Malibu High (1979)

This film should really be better known among sleaze aficionados. The title and poster suggest a fizzy sex comedy along the lines of The Cheerleaders, and there's a tonal lightness that would initially confirm that impression. But what we really get is a cheerfully immoral portrait of a youth gone wild made all the skeevier by the jovial tone. Jill Lansing plays Kim Bentley, wayward woman extraordinaire, who decides to start sleeping with her teachers as a means towards better grades, and though she's one of the worst actresses I've ever seen, she does carry a haughty snideness about her that paradoxically makes her character's ugly actions convince better than a more refined acting job might. Kim begins as a garden-variety slut but soon descends to far more rotten territory with nary a change in her demeanor; the low-grade thrum of enjoyment I get from typical drive-in cheese became a torrent of sick-eyed amazement around the time that Kim gets involved with the nicest pimp in the world and... well, it would be rude of me to give away the direction in which this shoots off. The poor acting, indifferent direction, harsh lighting and last-minute moralizing suggest an Afterschool Special gone horribly, horribly wrong, and while I can't defend it on any artistic grounds, I would compel a certain strain of cinephile (you know who you are) to give this a look. In its own fucked-up way, it's kind of awesome.

Grade: C+