#73a The Horror of Party Beach (Wes)

The Horror of Party Beach

The story so far…. After watching 26 movies, some of which have been really hard to get hold of (see Inchon), we finally reached a point that was always a risk… We failed to find a single copy of the movie that we were meant to watch next: Danes Without a Clue. After weeks of trying to track down a copy, we found out that it never had a release outside of Denmark; it’s apparently THAT BAD. So thankfully Colin being the organised soul that he is had a reserve list from the original list of movies that he compiled. So as punishment for our failure, we have replaced Danes Without a Clue with 2 movies, the first being the 50s B-Movie The Horror of Party Beach.

After a boat dumps some barrels of toxic waste into the ocean off of a small beach town, one of these barrels splits (well, not so much as splits, it seems people who barrel up toxic waste can't even be bothered to fit the barrels with child proof caps or even caps that don't fall off after the slightest knock) and creates half-man/half-fish monsters out of a combination of the radioactive waste, and skeletons at the bottom of the ocean. These monsters come out of the ocean and start attacking the local teenagers who like nothing better than partying on the beach or holding slumber parties. Scientist Dr Gavin (Allen Laurel), his daughter Elaine (Alice Lyon) and her boyfriend Hank Green (John Scott) all team up in an effort to defeat these and save the town from the terror caused by these marauding monsters.

  

As you can guess from the title this is one of those beach movies that were aimed at the swinging teenage crowd. Complete with dancing, hot-rods, rebellious teenagers and possibly one of the best surf-rock soundtracks ever recorded (by The Del-Aires) it ticks all the boxes of a great fifties movie, so what went wrong?

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then I’m sure you already know of my love of B-Movies no matter how bad they are, and believe me, this one is a stinker. If you read my last review (Troll 2), you’d know that I’ve already seen this before (the first time I was made aware of it was via Sloppy Seconds song The Horror of Party Beach http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ersyiDHzz-Q – which pretty much sums up the whole movie if you don’t want to watch it yourself) and that I think the monster costumes rate amongst the worst seen in movies. Sure they’re better than the abysmal costumes used in Troll 2, but they really do look bad. They look as though someone who’d seen The Creature From The Black Lagoon tried to recreate that monster with nothing but paper-mache, ping-pong balls, frankfurters and rubber scales. But with all B-Movies, the inept look of the monsters adds nothing but charm to the film.

The creation of these monsters, by evolution so fast that even the most ardent of creationists couldn’t argue against it (although I’m sure they’d still ask “if there are mutant sea monsters, why is still toxic waste?), is a very drawn out affair. Seemingly filmed in an aquarium, it feels like you’re watching the first few billion years of creation, even though in reality it only lasts a minute or two. Contrast that with the exciting life of the beach party-goers and it feels more like padding, than the ominous sense of dread that I’m sure director Del Tenney was going for.

The pacing itself is actually pretty well done after that. The partying and subsequently the first monster kill are entertaining to watch, and even the rush to defeat the monsters after that mean this movie doesn’t drag too much whilst watching it. The murders at the slumber party are again entertaining and it comes across as quite a fun movie. What really lets it down most is the acting that is so wooden you’d be forgiven for thinking you was watching a Matt Damon film.

  

This was Eulabelles Moore’s only movie. She plays the stereotypical black housekeeper, that saves the day through her clumsiness, and is probably the best actress in the movie. She has very little to work with, and pretty much all of it is unbearably racist (she even believes in voodoo), but she has the charm to carry the part well and come out relatively unscathed. The rest of the actors however have none of the skill or charm that Moore possessed and seem to be cast from the local Punch and Judy show on the nearest promenade.

The movie has some of the campiest, unintended hilarity that I’ve ever seen. After two guys have a fight on the beach, they actually shake hands! It’s beautiful. Also every time the monsters are about to strike they are accompanied by some really irritating mood music that involves what sounds like a tuba, when the police, Elaine and Dr Gavin are examining one of the monsters arms, something start to walk around outside. This leads to Elaine saying “shhhhh…. I can hear something”. It’s moments like this that when watching movies with friends really does lead to hilarity.

This movie really is quite bad, but like so many B-movies it’s bad in the way that it’s become something quite special. Sure the monsters are awful, but it’s the kind of movie that makes me wish that we had drive-ins in the UK. It’s the sort of movie that I want to watch with a bucket of popcorn and my best girl on my arm. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to learn how to do the zombie stomp, so I can keep this movie alive.