“Trip with the Teacher” (1975)

Studio: Crown International Pictures
Starring: Zalman King, Brenda Fogarty, Robert Porter, Robert Gribbin
Directed by: Earl Barton
Rated: R
Running Time: 91 min.

Synopsis: Two brothers hold hostage a teacher and her students in the desert.

REVIEW

Chris Woods

Here’s another film from one of the BCI Grindhouse Box Sets. This one, Trip with the Teacher, is a decent little film about two cyclists who terrorize some students and their teacher on a trip in the desert.

The movie starts off with a school bus filled with girls driving down a highway. Two brothers, Pete and Al, (Al is played by Zalman King from Blue Sunshine fame) on motorcycles, pull off to the side of the road with bike trouble. Another guy, Jay, comes by to help them out. With this scene I was waiting for something to happen. Either the two rough looking brothers were going to rob and kill Jay or he was going to off both these guys. Well, that didn’t happen. Jay fixed the brother’s bike and they road off. The three catch up with the bus with the girls and the flirting starts between the two groups. They all eventually stop at a gas station. Jay starts to strike up a conversation with one of the girls, while the two brothers just stand there and stare and make suggestions to one another.

As the bus pulls off, the boys try to hurry and fill up their bikes for they can catch up with the girls. The brothers give the gas station attendant a hard time. Al is extra pissed off at him for spilling some gas on his bike. As he goes to pay for the gas back in the garage, he waits a bit while the attendant goes back to fixing a car. Al sneaks over and drops the car on him while he’s working on it. He then goes back to his brother and Jay and take off, the two are unaware of the murder that he committed.

Meanwhile, the girls’ bus breaks down in the middle of a desert road. The driver tries to fix it but has no luck. The bikers finally catch up to them again and they try to help. They end up pulling it to an old farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere promising to fix it. Instead the two brothers wanted the girls all to themselves. When Al tries to force himself on the teacher, Miss Tenny, the bus driver comes to the rescue, but both brothers attack him and the driver ends up getting run over by one of their bikes. The rest freak out and the two brothers decide to hold them as hostage. Jay resists and ends up getting knocked out, while these maniacs hold the teacher and girls captive.

The film is all right and actually goes by very quick. Some good acting from most of the cast, but not a lot of weight to the story. Zalman King is pretty good as the bad guy. There are a few moments where he has these mini-breakdowns and just collapses on the floor and rolls around. In one scene after he kills one of the girls and tosses her in a river, he falls to ground and has one of his breakdowns and then takes a nap, because he doesn’t get back up until nightfall, then he goes back to the farm. The movie is okay for the most part but could have been so much better.