A poor white trash family come into a bit of money. To celebrate, they put on their Sunday best and go to the state fair. Sixteen-year-old Naomi (Simone Griffeth) and her brother named… uh… Bruvver (John Lozier) wander off and wind up having a wild night. Naomi ends up bedding a motorcycle daredevil (Peter Greene) and Bruvver becomes a mark for a grifting stripper (Beverly Powers) who gets him drunk and tries to chisel him out of the family fortune.
Sixteen looks like it should be more lurid than it is. However, there’s a naivety about it that deflates any sort of notion that this is going to be a down and dirty Hicksploitation flick. The trouble the two cracker siblings get into is downright quaint, and the repercussions of their tomfoolery wind up feeling like something that came out of a sitcom version of The Waltons.
Griffeth (who was just a few years away from her memorable turn in Death Race 2000) is far and away the best thing about the movie. She is perfectly cast as the innocent southern waif who winds up losing her virginity to a grubby carny. Her nude scenes help to make up for the film’s many shortcomings, although they’re not plentiful enough to make it recommended.
The problem is the film often times forgets she even exists. The stuff with Bruvver and the con woman stripper is a lot less enjoyable, and more than a little grating. The scenes where she has to contend with Bruvver’s wild child younger brother as he attacks her immobilized mobile home are especially annoying and juvenile. Then again, I guess you have to expect a little immaturity out of a movie called Sixteen.
AKA: The Young Prey. AKA: Carnival Tramp. AKA: Like a Crow on a June Bug.
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