TEEN LUST (1978) * ½

Teen Lust plays like a loose assemblage of subplots that only serve as an excuse to show off some ‘70s T & A.  I don’t think director James Hong (yes, THAT James Hong) is to blame for the patchwork nature of the film.  I think that falls on the producers. 

It’s my theory that the producers concocted four or five different subplots so that they could retitle and rerelease the movie several times, each time focusing on a different aspect of the plot in the trailers.  The fact that the film goes by five different titles is my smoking gun, but here’s the complete rundown.

Title #1:  High School Teasers:  There is a subplot involving the town slut De De (Lee Ann Barnes) trying to hook up with Terry (Perry Lang), who just so happens to be the boyfriend of goodie-two shoes Carol (Kristen Baker from Friday the 13^th Part 2).  I’m sure whoever cut the trailer could make it look like De De was the main character and put all of the footage of her sexual escapades in one two-minute reel.

Title #2:  Police Girls Academy:  This one focuses on the plot line where Carol and her gal pal Neely (Leslie Cederquist) get a summer job working as police trainees.  You could play up the police training sequences in the trailer and sell it as a Police Academy rip-off.  There’s even an icky sequence where Carol’s brother inadvertently picks her up.  Yuck.

Title #3:  The Girls Next Door:  Since Carol is a homely girl-next-door type, you could prominently feature her in the ads and sell it as a coming-of-age movie. 

Title #4:  Mom Never Told Me:  This is where things get weird.  There’s a subplot about Carol’s drunk mother (Dalene Young) trying to fix her up with a rich (but slow-witted) neighbor.  The mother sequences also include a subplot-within-a-subplot about her seducing the plumber (George “Buck” Flower).  There’s an even stranger subplot-within-a-subplot about Carol’s lecherously over-affectionate father (Stan Kamber) NOT being her father (so that makes his advances… OK?!?!) because… well… Mom Never Told Me.

Title #5:  Teen Lust:  With this preview, you can include the head-scratching scene where a gang of little kids jump Carol and try to rip her clothes off while the theme to the People’s Court plays?!?! 

Quite honestly, the police academy stuff works best.  However, there’s just too many weird subplots fighting for supremacy, and as a result, it all goes nowhere fast.  The bizarre family sitcom scenes are especially ill-fitting and the stuff with the philandering boyfriend trying to fend off the advances of the town slut are far from erotic.  None of it meshes. 

It’s particularly hard to take when it tries to get serious.  The mother is portrayed as a comic drunk most of the time, but halfway through, Carol stages a one-woman intervention that just doesn’t fit with the goofy shit elsewhere in the film.  Baker, bless her, thinks this is her shot at an Oscar and even says, “You’re tearing me apart!” like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause!  I mean, how are we supposed to care about her mother when just moments earlier, she was dry humping Flower on the floor?  Or how about the scene where Carol finds out she’s adopted?  Baker just seems to be acting in an entirely different (and probably better) movie than everyone else.  (Where’s movie title #6 when you need it?)  You know it’s thrown up its hands and given up when the final two scenes are a pie fight and a wedding.

Flower and Hong were both in John Carpenter movies in the ‘80s, which makes me wonder if Carpenter’s seen this.

AKA:  High School Teasers.  AKA:  Police Girls Academy.  AKA:  The Girls Next Door.  AKA:  Mom Never Told Me.