If Dazed and Confused had been made not by Richard Linklater, but by its most burned-out characters, the result would have to be Mag Wheels. It would just have to.
In reality, this scrubby, unfunny teen comedy was written and directed by softcore porn’s Bethel Buckalew (Below the Belt) in an attempt to go legit. Also released under the pre-Mark Harmon title of Summer School, it’s produced in part by Batmobile designer George Barris, who more or less cameos as himself, as he did the year before in Supervan, a more enjoyable vehicle of vansploitation.
Although the little-known Mag Wheels is largely meandering, its main concern after four-wheel fetishization is a love triangle so simple, its points are mapped on the movie’s poster. Expelled from school for truancy, pretty Anita (one-and-doner Shelly Horner) takes a waitress job at the local skate park’s concession stand. Through no fault of her own, she attracts the eye of cool dude Steve (John Laughlin, The Hills Have Eyes Part II), which irks his spoiled-brat girlfriend, Donna (Verkina Flower, The Capture of Bigfoot), who accuses, “You’re all horned up after that hoozit!” (Admit it: Horned-Up Hoozit is your favorite Dr. Seuss book, too.)
As Steve and Anita get cozy, Donna gets back at him in the most logical way: anonymously calling the police to bust him for dealing cocaine. He’s not. The resulting scene is played as hilarity. It’s not.
But the barely watchable Mag Wheels isn’t really about that. Other things it’s not really about, yet features in large measure: gang initiations, lesbian truckers, beach Frisbee, sexual assault, joint toking and cube gleaming. Eventually, the ladies square off against the men in a life-or-death game of tug o’ war using trucks against vans atop a cliff. It’s not really about that, either, given their cavalier attitude toward death. It’s about attracting young audiences with the promise of seeing flashed tits and sweet paneling; viewers get both and yet nothing at the same time. —Rod Lott