The Beast That Killed Women

Shame, shame, shame. This little "horror" film is basically a nudist camp film with the awkward appearance of a guy in an ape suit thrown in as an afterthought. It should not be called the "The Beast That Killed Women," but rather "The Beast That Killed a Woman." Maybe ten minutes of the sixty minute running time(which felt like it was two hours!)is devoted to the ape guy chasing a woman and then finally being dealt with by the police. What do you get for the rest of the film? Bare bottoms and bosoms parading through the woods. Playing volleyball. Swimming. Playing shuffleboard. Talking in bunk beds. Sitting around a campfire. All the while the most appalling music plays. The film has no actors. There are really no characters developed. There is little direction aside from a guy following the movements of nudists in a nudist camp. The film fails miserably as a horror film in any way. It lacks drama. It lacks humour. It is only remotely intriguing from a nostalgic viewpoint(perhaps).

First of all, I was actually able to watch the full thing without turning it off or pausing it, which is good, I guess. Anyway, in my own opinion, it was a great film, despite the fact it lacked decent acting and the volume didn't stay consistent.

Most of the actors seemed like they could do better if they just acted as they would if cameras weren't rolling. There was one scene which had people clapping, but the claps that could be heard did not match up with the actors hand movements. There was a few bits where children (or something else) can be heard making noise, yet it could be heard outside of a building, and inside at the same volume. Furthermore, some bits didn't have speech and only music and various, seemingly random, noises can be heard.

Nevertheless, the plot, albeit not too creative, was half-decent, and it did manage to make it look like these people were actual nudists (some of the actors are nudists, which helped, a lot). The film did a great job at knowing what it was, and what it was doing. It never seemed to be taking itself too seriously, which is what makes it so good. Matter of fact, one character talks about how the 'beast' could be a man in a suit, which it, as we all know, was.

All in all, the lack of quality actually makes it an enjoyable film. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, so to speak, but I'd recommend it to anyone who likes B-Movies.

Here we go, back to those swinging sixties.This nudist / horror hybrid is so bad that you can't help but smile and enjoy it all the way through. All the standard prerequisites of a bad movie are here. You get in abundance horrible acting. I have seen people read cue cards with better panache. A bevy of bare boobs and butts parade around for ambiance (after all this is a nudist camp). Let us not forget that the titular title `monster' is a man in a dime store knock off gorilla suit. You know that you are talented when you make a film this bad, no one would think a film like this could be taken seriously.. But the biggest part of a bad film is unintentional laughs and this one has them in abundance. This movie will work well with the bad movie lover. Thankfully it runs about 60 minutes. But even at that it looses steam about 25 minutes before that.

The Beast That Killed Women (1965)

** (out of 4)

The setting is a nudist camp in Miami where the members have a swell time spending their days walking around naked, swimming, square dancing and playing a variety of other sports. All of this happiness quickly turns to terror when a killer gorilla shows up and starts killing people.

THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN is probably one of the better known releases from Something Weird Video because it qualifies as one of the worst movies ever made but also one of the most entertaining in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. While watching this movie the first thing that came into my mind was how much it must have sucked wanting to see nudity back in the day because you would have to submit yourself to these types of movies. The next thing that came into my mind is how thin the entire plot is but this was to be expected because the only real goal here was to show nude bodies and there's no question that we get a lot of that.

Again, everything in this movie is pretty awful from the acting to the directing to the plot to the horrible score but in all honesty no one is watching this for "that" stuff. The movie contains non-stop nudity and it's often done is such childish ways that you can't help but laugh. Just check out the first real bits of nudity where the camera pretty much just stays in place while naked people walk in front of it. I guess you can say the director was an equal opportunist nudist because it's woman, man, woman and then man again. There are countless scenes of people just walking in front of the camera and the most hilarious moment comes when there's a towel on top of a wall for some reason and two women must jump in order to try and get it. Oh, then let's not forget that the women sleep on bunk beds and near the end when the gorilla is running loose this gives them a reason to get into the same bed.

Speaking of the gorilla, the man-in-a-gorilla suit routine is never scary here and in fact it's going to get more laughs than anything else. I'm not sure what actor was inside the suit but I'm curious as to what drugs were in his system because this is one wild and crazy gorilla. The outfit is obviously fake and they never try to hide this. As you can tell, there are a lot of bad things with this film but at just 60-minutes the film moves rather good and there's no question that there are enough laughs here to keep you entertained as long as you don't take it too serious.

A man recuperating in a hospital recounts how he got there when an ape terrorized a nudist camp. This was marginally better then "Monster at Camp Sunshine", the other feature on Something Weird's double-feature DVD. Obviously, this film only exists to show flesh, and don't get me wrong, the movie is pretty damn bad. But at just an hour it's not THAT awful. Thanks in part to being Juliet Anderson's first film role. Juliet of course would become a porn star in the 80's thanks to her 'Aunt Peg' character, and roles in other Golden Age porn classics.

My Grade: D+

DVD Extras: Double-Bill with "The Monster of Camp Sunshine"; 9 Shorts ( Bring 'em back nude, Expose of the Nudist Racket, Nude Ranch, Beauty and the Beast, Back to Nature, Nudist Fashion show, and 3 intermissions) ; Gallery of Exploitation art; Vintage Drive-in intermission; Theatrical Trailer; Trailers for "Eves on Skis", "Goldilocks and the Three Bares", "Nudes on Tiger Reef", "Nudist Life", and "Pussycat Paradise"

Easter Egg: Highlight Jesse James Drive-In for a bonus Trailer for "Girls Come Too"

Eye Candy: It's mostly set at a nudist camp..duh, so loads of breasts and buns, only bushes are trees tho