Student Confidential (1995) from Brainscan

A couple of weeks ago, in a short blurb about the movie, Terror Firmer, someone used the line "awful even by Troma standards". Well, if Student Confidential (1995) were the standard by which all other Troma films were judged, Terror Firmer would be that company's Return of the King.

You cannot believe what a muddled mess this movie is. There this guy, see. And he's a millionaire with a whacko nympho of a wife, but she won't screw him and even though she lolls around the house all nekkid and stuff, she gets pissed when he looks at her. And he becomes a school counselor and gives all kinds of high-minded speeches to no one in particular and gets the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of guys who he hired in the first place or something and... None of it makes a lick of sense.

The way I figure it, a floridly psychotic individual wrote a long screenplay in which the scenes that did make sense were broken up by scenes that were just plain fruitcakes, so someone else cut out all the craziness and they made a movie that turned a profit. Then someone else had the idea of taking all the lithium-deprived scenes that had been cut in the first movie, filming THEM and selling it as another movie by a writing genius. Things aren't random but there is such temporal and logical oddness you just know it was written, filmed and edited by someone with two functioning neurons and one active synapse. It is the only way to explain what you see when you look at Student Confidential.

Three women do take off their clothes.

NUDITY REPORT

see the main commentary

  • Susie Scott, Hefmate for the month of May 1983, goes full frontal on us in her one and only screen appearance outside the videos the Hefster markets himself. Susie plays a student who is unpopular with the guys 'cuz she has a facial scar, which I could not see at all. Plus the idea that a blonde with her bod couldn't get any action because of a tiny imperfection violates the Blonde Rule (which states that if you put a blonde wig on a rat's ass there are plenty of guys who will ask it out for a date).
  • Paula Sorenson plays the millionaire-counselor's nympho wife. She also has a right nice full-frontal scene.
  • Elizabeth Singer plays the rich bad girl, a character all teen movies must have or they risk causing a fatal rip in the space-time continuum. She gets almost topless in a scene with the millionaire guy and then does get topless in a much later, much darker scene.
not currently available on DVD

I know not what the Troma guys were up to when they did this one. None of their films reach the standards set by MGM or Paramount, but usually there is something to hang onto. Not here.

The Critics Vote ...

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The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is about a Z.

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