This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Four teenage girls and their lady-teacher crossing the desert on a strictly educational tour of ancient America. And a couple of bikers whose minds seem to be on something rather less edifying. It sounds like a recipe for a porn film, though if you want nudity and explicit sex, you'll be disappointed. But don't worry, there's still enough gratuitous violence and sadism to shock your parents. Because that's the level we're at - basically schoolboy fantasy.The little group is faced with everybody's worst desert nightmare, a breakdown in the middle of nowhere, little guessing that the nightmares have hardly started. The two bikers seem rather like the Kray Twins of 60's London, one totally mad (in sci-fi-bug wraparound sunglasses), egging-on a more placid brother. Soon they pull up beside the minibus, and offer to tow it to the service-station. But instead they abduct their captives to a deserted house, where they inflict unspeakable humiliations on them.None of the four girls carry any conviction whatever, except at the scream-queen moments. Even at the beginning, when it's mostly small-talk, they seem to be reading the lines, not playing them. And imprisoned in the house of horrors, they just sit there like guests at a dull party. We know that one of them is meant to be openly randy, and a second one is a puritan virgin. But the other two could be tailors' dummies, for all we discover about them. Brenda Fogarty as the teacher puts a bit more into it, but they missed their chance to cast a proper schoolmarm fantasy-figure. Fogarty just looks like the girl next door.And more faults, perhaps not worth lingering-on. Countless missed opportunities for the girls to escape. The teacher eventually killing the villain by running him through with an iron bar, not too feasible really. Some unsubtle feeding-in of loud birdsong, as though we'd forgotten we were in the wilds. And a terrible ending, with ghostly stuck-on grins by the survivors.Zalman King as the mad brother is the power behind the film, and he went on to become quite a well-known writer/director. At a time when the exploits of Charles Manson were still vivid in the American mind, King seems to have been trying to replicate those wild mood-swings - snarling savagery one moment, spaced-out mumbling the next.Good enough for 16-year old boys, longing to listen-in on girlie-talk and fantasizing about power of life and death over five vulnerable females.

This movie begins with 4 young high school girls and their teacher named "Miss Tenney" (Brenda Fogerty) who are traveling in a school bus on a camping trip to an isolated part of California. On the way they encounter 3 motorcyclists who become interested in them. One of the young men named "Jay" (Robert Gribbin) is a decent fellow but the other two, "Al" (Zalman King) and "Pete" (Robert Porter) are hardened criminals who have recently gotten out of prison and the sight of these females brings out the worst in them. So when the school bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere they seize the opportunity with great relish. Now, rather than disclose any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say this film came with several others in a 2-dvd set called "Drive-In Cult Classics" and I was hoping to find at least one or two good movies in the whole bunch. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of them. Not only were there a number of slow scenes but some of the others were completely ridiculous as well--especially the ending. In any case, while I have certainly seen much worse films in my time, I thought this one might have potential. I was wrong. Accordingly, I rate it as below average.

I can't help but feel that this was Earl Barton's magnum opus, his great artistic statement to the world and an announcement of a great new film-making talent. He wrote the film, directed it, and produced it. He even did some of the music! Yes, this was truly Earl Barton's own Citizen Kane. Why, there's even an "Introducing the Actors" type end credit sequence straight out of Kane! But of course, it was not to be. The first hour of this film is incredibly dull, as the conflict doesn't arise until the last 30 minutes of the film. The performances are mostly dull, so it's difficult to care about the characters. Likewise, the film never quite reaches the same dizzying, sadistic heights of films like The Last House on the Left or The House on the Edge of the Park! The fact that the cast is all smiles by the end of the film and share a group hug is indicative of how goofy this film turned out. The film's saving grace comes in the performance of Zalman King, who is truly one of the most disgusting and despicable villains to grace the screen, sort of a precursor to Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth. While not without its flaws, the performance sells the character's sadism and insanity quite well, and it's obvious that King completely threw himself into the role. Clearly he was going for the Oscar! Thanks to King's performance, as well as some of the film's goofier touches, this still manages to be decent entertainment. If trash auteur Barton had merely cut out most of the screenplay's filler and just cut to the chase, we might have had a real gem on our hands!

This movie starts out reminding me of the even more awful film "Manos: the Hands of Fate" as you see a vehicle driving through the countryside. The vehicle in question is a bus and yes I do believe it is the short bus because everyone in it is incredibly stupid from the teacher, to the students, and even the bus driver. And speaking of stupid, one dude comes across two brothers, one of whom has a bad wheel on his motorcycle. The guy proceeds to offer his assistance, no harm there, but then he keeps on driving with them like they have been friends forever and they all proceed to stalk the girls on the bus. The girls are very cute and have that 70's natural look I love, in fact all the girls look like the cuties from the porn film "Little Girls Blue". Though none of them were actually in that film. The bus eventually breaks down and the one of the brothers really shows his colors to the teacher, the dude who was helping, and the girls and they still let themselves be towed into the middle of nowhere. I am not sure if the helpful guy would have even minded the crazy guy dropping a car on some old dude in the gas station if he had seen it. Pretty soon the crazy guy and his brother hold the others hostage even though there are two of them and six of the others. The idiots had ample times where the crazy guy would just fall to the ground having a fit and they would just watch. At one point the one girl could have smashed the other brother with a bottle, but did not. In the end this film was rather boring, needed more nudity not the violent stuff, but maybe a scene with the girls taking their tops off to skinny dip. Virtually no blood, which is kind of strange considering I got this in a twelve pack of movies called Gorehouse legends. I would say it is nice to look at the pretty 70's girls and the crazy guy's performance as it is well done. Other than that you are not missing much.