The year is 1961. In four years, child-actress Patty McCormack has grown from Bad Seed to good egg, playing Janet Sommers, an unusually thoughtful teen, who is weirdly surrounded by like-minded sorts. Have the pod people taken over the school in The Explosive Generation (Netflix + Redbox Instant + Epix; quality: fine), the tireless Buzz Kulik’s debut feature as director? (You might be wondering how a movie set at a school that could be called “Goody-Goody High” fits the bill for this column, but super-perky can be just as creepy as super-wicked, can’t it?) The senior class bands together for the friendliest of protests in support of their beloved teacher Mr. Gifford (William Shatner, at his absolute hottest), who good-naturedly allows his students to debate “sex” when Janet brings it up as a topic for discussion during their “Senior Problems” chat. But word gets out, the school staff and parents alike don’t condone it one bit, and an innocent incident gets completely blown out of proportion. This film, well worth checking out, is also notable for its intriguing supporting cast that includes Edward Platt as the principal, Virginia Field and Arch Johnson as Janet’s parents, Beau Bridges as one of her classmates, and Marlon Brando’s sister Jocelyn as her friend Marge’s mother.
A sultry, unlikable teen gives the teachers some sex training of their own in the hilariously inept 1979 trash-fest Malibu High (YouTube; quality: watchable)—just check out the IMDb Plot Keywords on this one! Director Irvin Berwick started out his Hollywood career as a voice coach, so it’s quite bemusing that his leading lady—Jill Lansing, in her only screen appearance, thank God—delivers her lines so terribly that the mute button will become your best friend. Lansing plays Kim, whose grades begin to slip after her boyfriend dumps her for the town’s rich bitch. Instead of allowing her chances for graduating to dwindle, she decides to seduce her teachers into trading sexual favors for good grades. The thrill she gets from this newfound power leads her down a path to prostitution, drugs, and, enticed by the easy money, she eventually even becomes a paid assassin! A wholly ridiculous film that somehow manages to keep you glued.
Reversing the customary gender and power roles, Pretty Maids All in a Row (iTunes $2.99 rental/$9.99 purchase + Vudu $2.99 rental/$9.99 purchase + GooglePlay $1.99 rental/$9.99 purchase) stars a commanding Rock Hudson as an oversexed (married with child) guidance counselor/football coach, nicknamed Tiger, who beds his cute young students—and murders a few of them too. But he does prove very helpful to one of his male students, an extra-horny 17-year-old virgin Ponce de Leon Harper (John David Carson), who lusts after the new substitute teacher (Angie Dickinson). She of course in return lusts for the studly Tiger, but is far too old for his tastes, so he strategically steers her in Ponce’s direction. Roger Vadim’s continuously amusing 1971 black sex comedy—written and produced by Gene Roddenberry, and scored, like The New Kids, by Lalo Schifrin—is so wrong in all the right ways that it’s total insanity that the movie has been so difficult to track down until recently. (I initially viewed it in very good HD on Warner Archive, but they’ve since taken it down; their DVD, though, is still available for purchase.)
Extra Credit Viewing – High School Beyond the USA:
The Beautiful Person (Netflix + iTunes + Sony) French teens are weird—at least in the world according to Christophe Honoré, a director whose sensibility you either get or you don’t (the latter applies for me). His students not only don’t look or act their age—and their gorgeous campus seems more college than high school (or perhaps I inadvertently broke my rule and included a private school?)—but they are also quite affected. But there’s plenty of (underplayed) drama to be had, involving student-teacher affairs, suicide, and, yes, a very beautiful person (still-it-girl Lea Seydoux), who upon transferring to her cousin’s school following her mother’s death, immediately draws much attention to her moody self. A rather futile movie—loosely based on La Princesse de Clèves—that’s undeniably pretty to look at.
Black Rat (Fandor) Kenta Fukasaku clearly hates teenagers. He had them face off in combat to the death in Hunger Games precursors Battle Royale (which he wrote) and Battle Royale II (which he co-wrote and co-directed). Here, following the apparent suicide of one girl, her classmates begin getting brutally knocked off in an apparent revenge scheme when they receive a text from the supposedly dead girl asking them to meet at school after hours… A brisk, entertaining, if generic, J-horror film—and, hey, its killer wears a big ugly plush rat mask.
Después de Lucía aka After Lucia (Netflix) The kids in Alejandra’s new Mexico City high school are some of the most repugnant ever seen on screen. They at first eagerly befriend her, but following an unfortunate event at a drunken party, they turn on her and make her life a living hell. All alone—teachers prove completely useless and Ale (a very good Tessa Ia) chooses not to turn to her dad, a heartbroken chef who recently lost his wife—she suffers quietly. That is until things get completely out of control and her dad must take matters into his own hands. Michel Franco’s devastating 2012 film, never released theatrically in the U.S., is a story of loss, in which the ones mourning aren’t given the proper space to do even that when faced with something much crueler.
Spirit of Jeet Kune Do aka Once Upon a Time in High School (Netflix) It’s 1978 in Seoul. Introvert Hyun-soo has transferred to a new all-boys school where teachers dispense discipline with their sticks as freely as they dish out verbal abuse. The students bond over Bruce Lee, whom they all adore, and dabble in martial arts themselves—which makes their goofing off more fun and their fights more interesting. Yet things don’t go so well for Hyun-soo, as he faces and eventually faces off with bullying fellow students and superiors alike, while at the same time falling for a girl who’s more into his best friend. Utterly defeated by movie’s end, he cries out: “Fuck all schools in Korea!” Based on all these films, the same sentiment can safely be said about high schools everywhere. It’s a time in life that everyone at some point wishes they could do over—but not enough to actually endure going back. Watching movies about that period, however, remains forever addictive.
