Welcome to Arrow Beach

Played this Tuesday on a double bill with Re-Animator. Introduced by Johnny Legend, there in the flesh, with that guy who runs one of the memorabilia stores on Hollywood blvd. They said it would probably never be shown again, ever. It's not on vhs or dvd. There is only one print.

A scene where an aging model is put out of her misery is amazing. Lots of splatter and a shock of a final scene that is very Ed Gein. The story is a bit goofy, but good at the same time. See it if you can. Oh, wait, you can't. Well there has got to be a way.

More like welcome to a DARK SHADOWS clone as it features a darkly lit mansion, with soap opera type characters, and a revved up soundtrack that quickly becomes overbearing. Basically about Foster a young, beautiful, and innocent runnaway ( she even sleeps with a stuffed doll) who gets in over her head with cannibal Harvey. Like most 70's horror heroines she naively misses the simple warning signs until it's almost too late. Also like most cheap 70's horror films it meanders through stilted dialogue and meaningless scenes until it gives you two minutes of what is passably interesting. Definately no big deal. The only real interesting aspect is why a excellent and respected actor like Harvey would get involved with such a schlocky story.

Gotta dig that funky 70's soundtrack, and at times the film doesn't know if it is a romance, comedy, thriller, or horror film, but it is still pretty entertaining. The ending was a little abrupt and there were lots of plot threads left dangling, but all in all it takes you right back to 1974.

I honestly wouldn't go as far as to call "Welcome to Arrow Beach" a good film, not nearly in fact, but it's definitely an intriguing and bizarrely compelling mess! This film features the themes and plot aspects of a typically sick-spirited and coarse exploitation flick of the early 70s, but at the same time it has the cast and the musical guidance (Lou Rawls!) of a more sophisticated and ambitious melodrama. The supportive cast is already impressive, with names like Joanna Pettet and John Ireland, while the lead actor/director Laurence Harvey even briefly was a respectable A-listed actor who appeared in blockbusters like "The Manchurian Candidate" and "The Alamo". For some incomprehensible reason, Laurence Harvey decided – shortly before his untimely death due to stomach cancer – to direct himself depicting a dangerously disturbed Korean War veteran who lures gullible girls into the fancy beach house that he shares with his sister, but only with the intention to hack 'em up in the basement and EAT them! We slowly (… VERY slowly…), through incomplete and obscure flashbacks, learn that Harvey's character Jason Henry got forced to revert to cannibalism during the war in order to survive, which evidently left him severely traumatized and mentally unstable for life. The main problem with "Welcome to Arrow Beach", apart from the at times intolerably slow pacing, is that practically nothing happens and that the horror of it all almost exclusively relies on suggestion. We never see Jason Henry consume human flesh and there are only two short and rather vague sequences in which he waves around a meat cleaver and pulls the face of a genuine madman. The other 98% of the film's footage revolves around the naive but lush hippie girl Robbin Stanley (played by a young Meg Foster who only just recently had a glorious supportive role in Rob Zombie's "31") who consecutively survives a wicked hitch-hike with a crazed hot rod driver, narrowly escapes from Henry's slaughter basement, gets called a liar by the police and then flees with a hunky doctor's assistant. Then there's also the completely irrelevant and dull sub plot of the local Sheriff who runs a campaign in order to get re-elected… There are a few isolated moments of suspense, mainly accomplished by Harvey himself thanks to his intense performance, and the fairly brutish massacre of a depressed middle-aged prostitute is the film's dubious highlight.

Welcome to Arrow Beach is a really remarkable little movie. I first saw it about five years ago . It was shown on channel 5 at a about 2am in the morning and I must say I really had no intention of going the distance with this little film.

But how wrong I was. I found myself hooked, and I must say at that time I couldn't reason why.

Lets put it this way. Welcome to Arrow Beach is badly edited, has a crappy theme tune by Lou Rawls, the story has no real pace and the direction by Laurence Harvey needs a lot to be desired.

Now that's just the basics about what's wrong with this little film. But still I watched it all the way though to the end. Now I must point out that that night I had set my DVD recorder to tape a movie on another channel at around that same time as Welcome to Arrow Beach was being shown on channel five. But I had made a mistake . I later found that I had inadvertently taped Arrow beach instead. This was my blessing in disguise, as I found my self watching this movie over and over.

The basic story deals with a Photographer played by Laurence Harvey who picks up and befriends hitchhikers or runaways, all of whom seem to be women.

He then takes them home to meet his sister/ lover played by the gorgeous Joanna Pettet. Then he lures them to his basement photo studio where he then chops them up to eat. A young Meg Foster falls foul of Harvey and Pettet but manages to escape. As always the police don't believe her. "Would You". So she try's to expose them her self. Yes… This movie is that mad. But its also pure cult in the same way that we see Last house on the Left or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as Cult.

Its bloody too like these movies and like Texas Chainsaw its not gratuitous. The acting is pure 1970s prime time television if you know what I mean.. if you don't ,, well check out Macmillan and wife.

I have since found out why this movie isn't technically sound . The reason was that Laurence Harvey who starred and also directed this movie was dieing. He apparently edited the movie on his death bed. This would also explain why he looked in so much pain during the movie. Welcome to Arrow Beach isn't a great movie because its well made, lets face it , it isn't. In my opinion it's a great movie because it's so hard to define. Plus there is a real feeling that everyone was pulling together on it.. Try watching it and you might see what I mean.

After learning the history of the movie I got the feeling that this was a team movie. Not a good movie. But theirs a lot of love on that screen, oh and blood, guts and bad singing. Some say that Laurence Harvey's last movie was a bad one.. Those people would be Warner Bros they buried the movie. I'd say Welcome to Arrow Beach Trashy, very Cult but, strangely watchable. Check it out.