Beach Babes from Beyond

Back in the early 90's, when the world of "Skinemax" was just beginning and most of the films back then either starred Shannon Whirry or Shannon Tweed, there was a little sub-genre of the B-movie experience called the "bikini movie." This film, "Beach Babes From Beyond", falls into that category. There were so many "bikini" films made during that period, it was unreal....they single-handedly kept "USA Up All Night" on the air and kept Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear gainfully employed.

The premise of this movie is simple: take three intergalactic space babes, supposedly on a shopping spree with Daddy's spaceship and Daddy's money, and crash-land them on the sunny beaches of California. That should be it right there....the rest of the movie should deal with them attempting to have sex with as many surfer dudes as possible and go home happily satisfied. Instead, we get a variation of STSWB, or "Save The Something With Breasts." A simple plot device, actually. In order to save a (carwash/hotel/drive-in/old decrepit house) from (destruction/a buy-out/foreclosure/an evil relative), a group of girls get in bikinis and try to raise a certain amount of cash in a very short time. It's a tried and true formula that works every time.

The girls offer to enter a bikini contest in order to raise the money. We need an antagonist, so enter Linnea Quigley, a B-movie legend, to send her legion of bikini-clad models in to win the prize. We know how it ends (the good guys always win, you know), so let's not dwell on it.

I had to pop in the tape of this film again to make sure I gave it the correct grade, and fortunately I did. Here's your chance to see Nikki Fritz before she became a soft-core film staple, and the cast is littered with the relatives of actual A-list actors. I guess riding coattails wasn't enough for these folks, they actually want to work for a living!

This film comes in way behind "The Bikini Carwash Company" in the "bikini film" category. In my opinion, "Bikini Summer 3" is barely (and I do mean BARELY) better than this movie, and that's not saying much.

Women: C (The women were okay, nothing spectacular. They looked like I could walk down the street and probably bump into one of them. In films like these, that ain't good.)

Sex: D (Sex? If you call hugging gently while naked, but no actual movement going on "sex", then go right ahead--but I won't.)

Story: D+ (STSWB movies don't do well with me unless there's a whole lot of slapstick comedy, as there was in "Bikini Carwash Company.")

Overall: C- (Barely a passing grade, saved from failure by Linnea Quigley's funny character, the only one with any real development. Don't get me started on old "Uncle Bud." His "aging hippie/surfer dude" character is too one-dimensional.)

In short, if you're channel flipping and happen to stop on it randomly, then watch it. If not, it's okay....you won't be missing much.

Take the old hokey beach movies from the first golden era (the next is the 80's) and put the girls in some hot 80's fashions (thongs), throw in some very tame soft-core sex, and play even worse music and you have an hour and a half of great mindless fun! The leg and ass lovers of the world would want to have this in their permanent collection! (Breast men won't be disappointed either). If someone would just do a decent job of this in hard core, I would be in heaven.

If you want oscar level performances in your movies, your brain will have a meltdown if you even attempt to watch this movie.

Three bubble brained space bimbos decide to visit Earth. They do so by crash-landing their spaceship in California, where they meet three surfer dudes, who for once, aren't totally unlikeable.

All this... action is interspersed with typical boring softcore sex scenes. These scenes could have been borrowed from any other '90s softcore flick and you wouldn't even notice. Some of them don't even seem to feature any of the characters, just random b-actors, ie. out of work male fitness models, and women with breasts that look like they're made out of plaster.

At least with softcore flicks like this one, I know I can stop paying attention during the sex scenes without missing anything, because they always go on a while.

One of the space-babes proves her extraterrestrial origins by pulling a net off her unconvincing 'spaceship', convincing the surfer dude instantly. The dude apparently didn't notice this large vehicle was right there on his right - surprising, considering the net the bimbo pulls off of it is nowhere near large enough to keep it concealed; there is no possible way he couldn't have noticed it.

Linnea Quigley is also in there, as a lady who knows a photographer and hangs around a mansion. She ties one of the girls up, for some reason.

I guess it wouldn't be a b-movie set on the beach without a musical number that just goes on forever. This might be a rarity in that the band is made up of bikini babes as well, indistinguishable from the ones dancing on stage. The awful song drones on for what seems like forever, but there is surprise nudity at the end.

"Beach Babes from Beyond" was directed by David DeCoteau, a b-movie maven who produced a bunch of enjoyable exploitation flicks in the '80s before turning his hand to increasingly homoerotic, mass profuced fair in the new millennium. He is now famous for the awfulness of his contemporary material - which makes "Beach Babes" look capable by comparison - and the fact that all of his movies feature young men in their underwear.

"Beach Babes" is unfortunately not even one of the better of his early period. Perhaps, when this was produced, his best years were already behind him, but he hadn't found a market for his homoerotica yet.

Tacky, but mildly entertaining early 90's soft core comedy features Xena (Sarah Bellemo), Luna (Tamara Landry), and Sola (Nicole Posey), as three outer-space teenagers. Xena's parents have gone on vacation for a couple of days. Following some persistent persuasion from her friends, Xena agrees to take her father's spaceship for a ride. The end result? They wind up running out of gas in space, and crash-land on planet Beta 45, AKA earth. Meanwhile, teenagers Dave (Michael Todd Davis) and Jerry (Ken Steadman) have come to California to stay the summer with Dave's Uncle Bud (Joe Estevez ) a beach bum who lives right on the beach. The three of them wind up meeting our three space girls who have walked away from the crash without a scratch. Uncle Bud is about to be thrown out from his soon-to-be-condemned beach pad thanks to Sally (Linnea Quigley), who lives right up the hill and used to be in a relationship with Bud. She's also a bikini magnate, and is trying to win a bikini design contest to the tune of, $30,000....exactly what Bud would need to fix up his property, so the girls decide to try to win the prize for him. And that's about it, folks. Knowing that their paper thin plot was barely enough to sustain a feature length movie, the filmmakers subject us to scene after scene of endless beach parties featuring tons of extras gyrating their half naked bodies in the scorching sun. Oh, and lets not forget the sex. There's quite a deal of it. Before I go any further, I need to put this movie in context. It was released in 1993, long before the advent of such soft core labels such as Surrender Cinema and Seduction Cinema. Compared to these newer, edgier, more explicit movies, the soft core movies of the 90's sure seem somewhat mild. When Beach Babes From Beyond first came out in 1993 from the Full Moon offshoot Torchlight Entertainment, it was heralded as the debut release of a label that specialized in "mature audiences" type films. Needless to say, the times have changed. This particular film genre has gone from a few steamy, but brief sex scenes and fleeting glimpses of female full frontal nudity to extended sex scenes that occasionally threaten to venture into the realm of hardcore. Looking at Beach Babes From Beyond again after viewing it upon its 93' release, it's safe to say that if this same film were to be made today, there would be a hell of a lot more emphasis on the sex scenes and less time spent on plot and dialog. As for the sex scenes themselves, they tend to run hot-and-cold. Our three space girls waste no time in getting comfortable with the boys that evening. So each couple gets a soft core scene, complete with annoying slow motion camera work and too dark lighting. They're really not that horrible, and are surprisingly graphic in a few spots, especially the scene between Xena and Jerry that takes place in the back of a trailer. But the one sex scene that REALLY leaves a lasting impression, and causes you to be surprised in its overall intensity, occurs quite early on in the film. Sally is attending a topless photo shot with three of her models posing by a pool. All of the actresses in this scene are beautiful gorgeous, but Nikki Fritz stands out from all the two due to her enormous presence. Remember that this point in her career she had yet to achieve the type of enormous popularity that soon would follow. Her posing nude by a pool leads to an unforgettable fantasy sequence where she shows her soapy body in a tub and then again when walking away from her bath. Walking toward the bed towards a nearly nude pumped up guy in the waiting, we get a full length complete nude scene with her almost heart shaped rear end and perfectly shaped back. It's good that Nikki's back is so muscular as it is about to get a pretty good workout. Nikki spends the next few minutes completely nude with a hunky guy in a variety of positions in a scene that is filmed completely differently than the three other lovemaking scenes. No dark lighting or annoying slow motion here...just two actors in one enormous bed sans sheets and covers who seem at time to be barely acting at all. Nikki's ecstatic body language just goes to prove that few other actresses seem to enjoy filming sex scenes as much as she does. It's really the only time where Beach Babes From Beyond truly delivers the goods. But even without this spectacular scene, I am mildly recommending this film just for the fact alone that it's fairly watchable and never dull no thanks to an incredibly energetic and attractive cast, many of whom would show up in various direct to video features in the remainder of the decade.

Patrick Swayze's BROTHER??? Charlie Sheen's UNCLE??? Sylvester Stallone's MOTHER??? John Travolta's BROTHER??? Batman's SIDEKICK??? What's not to love? All we need is Clint Howard, LaToya Jackson, and Ron Reagan to make it perfect.