Reform School Girl (1994)
** (out of 4)
A good girl (Aimee Graham) tries to escape her sexually abusive uncle by going out with some "friends" but a bad boy (Matt LeBlanc) gets into a car wreck in a stolen car and kills a man. Since the girl can't give a positive identity on the man driving, she's sentenced to a year in a reform school. This here is another entry in Showtime's "Rebels Highway" series and is a partial remake of the 1957 AIP cult classic. REFORM SCHOOL GIRL is far from a bad movie but fans of low-budget films should at least be mildly entertained but at the same time there's no doubt that they could have done so much more with the material. Director Jonathan Kaplan actually does a nice job capturing the mood and atmosphere of those 50s AIP juvenile pictures. I thought that the director really nailed the setting and you could watch the film and feel as if you were really seeing a reform school from this period. The problem seems to be the screenplay that doesn't know what type of movie it wants to be. There's no question part of this is a homage to those 50s flicks but there's also a perverted side that creeps into the story but it never goes far enough to where this could be considered exploitation. The "naughty" moments always stop well short of being anything too dirty and these scenes sometimes conflict with the other part of the film, which is just a clean homage. Case in point is a lesbian sex scene, which tries to appear dirty yet they film it in such a way as if they didn't want it to get to extreme or even reach a R-rated level. This is followed by a shower sequence with a bunch of nudity yet what's the point of this scene if it's the only one like it? Not to mention the perverted uncle who's touching the girls. The performances are all rather good and this includes LeBlanc who is really funny as the bad boy. While this is far from a good movie, fans of this type of thing should at least be entertained by it.
** (out of 4)
A good girl (Aimee Graham) tries to escape her sexually abusive uncle by going out with some "friends" but a bad boy (Matt LeBlanc) gets into a car wreck in a stolen car and kills a man. Since the girl can't give a positive identity on the man driving, she's sentenced to a year in a reform school. This here is another entry in Showtime's "Rebels Highway" series and is a partial remake of the 1957 AIP cult classic. REFORM SCHOOL GIRL is far from a bad movie but fans of low-budget films should at least be mildly entertained but at the same time there's no doubt that they could have done so much more with the material. Director Jonathan Kaplan actually does a nice job capturing the mood and atmosphere of those 50s AIP juvenile pictures. I thought that the director really nailed the setting and you could watch the film and feel as if you were really seeing a reform school from this period. The problem seems to be the screenplay that doesn't know what type of movie it wants to be. There's no question part of this is a homage to those 50s flicks but there's also a perverted side that creeps into the story but it never goes far enough to where this could be considered exploitation. The "naughty" moments always stop well short of being anything too dirty and these scenes sometimes conflict with the other part of the film, which is just a clean homage. Case in point is a lesbian sex scene, which tries to appear dirty yet they film it in such a way as if they didn't want it to get to extreme or even reach a R-rated level. This is followed by a shower sequence with a bunch of nudity yet what's the point of this scene if it's the only one like it? Not to mention the perverted uncle who's touching the girls. The performances are all rather good and this includes LeBlanc who is really funny as the bad boy. While this is far from a good movie, fans of this type of thing should at least be entertained by it.
