Malibu High

Malibu High

1979 • English-language films

Body count: 8 • [[:Category:Sleaze count: {{{sleaze_count}}}|Sleaze count: {{{sleaze_count}}}]][[Category:Sleaze count: {{{sleaze_count}}}]]

Amazon • IMDb

Director Irwin Berwick (Hitch-Hike to Hell, Strange Compulsion) had begun a new chapter in his long career: as the instructor for the UCLA course 'Low Budget Film Production.' One of his students, Lawrence D. Foldes (Don’t Go Near the Park, Nightforce), scored a deal with Crown International to produce a script about a young girl who trades high school for prostitution and prostitution for a handgun; Foldes would hire his teacher to direct (and defacto produce) the film. Released onto the drive-in/grindhouse circuit in May 1979, Malibu High marked the 15th and final collaboration between director of photography William DeDiego and director Irvin Berwick. Berwick would die 18 years later of heart failure. Malibu High would be his last directorial credit.

The film climaxes with a chase across the same piece of Malibu shoreline used in J.R. Bookwalter's no-budget wonder Witchouse 3: Demon Fire some 22 years later. The chase itself is punctuated by an oft-used piece of 70's stock music, "The Heist", written by composer Alan Tew and now forever known as the theme from "The People’s Court".

Foldes helmed a sequel to Malibu High in 1983. Originally titled "The Graduates of Malibu High", the film was released as Young Warriors by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan’s Cannon Films. The Cannon partners’ involvement goes a long way in explaining the derivation of the word 'Warrior' in the retitling; conspicuous by their absence however, are the words 'Ninja', 'Missing' and/or 'Action.'

Young Warriors was financed with a tiny portion of the enormous windfall Cannon had yielded in 1983 through various pre-sales to companies like Columbia Pictures (who released Young Warriors theatrically in Australia) and MGM/UA, the film's U.S. video distributors. In fact Cannon had earned $12 million in video pre-sales alone in 1983. MGM/UA had signed a deal with Cannon for exclusive U.S. distribution rights (both theatrical and video) for all future titles but renegotiated their agreement within a year after feeling burned by the quality of Cannon's offerings. One can hardly blame them as, even by Cannon standards, Young Warriors is only engaging in its moments of unintentional hilarity.

Death by: 1: hanging (self-inflicted); 2: icepick; 3, 4: gun; 5: heart failure; 6, 7: gun; 8: rifle. Sleaze by: 1, 2: breasts; 3: upskirt; 4: sex, breasts; 5, 6: breasts; 7: sex (unfulfilled); 8, 9: sex, breasts; 10: breasts (unwilling), breasts (unfulfilled); 11: striptease (unfulfilled); 12: breasts; 13: sex, breasts.