to rewind a few times, and fast-forward a lot more, because huge sections of it are predictable and flat to the point of humorless. The four main male characters... I hated them, but they seem to be somewhat accurate. Rafal Zielinski is a competent director, and the editor has rendered some rather effective "speed up" gags.

Here and there, a good line is said, or a good piece of physical comedy is shown, but it's usually the script, not the way it's delivered, that's funny. And most of the nudity... To be frank, you get sick of it by sheer repetition (Wow, EVERY character is sort a deviant... boring) and want to see a character you can actually like.

Now, on to Linda Shayne,

She's hardly a prolific director these days, and some of her material is borderline vomitably kid-oriented(Flying Ryan, Purple People Eater), but she is still skilled at suiting the needs of the right target audience. Plus, she is more attractive than the rest of the female cast combined. It's a shame that she couldn't have gotten herself the female lead as Purity: her acting skills and physique are much better. Much more likely to draw a guy like me over to the cause of feminism than Ann Coulter or Oprah Winfrey

In short, she's the reason I am really mad that the local movie rental has lost its copy of this tape.

In my review for the similarly themed ZAPPED AGAIN!, I noted that it came across as a whitewashed T&A offering that was much better received as a puerile comedy than anything voyeuristic in nature. SCREWBALLS, which was apparently made on a much lower budget and with much less renowned performers, is the exact opposite - a chaotic carnival of soft-core porn in which the humor is at best unremarkable and at worst painful.

Some have compared this movie to NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE, but that comparison is extremely unjust. You see, ANIMAL HOUSE was not just an excuse to show drunken frat boys and girls in their underwear. It also tackled such trenchant topics as class conflict, race relations, and the lure of irresponsibility in a hopelessly puritanical and joyless world. I view it more as a poignant examination of the trials and tribulations of adolescence than as the purely tawdry slice of camp which it's usually tagged. The makers of SCREWBALLS do not deserve to lick the boots of John Landis and company.

SCREWBALLS was put together by a gaggle of confirmed slackers with absolutely no regard for taste and decency. The movie is unabashedly politically incorrect (granted, the idea of "political correctness" did not exist as such in the early 1980s; but these guys violated most of its tenets just the same) and is based on the erroneous belief that high school boys do not care about anything other than sex. While the members of Delta Tau Chi may not have been above reproach, at least they didn't spend most of their time trying to separate the prom queen from her clothes.

If you are a diehard fan of this genre, I don't want to spoil the ending for you. Let's just say that it involves sartorial decay and magnets, and leave it at that.

Female moviegoers will probably not enjoy SCREWBALLS because of its sexist nature, so I recommend that they skip it. Their male counterparts, on the other hand, might have a good time. But remember this, fellows: a movie about female stripping becomes less and less entertaining every time you see it - so limit your viewing of SCREWBALLS to one night.

You don't go into this one expecting Shakespeare, folks. You expect first off, a little skin, and if you are lucky, a lot of skin. You expect broad locker-room type sex jokes. You expect that someone will be sexually humiliated at some point ( a must in the genre ). You expect all the cliques at your high school to be wildly parodied. You expect teachers to be portrayed as Nazis. You go in expecting all this and this film delivers. This movie was made just before video broke big time. Thsi was one of the early hits and many video hounds from way back can fondly look back as this being a rental they enjoyed. Check brain at the door and enjoy. It's all done in s spirit of goofy sexy fun and that is the spirit it needs to be seen in. Would make a great double feature with "Porky's".