Teen Movie Hell: A Crucible of Coming-of-Age Comedies from Animal House to Zapped!

by Mike McPadden

Born in the drive-in theater backseats of the 1970s, the demonic visions of Teen Movie Hell fueled the VCR, cable TV, and shopping mall multiplex booms of the 1980s before collapsing in the 1990s in a pixelated pile of cable dissipation and Internet indulgences. Between George Lucas's American Graffiti in 1973 and Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused twenty years later, lust-driven laugh riots on the order of Animal House, Porky's, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Revenge of the Nerds boomed at the box office and conquered pop culture by celebrating adolescent misbehavior run amok.
Puberty-powered comedy classics including Meatballs, Caddyshack, Valley Girl, and The Last American Virgin fused hormonal overloads with anti-authority abandon and below-the-belt slapstick to create a genre that also unleashed the anarchic, sex-mad likes of The Swinging Cheerleaders, H.O.T.S., Hardbodies, Private School, Joysticks, Spring Break, and Zapped!--as well as the mainstream variations Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Pretty in Pink.

All-seeing author Mike "McBeardo" McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and dozens of bonus features, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.

Tap the keg, tailor your toga, and belly flop hard into the exploitation inferno of bikinis beaches, locker rooms, summer camps, study halls, wayward teachers, cool camp counselors, wet-T-shirts, custom vans, sexy ESP, shower peepholes, and other overlooked penal code violations!

Genres: Film, Media Tie In

352 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2019

About the author

Brooklyn-born Mike McPadden is the Head Writer of the skinternational online phenomenon Mr. Skin (well-known to fans of Howard Stern and the movie Knocked Up). In addition to years of freelance journalism (Esquire, Black Book, New York Press) and more than a decade as a Hustler editor and correspondent, Mr. McPadden has also been a B-movie screenwriter (Animal Insincts 3) and shock-rock musician (Gays in the Military).

On the book front, Mr. McPadden authored If You Like Metallica… (Backbeat Books), edited Mr. Skin’s Skintastic Video Guide (SK Press) and two volumes of Mr. Skin’s Skincyclopedia (St. Martin’s). He also contributed chapter-length essays to Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth (Feral House), The Heavy Metal Book of Lists (Backbeat Books), and The Sex-Drugs-and-Rock-N-Roll Book of Lists (Soft Skull). Mr. McPadden lives in Chicago with his wife, xoJane.com editor Rachel McPadden.

Reviews

[Joey Shapiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot!! Teen comedies are def a genre I haven’t explored as much and this whole book is a very fun and thorough lil guidebook/encyclopedia feat. short reviews of every major movie!! I made a syllabus of movies from this book to watch, ranked by how urgently I gotta watch them, and uhh the list gets longer every time I open the book to a random page. Only lost one star bc one of the essays (not by the book’s author) felt very “:-( SJW’s and #MeToo are ruining my favorite movies” and I think that take is boring and lazy! Everything else in the book is so fun though and I love learning about weird niche movies I’m not familiar with!

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gets 5 stars for checking pretty much all of my boxes: a ‘zine influenced, alliteration- and pun- filled collection of descriptive pseudo reviews of more movies than I’ll ever have time to watch but am thrilled exist, replete with movie poster art rendered in black and white to make it feel all the more like something I’d have found on the bottom shelf of the magazine rack at Tower Records and Video while stealing sideways glances at all of the bonkers Something Weird Video boxes; basically, my idea of heaven.

Belongs on a shelf right alongside The Psychotronic Guide, and any number of Videohound books.

[Nick Spacek · Rating 4 out of 5]

waaaaaaaay better than heavy metal movies. far less "well, this kinda counts" bullshit, and the essays which introduce the book do a solid job of pointing out that these movies are frequently problematic. the reviews point out some hidden gems and take to task a few sacred cows, and i found myself reading every summary, rather than just flipping to the movies i was already interested in. i might need to buy this for the home library.

[I.D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great overview of the genre with loads of little seen and forgotten movies to track down. There is a recurring refrain of anti “wokeness” throughout but it comes naturally as most of these movies would now be considered “problematic.” The hatred of John Hughes was surprising considering how beloved he generally is but it was explained well so I can get behind the reasoning.

[MR SAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not Bad although Soft Cover.