The Beach Girls and the Monster

Beach Girls and the Monster, The (1965)

* (out of 4)

A bunch of teens just wanna dance to some good music and surf but a sea monster shows up to ruin their day. This is a rather infamous film that tries to mix with horror genre with any of the Beach Party movies but the film is a flat out disaster but I must admit that it kept me entertained throughout its 65-minute running time. If you can't stand bad movies then there's no need for you to see this one but if you believe that some bad movies can be entertaining then this here is a must see. The performances are all incredibly bad but this does lead to some nice laughs as does the really bad direction. The monster has a cute rubber face and I admit that I enjoyed the few scenes that it's in but the twist in the plot can easily be spotted. The film is best remembered today for its Frank Sinatra, Jr. soundtrack and it's actually pretty good even though it's third-rate Beach Boys stuff.

For years I've had the TV version (Monster From The Surf) on VHS off of TV. Despite it's shortcomings, I watch it once in a while. Maybe it's the surfish soundtrack (nice minor key whammy-bar during the monster scenes); I've added the opening credits theme to my surf guitar repetoire. I also enjoyed the character Mark, the sculptor,(Walker Edmiston's finest moment?) who really digs the surf crowd (rather vacuous and dull in this movie) but can't seem to connect with them. I wonder if Frank Sinatra Jr. really composed the music. I also wonder if Jon Hall actually got in the monster suit. I doubt it. For his sake I hope not as the performance of the monster was awful. Note how after 'brutally murdering' the 1st victim he makes sure not to drop her on the ground hard. Anyhow I was surprised to see this on DVD but didn't think it deserved the price it was selling for. Later I found it used and happily picked it up. No outtakes or commentary (I doubt there's a huge public outcry) but some good liner notes about the cast & movie. *1/2 out of *****

... when you see a boom mike in the trailer!

"The Beach Girls and the Monster" features a clear shot of Sue Casey speaking on the phone during the trailer. With a boom mike above her. And the perch.

The movie itself has a delightful scraping the barrel approach when it comes to exploitation. You can find the two main sub-genres from the 60's b-movies melting: the monster movie and the beach movie. Both aspects are indeed badly done. The monster is everything but frightening and one has to wonder why any of his victims hadn't the idea to kick him between the legs. And the beach part is so cliché ridden it looks like a "Lord Loves A Duck" sequence, except for the fact that "Lord Loves A Duck" was a parody (also featuring boom mikes on screen). There's for instance, for comic relief, a ventriloquist and his lion Kingsley who duets with the girls on a corny song. Actually, he could be the worst ventriloquist on Earth: he carries a false beard to hide his moving lips.

Then, you find all the features of cheap exploitation movies. Washed-out actors playing the parts of supposedly attractive characters. "Teenagers" that were last seen in high school 15 before the shooting. Big names on the credits, like Frank Sinatra. Even if you must add "Jr" as that's his son, Frank Jr, and he merely wrote the score (mostly lounge jazz and a few Beach Boys attempts). Actually, Mark (Walter Edmiston) looks a little like Sinatra as the sculptor that Sue Casey teases. (By the way, his sculptures are not exactly flattering even for a fading beauty like Ms Casey.)

Jon Hall, for his only directing credit, shot the thing cheaply and quickly. His house was a convenient place for inner shots and he tends to use zooming extensively to end a scene without making another shot. It's irritating even when it's Luchino Visconti who's directing and Jon Hall is apparently no Visconti.

And there's the story, or indeed the lack of story. You also know that a movie has got a problem when Robert Silliphant is credited for "additional dialogue". Silliphant took a writing hand in both "The Creeping Terror" and "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?". In other words, he's responsible for two of the lamest screenplays of all times! "The Beach Girls and the Monster" is his third and final screen credit. So I have to wonder how much Silliphant improved the original screenplay.

On the plus side, the girls on the beach (actually the dancing troupe from the Whisky-A-Go- Go club) have tight bikinis and giggles as if they were Shakira's mother. Or grandmother. So, every movie has a redeeming quality.

I remember watching this movie as a kid and I thought it was pretty scary, so when I saw it on DVD I decided to get it and now I see why a lot of people think this movie is a stinker. The film is part beach party flick, part whodunnit, part melodrama and part horror. John Hall, who showed a lot of promise with his role in The Hurricane, really showed how far his career had fallen when he became involved in this throwaway and Sue Casey showed why she was nothing more than a minor league actress. The other actors, if you can call them that, are so bad that you wonder why this film was ever made. However, I do like looking at bad movies and this is definitely one of them.

This movie is clearly not for everyone, as it was made during a more innocent time when surfing and beach movies were all the rage. While it obviously didn't win any Academy Awards, it was still a cute movie nonetheless. Essentially, the film begins with a pretty beach girl who playfully runs away from the campfire her friends are having on the beach. A monster then appears and kills her. After that, the scene shifts to one of the beach houses where a young surfer named "Richard Lindsey" (Arnold Lessing) lives with his overly demanding father, "Dr. Otto Lindsey" (John Hall), and his sexy but two-timing stepmother, "Vicky Lindsey" (Sue Casey). Meanwhile, amidst the drama within the beach house, the monster continues to kill Richard's friends. While I found this movie a bit amusing, it's really hard to overlook the faults. The acting wasn't very good, some of the scenes were laughable, and the "monster" looked completely ridiculous. Even so, it featured attractive ladies like Elaine DuPont (as "Janie") and the aforementioned Sue Casey to brighten up the scenery, along with a little mystery thrown in as well. So, all things considered, I suppose it wasn't a total waste of time. However, this film isn't for everyone, and even then, those who remember this particular era will still have to make allowances.