Private School is one of those movies which, all these years later, you just know that everyone who had anything to do with making it is embarrassed to have been involved. Heck, I'm embarrassed and all I did was watch the stupid thing. It's a teen sex comedy about the students at two private schools, one for girls and one for boys. The plot revolves around the boys and their rather pathetic attempts to see the girls naked. Antics ensue. Desperately unfunny antics. Even in the most horrible comedy movies there's usually a good laugh or two sprinkled in somewhere. Not here. There is nothing funny in this movie. Nothing. The movie features a young Matthew Modine who was very fortunate to salvage a career after appearing in this turkey and Phoebe Cates, fresh off her Fast Times at Ridgemont High bikini brilliance. Ray Walston, who played Mr. Hand in Fast Times, also pops up. Oh, how I wish I had just watched Fast Times again instead of sitting through this debacle of a movie.
Aside from Modine, Cates and Walston the cast is made up of a bunch of nobodies, most of whose acting is so terrible it is easy to see why they had no careers to speak of. The closest thing to a somebody besides the aforementioned trio is Betsy Russell. It is her character, Jordan, who's the bad girl determined to break up the sweet, innocent couple played by Modine and Cates. Jordan's seductive weapon of choice? Topless horseback riding. Subtle. If nothing else that provides a memorable fifteen seconds of film. Of course if the best thing you can say about a movie is that a girl takes her shirt off and rides around on a horse for fifteen seconds you know it must be a truly awful movie indeed. There's also the obligatory shower scene which at least gives us a few minutes of relief from the movie's hideous dialogue, terrible jokes and incredibly uninteresting plot. Very early on in the movie one of the characters goes off to get herself a bag full of horse excrement. Seriously. There's a statement about this movie's quality right there. How would I succinctly describe this movie? It's exactly what's in that bag.
Aside from Modine, Cates and Walston the cast is made up of a bunch of nobodies, most of whose acting is so terrible it is easy to see why they had no careers to speak of. The closest thing to a somebody besides the aforementioned trio is Betsy Russell. It is her character, Jordan, who's the bad girl determined to break up the sweet, innocent couple played by Modine and Cates. Jordan's seductive weapon of choice? Topless horseback riding. Subtle. If nothing else that provides a memorable fifteen seconds of film. Of course if the best thing you can say about a movie is that a girl takes her shirt off and rides around on a horse for fifteen seconds you know it must be a truly awful movie indeed. There's also the obligatory shower scene which at least gives us a few minutes of relief from the movie's hideous dialogue, terrible jokes and incredibly uninteresting plot. Very early on in the movie one of the characters goes off to get herself a bag full of horse excrement. Seriously. There's a statement about this movie's quality right there. How would I succinctly describe this movie? It's exactly what's in that bag.