A group of four High School girls and their favorite teacher are
on an extracurricular summer trip to the desert by bus. Meanwhile,
two bikers have a flat tire, and a third stops to help. Of course,
all of these characters must meet, and do so at a filling station.
First the bus leaves, then one of the bikers takes a dislike to the
gas station owner, and kills him before leaving. The bus dies on a
back road, and our bikers arrive to help. They can't repair it, but
decide to tow it behind their bikes. They tow it further into the
desert, kill the bus driver, then the nastiest of the bikers decides
to rape the teacher. The good Samaritan biker uses this opportunity
to try and escape and get help, but the third biker chases him over
a cliff. The virgin amongst the girls then tries to escape, and is
caught by the nastiest biker and suffocated by pressing her face
into the dirt. Nasty biker returns and decides it is time to rape
one of the school girls. While he is thus occupied, another girl
goes out to use the outhouse. The other biker is told to follow her.
Remember the good Samaritan biker that went over the cliff? Well
guess who is standing on the roof with a hanging rope.
Trip with the Teacher has a familiar grade-B plot, and its only
real attraction is the lead playing the evil biker. It is none other
than Zalman King, before he started writing and/or directing such
films as 9 1/2 Weeks, Two Moon Junction, Red Shoe Diaries, Wild
Orchid, Delta of Venus, etc. Apart from offering the opportunity to
watch Zalman in front of the camera chewing the scenery, the film
has little else going for it.
- We never learn anything about the backgrounds of any of the
characters, and so it is hard to care what happens to them.
- For a film with 5 young actresses, the nudity is skimpy.
- Finally, I felt cheated by the ending. I wanted Zalman to
pay much more for what he had done.
The transfer, obviously from a work print, is not that great,
with some scratches and lots of grain, making this disc a perfect
offering: a bad transfer of a bad film. It may end up in your
collection anyway because it is part of a double feature with Malibu
High, which is also bad, but in the good, hilariously inept way that
we love. Of course, that's the way it always worked in the days of
double features and drive-ins.
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is an:
