This summer seems to be shaping up as the summer of the teen flick. Summertime has traditionally been a time for mega-kiddie blockbusters, The Lion King, Hercules, Mulan - anything parents can bring their younger children to for a couple of hours of "peace and quiet".

However, in 1999 the cartoons are giving way a bit - to the kind of 15-rated carry-on parents would rather not know about. The American summer teen flicks won't all make it to Ireland this summer, but due for release over the coming weeks are the likes of Human Traffic, Virtual Sexuality, Cruel Intentions and Varsity Blues, while She's All That opened last week.

And just as we head into the new millennium, teen films are at last starring teenagers, aimed at teenagers, and dealing with genuine teen issues.

Well, not all of them, obviously, but some of the more interesting ones. Check out Virtual Sexuality and Human Traffic. Virtual Sexuality is about a teenage girl who wonders about how her "first time" will go - when she accidentally gets sucked into a video game and turned into a boy, giving her a unique insight into the male perspective.

Human Traffic (which stars Irish actress Lorraine Pilkington) centres around the club scene in Cardiff, Wales. Made by a 25-year-old director, it is being hailed as the first film to explore life as it is experienced by the E generation - the highs and the lows.

Meanwhile, one of the hits in the US box office at the moment is Election. Described as the brightest high-school adventure since the black comedy Heathers (1989), which starred Christian Slater and Winona Ryder in 1989.

Starring Reese Witherspoon and Chris Klein, Election is a teen satire centred around a student-council campaign, and it revels in the idea that teenagers rule. Which is probably a bit hard to take for your average teenager currently chained to a desk studying for exams against their will.

Now showing at a cinema near you is She's All That - one of those comedy, sex, style, romance sort of films. Laney is a bit of an odd one out: in a school which is all about appearances, she's all about art, truth and making a difference in the world. One day, the "most popular" guy at school bets his buddies he can transform her into prom queen. He has five weeks, and you can probably guess what happens.

Good, bad or indifferent, why the rush to make teen films all of a sudden? There may be a whole pile of socio-political possibilities there, but there is definitely one answer which must be providing quite a chunk of motivation behind the deluge: money.

Neil Moritz is a highly successful producer of teen movies (he did the pair of I Know What You Did Last Summer flicks). His latest, Cruel Intentions, is a teen update of Dangerous Liaisons, starring Ryan Phillip, Reese Witherspoon (again) and Sara Michelle Gellar as wealthy high-schoolers engaged in a battle of seduction and betrayal.

Moritz says making movies for teenagers is easier than making them for adults, because it's a lot easier to get teenagers out of the house on a Friday night. "Kids have the most disposable income, and they have the patience to watch a movie over and over again. And that's what makes hit movies." Ah yes, money again, and repeat business at that.

However, while teenagers might seem like the perfect market, they are, like most consumers, not entirely predictable - the source of marketing people's nightmares. She's All That, for example, was not that well received by the US press, but it has done extremely well in the box office.

According to Moritz, the key to success is pretty simple: "You have to do something fresh and original, that turns the genre on its head." Hmmmmmmm . . .