Fou a lier

First things first - many have considered this film to be a 'Giallo'. It has some features of a giallo plus an Italian director, but it's a full-fledged slasher. And an entertaining one.

Being a slasher fan, I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's dumb as hell, the characters are just stereotypes, plot is as unoriginal as it gets, yet this movie is still fun to watch. It has all the elements right - a bunch of read herrings, a touch of supernatural, a twist ending, Spring Breakers and nudity a plenty plus John Saxon. The killer is easy to figure out, but that's the case with many slashers.

If you're a fan, don't hesitate and grab a copy.

I first saw this movie on USA UP ALL NIGHT as WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK. Normally,I don't like slasher flicks at all,but this film has a goofy sense of fun,as if it's making fun of itself. Running gags run rampant ("How 'bout them GATORS!?") and the acting is absolutely horrible. I found it to be an interesting,surreal film with beautiful scenery (check out the phosphate mine!) and laugh-out-loud moments,some of which are intentional.

Over-aged "Spring Breakers" are being terrorized by a biker who enjoys electrocuting his victims. The "acting" is atrocious! The hair is big! The music stinks! The heroine/bartender is puffy-faced & stiff. Lots of loose ends. What became of the sun-dried "breaker" (who looked about 45!) who was stealing everyone's money, the Reverend's slut daughter, & the redneck cop dragged off by a motorcycle? Did I miss something? Not very scary (a few fried corpses) & not much fun. (Spring Break films worth checking out, minus the "horror": "Where The Boys Are", "Where The Boys Are '84", "Girl Happy", "Revenge of The Nerds II:Nerds In Paradise").

Actually, no, this is not Porky's 4. The clichéd title (Welcome To Spring Break) makes this sound like an '80's T&A teen comedy, but it's not. A biker is juiced in the electric chair and soon the teens on Miami Beach on spring break start dying, at the hands of a maniac riding a motorbike and wearing a helmet to hide his/her identity (Night School?). The villain(s) do become apparent at the 45 minute mark, and after a while the mystery killer story basically becomes secondary to all the other sub-plots. Slasher fans should look elsewhere. Mystery fans would be more at home watching one of those Perry Mason TV movies. Fans of '80's B-movies might enjoy this on a viewing, but otherwise it's useless. The slasher story set up it offers for a while is hampered with a dim-witted killing spree of useless characters, offed with electricity, which defeats the whole purpose of this being a slasher movie. The mystery angle the movie offers is supported with horrible characters and a story that goes nowhere. The movie has average production values, but scenes of real spring break action which is shown frequently is distracting, and the beach the thing takes place on is always cloudy. A waste of time. '80's B-movie fans might wanna look once. One And A Half Stars.

Nightmare Beach may not be a very good film in the classic sense, but in terms of entertainment value; the film certainly has a lot going for it. Nightmare Beach is known as a Giallo in some circles, but I think it's quite clear that the main inspiration has come from the overpopulated slasher genre. I'm not a big fan of this type of film, but Nightmare Beach succeeds where other slashers fail because it doesn't try to be anything that it isn't, and the focus is always on the dumb teens at the centre of the story and the over the top murder scenes. The movie seems to take a lot of influence from Lamberto Bava's 'Demons', as trashy eighties metal is mixed in with just about every sequence...and was that the logo for said film that I saw on the back of the biker's shirts? The plot focuses on the annual Easter celebration known as 'Spring Break' at a certain (nightmare) beach. A biker by the name of Diablo was put to death by electric chair after supposedly being framed for murder by the local officer, and now the authorities have a problem on their hands as the biker going round electrocuting people threatens the business boom.

Umberto Lenzi's career peaked in the late sixties to early seventies with Giallo classics such as Seven Blood-Stained Orchids and several awesome crime flicks such as Almost Human. It's safe to say that his career went downhill in the eighties when he started to imitate the likes of Lucio Fulci and Ruggero Deodato with enjoyable yet trashy flicks such as Cannibal Ferox and Nightmare City. While Nightmare Beach is nothing like as good as Lenzi's earlier efforts, and certainly doesn't represent a return to form, at least this film is enjoyable throughout, and personally I didn't care too much that I know the director is capable of better. As you might expect, the acting is truly diabolical, with nobody except cult icon John Saxon coming out of the film with any credibility; although Saxon does lift the entire production with hard man role. The electrocution style murder scenes are well shot, and while they don't all look particularly realistic; and don't feature much in the way of gore, it's nice to see a slasher that doesn't just feature knife killings. The mystery surrounding the identity of the murderer is never too well explored, and by the end there really is just one suspect left. Overall, this film is bound not to please everyone; but it's a lot of fun to watch, and if you can put with trash films - this one is well worth seeing!