Malibu High (1979)

ridiculous rating

Nice effects though.

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Crown International Pictures were the producers behind this sleazy slice of low budget exploitation. At first I thought it was just another high school sex comedy along the lines of MALIBU BEACH and the first half hour or so certainly feels like one: we've got a young lead actress (Jill Lansing, who starred in just this one movie) who frequently disrobes for her copious sex scenes with middle aged men.Lansing's character seduces all the local teachers to get better grades, but that's just the start. The film reveals her downward spiral as she becomes an assassin (!) working for the mob. Thus the latter half of the production attempts some pseudo-thriller elements, but they're handled so badly that you'll be laughing instead of thrilled.The genre this brings most to mind are all those sensation movies from the 1930s that offered supposed warnings against booze and drugs; titles like SHE SHOULDA SAID NO! and THE MARIJUANA MENACE. Director Irvin Berwick had form, having previously shot HITCH HIKE TO HELL. MALIBU HIGH is a mess of a film, with poor acting and poorer production values; Lansing's performance in particular is one of the least convincing I've seen in a movie in a while. You might get a laugh or two out of it, but that'll be all.

When I watched this movie for the first and only time, I had no idea what I was in for. It was such a pile of crap that I had to write a review. First of all, the cover completely misleads anyone who sees it into thinking this could be a comedy/feel good movie like Porky's. It's NOT! It's a story of a sad high school girl who turns to slutty ways to keep herself from flunking out, then gets herself a pimp to work for to earn her money to support her drug habits. She switches pimps to upgrade herself and eventually becomes a hit woman.There is some nudity (not so great because Jill Lansing isn't attractive) and violence (tame by todays standards), no suspense, nobody with acting abilities, LOTS of bad acting, pretty much bad everything. Some of the awfulness is mildly laughable, but most is not. The most entertaining part is the Peoples Court theme song playing during the final chase sequence.This would make a decent Mystery Science Theater movie and is only watchable if you have some other like minded people watching with you to help heckle. Typical (bad) bad 70's movie.

I enjoy strange movies as much as the next person, and if a movie is solvable, I like to try and solve it, but this is a movie that's strange in a different way. It's a movie trying to be sexy, but in no way does it ever succeed, not that it should matter, but it does. This flick is more creepy and stupid than anything else.Kim Bentley (Jill Lansing) is failing out of school, and her peers begin to give her pressure to do better. She decides she can't, so instead becomes a prostitute to earn money, and then begins having sex with all her teachers in exchange for good grades. This horrible path she takes later turns her into a murderer, and she begins to randomly go crazy and shoot people. When the very abrupt ending comes, it shouldn't be surprising if the audience is to burst into laughter questioning what it is that they just saw.The fact that this girl in the movie sleeps with all of her old male teachers is just creepy. The scenes where it shows her making out with the old men on screen is not something that's fun to watch. It's actually rather disgusting. To go along with that, this story is just so weird, and the progression that the main character makes from a prostitute, to a blackmailer to a serial killer is so sudden, anyone who sees this will find it forced. It's not thrilling, it's not scary, the main character isn't a good guy, and there is no one and nothing to root for, except the end credits which don't come soon enough.This is a weird movie, and certainly not fun to watch. But if a flick about a 17 year old girl sleeping with old men is your thing, then maybe this will appeal to that minority.My rating: * out of ****. 90 mins. R for nudity/sexuality, violence and language.

I have never so wanted to leap bodily into a movie and kill a main character this much (and I watched Pippi Longstockings.) While I admit there is a bit of truth to the proceedings, it's a pretty small bit.Plot: The Malibu High School a-hole is topless, getting ready for school. She is so unattractive that you could show her to Dawn Wiener from Welcome to the Dollhouse and give Dawn new hope. I guess the filmmakers thought she was attractive because she was thin. She goes to school, and we learn that her boyfriend has very understandably moved on to a rich girl who isn't stomach turning. She's flunking all her classes, mopes about at home, has a hilariously poorly acted flashback to when she stumbled across her father's corpse, and then decides to go the route of Julia Roberts to making her life better: prostitution. Without any effort, she seduces teacher after teacher (all of whom appear to be male) and blackmails them with knowledge of the locations of their birthmarks (they all have revealing birthmarks?) Then we get to see her become a whore with a van, working for somewhere around $.75 a head. When that doesn't work, she turns to murder. Unfortunately, not her own. She blows away complete strangers, and then we have a very predictable death by hiding heart pills and turning person on (in real life, her body would be the last one you'd want to use for that) In the end, she shoots her boyfriend's new girlfriend after trying to run her over and killing her father, and is about to shoot her ex-boyfriend, when the hero of the film, an anonymous cop, guns her down.Everyone I was watching this with cheered, and wished that last scene was interactive. The camera work is bad, the film is grainy, the people look like they were cast because they would work for free, and you can't help but feel apathy or hate. If that weren't enough, we get rotten music, too.Rating: -1 star out of four.