La Plage sanglante

'Blood Beach' is a fairly typical example of a B-grade horror film. The acting is just competent enough to keep the plot going, but no-one would scratch their heads wondering why these artistes aren't better known. There's the stoic male lead doing his best to look moody despite the early 80s low lighting. There's the predictable love interest, the sceptic, the comic relief, and the wise all-knowing scientist who no-one listens to. All the boxes have been checked here. The plot is straightforward and threadbare, and the budget would be equal to what Spielberg spends on a typical lunch.

However, I really enjoyed this thing as a kid, and watching it again recently reminded me why. For one thing, the film-makers know their financial limits, and the menace threatening the sleepy Southern Californian beach is wisely kept out of sight until the very end, and even then, you don't get a truly good look at it. This is a wise approach even when you do have money to play with, as it builds suspense, and avoids disappointment. Additionally, 'Blood Beach' is mostly filmed on-location, so there are few desperately cheap-looking sets. Finally, the film ends the way all good horror films do, though I just wish it hadn't been made so obvious earlier on.

I think the main reason 'Blood Beach' gets a low score is probably that it gets a little slow in places. This isn't helped by the two-dimensional characterisation, that if developed in a better script, could probably have alleviated the problem.

Nonetheless, it has its redeeming features as mentioned, and it's a good bit of late-night disposable viewing if you like horror and there's nothing better on.

After several people mysteriously vanish from a South Californian beach, authorities begin the search for whoever or whatever is responsible. Believing some kind of ravenous subterranean creature to be the cause of the disappearances, harbour patrolman Harry (David Huffman) and ex-girlfriend Catherine (Marianna Hill) begin looking for the beast's lair.

The cleverest thing about this predictable early 80s monster movie is surely it's amusing, Jaws-inspired tag-line 'Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water - you can't get to it.'; but even though Blood Beach displays very little else in the way of originality, rarely rising above routine B-movie fodder, there's just about enough fun to be had with it to still make it worth your while.

Huffman and Hill are forgettably bland, but the presence of seasoned character actors John Saxon and Burt Young more than compensate for the lacklustre leads, both guys giving enjoyable performances, Young as an uncouth copper from Chicago with zero tact, and Saxon as his tough but fair superior. Also worthy of mention is the lovely Lena Pousette, who shines as Marie, Harry's sexy blond air-hostess 'friend with benefits'.

The film also features several well executed deaths scenes, victims swallowed up by the sand in convincing fashion, and there's some fun to be had with the gore, including a would-be rapist having his junk chewed off by the monster and a cascade of dismembered body parts tumbling onto the unfortunate Catherine. Blood Beach's jump scares are about as clichéd as they can get (eg. a screeching cat leaping into frame) but they are still effective. Sadly, the monster is only revealed in the film's closing moments, and isn't all that impressive, looking like a giant papier-mâché plant (quite how that thing burrows underground, I'll never know!).

In an ending typical of 70s/80s monster movies, the creature is blown to pieces, but as the closing credits roll, new activity under the sand suggests that the horror isn't over yet (although a sequel has yet to surface).

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

This one had been on my wish-list ever since I saw a few fragments of it when I was a little kid. But being a sober guy, I wasn't expecting much of it. And that was a good thing . Basically where "Jaws" made the water an unsafe place, "Blood Beach" tries to do this for the beach. But "Blood Beach" is very much inferior to Spielberg's classic. Mainly because "Blood Beach" is rather slow and boring. "Jaws", at times, also wasn't all that about action & horror, more about the characters really, but it had a fine plot structure, good dialogues and decent acting to keep things going. But I shall not just dismiss "Blood Beach" as a bad B-monster movie (though it certainly isn't a good one). The main attraction amongst the cast is John Saxon, who is the best actor of the lot, injects a nice amount of sarcasm in his role and simply has the best lines of the movie. Then there's Burt Young, who's just great as Sergeant Royko, bragging about Chicago all the time, eating various sort of junk-food in almost every scene and referring to someone's brain as "vegetable soup". The music was pretty memorable too, with a dark cello theme and some jazzy saxophones. And the beach-monster was just too weird. It looked like a giant, dusty, plastic flower. But unfortunately it's only shown in a few shots when it emerges from the sand near the end. The shots over the end credits leave room for a sequel ("Blood Beach 2: The Offspring", would have been a very appropriate title, I believe), but that never happened. "Blood Beach" could have been a cult classic, but unfortunately the movie feels just a bit too mainstream (and too uneventful also) for it to be one.

It may not be great but, it's got John Saxon in it, it's got a bit of blood and hell, it's not any worse than all the rest of the flicks that had Blood in the title from this period. And it must have been at least a pain in the ass to do those "sinking in the sand" effects!

Maybe if they release this thing on DVD (why are most of the Vestron flicks still not out?), may be then it'll get at least the same attention and cult like favor that My Bloody Valentine and other such crap gets.

All in all, a drive-in classic. After all that's what it was made for!

See it and judge for yourself!

Yeah, this is pretty bad. None of the characters here are interesting or engaging. Horror icon John Saxon gives off a great performance (as expected) but it's nowhere near enough to carry the rest of the film.

The problem with an idea like this is that, if none of your characters are engaging, then you're pretty much guaranteed to be making a dud because once you've seen the first kill, you've basically seen them all. You can almost feel the screenwriter wondering if they should keep writing this thing around the halfway point or scrap it and move onto something else with a more broad-canvas possibility. The fact that said screenwriter decided he'd go as far as to direct this thing is surprising and a little gutsy.

I do love movies that are set on a beach, so I'll give this a generous 5/10 and say it's, at the very least, watchable for fans of Z-grade horror. A little pulpy cheese thrown into the mix could've done wonders for this flick. That, or they could've cut back on some of the swearing and tried the TV movie route. Either way, this flick took itself way too seriously and, as a result, it turned out to be pretty damn boring.

This was a multi-task watch for me. If I'd sat down and given this film my full, unbridled attention, I'd imagine I would've rated it much lower, generosity be damned.

What a great poster, though. I'm considering buying a print of it. It's a shame the film couldn't match its intensity.