PREPPIES

CONTAINS.... MEH

I've never been a massive fan of the American teen sex comedy. Obviously the shadow of Porky's and Revenge Of The Nerds (and to a lesser extent their sequels) hangs long and gloomy over the genre, and while this particular example isn't anywhere near as wretched and grotesque as, say, Screwballs 2: Loose Screws (which incredibly got a UK cinema release: I saw it on a double bill with the unjustly neglected sleaze classic Vice Squad), it's still pretty firm evidence that gauche American teenagers desperately trying to get laid is one of the most tiresome and depressing subjects imaginable for a major motion picture,

Preppies actually has a vague sliver of social satire about the class structure and the rich-poor divide, but unfortunately it doesn't do anything interesting with it. Our heroes are an old money trio of rich college boys spending the weekend revising for a vital economics exam, while simultaneously trying to get off with a trio of local but socially inferior hotties (and in the case of two of them, their long-term but unaccommodating girlfriends). What the boys don't know, however, is that the aforementioned hotties have been hired to keep their minds off the textbooks so they'll fail the exam, flunk college entirely and thus not qualify for a $50 million inheritance....

It's all very silly, with half the cast putting on exaggerated silly voices as posh Ivy League rich kids, and if it's hard to actually like, it's also hard to hate. Essentially it's good-natured rather than mean-spirited, and it doesn't revolve exclusively around naked women, which is actually odd since Chuck Vincent is one of those directors who spent a lot of time making porn movies as well as "legit" softcore sex thrillers and comedies (Hollywood Hot Tubs is another of his, which despite it sounding utter drivel I'm now rather interested in tracking down). The humour is very broad, and it's not particularly funny, but at least it never gets actively offensive or embarrassing. That there are far worse examples of the campus smut movie out there isn't much of recommendation, though.

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