Love Letter to Malibu High (1979)(a.k.a. “The Feel-Bad Hit of the Summer”)

Oh Malibu High, you absolute dirtbag of a movie. You put on your cutoffs and tube top like you’re headed to a beach party—but we both know you’re dragging us straight to hell, and we’re gonna thank you for the ride.

You don’t open with a bang. You open with apathy. Sun-bleached apathy, the kind only late-'70s Crown International could bottle. Kim—our "heroine"—is already halfway to the abyss when we meet her. Flunking classes, chain-smoking, bitter as old coffee. You tell us she’s just a high school senior, but everything about her screams 35-year-old divorcee trapped in a teen movie's body.

And that’s the hook, isn’t it? Malibu High isn’t about redemption. It’s about collapse. You offer no moral high ground, no winking irony. Kim doesn’t learn. She evolves—from stoned slacker to call girl to hitwoman, all in a brisk 90 minutes. Her descent is as casual as slipping on sandals, and twice as disturbing. And you dare us to look away.

There’s something so... uncomfortable about your sunshine. Your version of Malibu is no Beach Boys postcard. It's strip malls, dirty sand, leering mustaches, and a total lack of adult supervision. You don’t glamorize vice. You just show it, blunt and sad and weirdly hypnotic. Watching Kim go from giving handies for homework to pulling triggers for cash feels like drowning in lukewarm chlorine—slow, wrong, and impossible to stop.

The music? That cheapo Crown International "mood funk." Like porno wah-wah met lounge jazz in a gutter and they birthed a soundtrack. The acting? Wooden, desperate, and perfect. The sex? About as erotic as a DMV line—but twice as grim. There’s nothing titillating here. It’s exploitation stripped of fun, which somehow makes it more powerful.

You’re not sleazy in the way people expect. You’re sleazy in the way real life can be—when everything’s for sale, and no one’s watching the kids. You’re the cold slap in the face after the party. The hangover movie that forgot to bring Advil. The dark side of the American teen dream, circa 1979, and you never blink.

And yet… I love you for it. I love how you refuse to give us a clean ending. I love your warped sense of justice. I love that you made me feel like I needed a shower and a long walk after watching you—twice. Back to back. With commentary in my own head.

Malibu High, you’re not a movie you recommend. You’re a movie you warn people about. But for those of us raised on 50-pack DVDs, on warped VHS aesthetics and moral rot baked in sunlight—you’re a totem. A bad mood in film form. A masterpiece of malaise.

So here’s to you, Kim. You didn’t make it out. But you took us all the way down with you, grinning behind your Farrah Fawcett hair.

Love,
A washed-out soul with the TV still glowing blue