Beach House

My review was written in June 1984 after watching the movie on Thorn EMI video cassette.

"Beach House" is an unsuccessful feature ill-advisedly attempting to aapt the format of west coast surf and sand frolics to the Jersey shore. Filmed in Ocean City and Avalon, New Jersey several seasons back under the title "Down the Shore", tame entry was released marginally in 1982 and is currently a home video entry.

Slim premise derives from cultural clash as a folksy group of Italian kids from Brooklyn, headed by handsome Anthony (John Cosola) go to Ocean City for a week's vacation at the beach, staying at a house where kids from Philadelphia likewise are staying. Anthony falls for a cute blonde from Philly named Cindy (Kathy McNeil) and both groups spend their time drinking beer and dancing to rock music.

With unfunny, strictly functional dialing, and an absence of the wild gags and grossness that have made scores of teen comedies (culminating in "Porky's") work, "House" adds up to mere filler. Cas, which seems to be populated by friends and relatives of young producer Marino Amoruso, tries hard but makes little headway within the plotless format, which has no payoff, ending with a nothing dance number on the beach.

Reportedly, a plan was devised to convert the finished film into a trendy horror opus by adding footage of a mutated monster coming out of the ocean to threaten the protagonists, but even that hackneyed gimmick wouldn't have helped. No horror scenes are included in the film viewed here.

About halfway through the film, the question "Why?" started popping into my head.

This is a teen comedy without comedy, a teen sex comedy without nudity, then suddenly, it takes a swing at being a teen horror slasher featuring a creepy stalker who is the least scary villain in moviemaking history.

It's a guidos versus college kids film sanitized down to earn a PG rating. Perhaps if you weren't old enough to get into R movies in 1982, this might have been a good half hour of entertainment squeezed into an hour and 14 minute film.

Without question, the highlight of this film is they let Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi" play in its entirety for the nightclub scene.

This film begins with several teenagers from Brooklyn deciding to go to Ocean City, New Jersey, instead of their usual summer hangout. Once there, they rent the bottom floor while some wealthier teenagers from Philadelphia occupy the one above them. Not surprisingly, the affluent kids from Philadelphia, coming from a different socio-economic background, don't want anything to do with the more obnoxious kids from Brooklyn, which becomes evident from the very start. However, tensions rise when one of the girls from Philadelphia, named "Cindy" (Kate McNeil), starts spending time with a Brooklyn teenager named "Anthony" (John Cosola). At the same time, one of the girls from Brooklyn, "Cecile" (Ileana Seidel), decides to ditch her boyfriend and party with the Philadelphia crowd instead. Now, rather than spoil anything further, I'll just say that viewers seeking a fun "beach comedy" might want to skip this one, as the plot was exceedingly dull, the characters were even shallower than most, and the humor was practically non-existent. In short, had it not been for some fairly attractive actresses like Dana Nathan (as "Angela"), Nancy Quinn ("Janey"), and the aforementioned Kate McNeil, I would have rated this movie even lower than I have.

A group of young people arrive on the beach for fun and frivolity.

Many of them have ridiculous, over-the-top Brooklyn accents.

Lots of "HEYYY", "UHHH?", double negatives, and characters with names like Mikey and Frankie. It's like an Andrew Dice Clay set, cleaned up.

Their neighbours are, perhaps, supposed to be punk rocker types - at least that is how the guidos refer to them.

One of the cute Brooklyn girls seems improbably charmed by the quasi-punk types. They take her to meet their friends, who turn out to be even more obnoxious than they are. She doesn't seem to mind.

The movie has some musical scenes that for once aren't just a slog to sit through, and a lot of hot bikini babes - but no nudity. It's not really a sex comedy.

A relationship between a tough Brooklyn chick and one of the other guys actually turns into a kind of touching love story - at least in one scene.

There is an ill-advised chase sequence toward the end of the movie, which I didn't understand or appreciate.

Then the movie segues into a kind of gig on the beach, when the punk rock types play a mediocre song and the other cast members dance around with what looks like painful over-enthusiasm.

And that's it. No sex or nudity, but some romantic scenes. And nothing else to set this one apart, and certainly, nothing in particular to recommend it.

I think this movie was really bad, but I liked seeing it because it was shot in a house I owned in Ocean City New Jersey. The whole thing was done in six weeks during the summer when the town was very crowded. They blocked off the street and shot all day and through the evening. It was a great process to watch. The original title "Down the Shore" was considered but changed because that is an expression that is used only by the people in the Philadelphia area. Other locations were used that showed amusements and rides that are not in Ocean City. Some were done in Wildwood New Jersey about 25 miles away. It also looked like three different houses were used. My house had two small apartments and one large unit above. All the interior shots were done in my house and some of the outside shots were done using the fronts of other houses in town. I thought that was done very well and it looked convincing. PJ Smith