The Beach Girls and the Monster
Director: Jon Hall
Year: 1965
Rating: 4.0
I was going to
skip this one in my lowly dive into beach party movies because of the absurd
title, but why not. Bad movies are not exactly a deterrent for me. Was The
Horror of Beach Party in 1964 so popular that someone thought another monster
beach movie was a sure thing? Perhaps, the oddest thing about this is that
the director and the actor who plays the father is Jon Hall. Yes, that Jon
Hall. All those adventure films of the 1940s like Ali Baba, The Hurricane,
Cobra Women and Arabian Nights with co-stars Dorothy Lamour, Maria Montez
and Maria Montez and Maria Montez and Maria Montez. Now he is stuck with
lines such as "The boys are loafers and the girls are little tramps".
It feels like Peyton Place at times except
for the monster that likes killing lovely women in bikinis. And boys. An
equal opportunity monster. The film academically and artistically begins
with four women on the beach dancing to a surf music soundtrack. A song in
fact written and sung by Frank Sinatra. Junior that is. Dance Baby Dance.
One of them will soon be dead. She is a playful girl but doesn't notice a
gill like monster covered with scales and seaweed come behind her that claws
her to death.
But up in the house on the hill lives Dr.
Lindsay (Hall) and his young wife Vicky (Sue Casey) who can sniff out a male
at 50 yards. And nearly unzip him with a purr. She tries to seduce her stepson
and kisses his friend. Sounds like a future victim. Either the monster, the
husband, the stepson or the friend she insults are likely killers. Women
like this always have to die in horror films. And that is a shame because
they are fun. Some bad acting, terrible rear projection but a surprise twist,
surf music and a bunch of pretty girls in bikinis. Charmingly terrible. Hall
would go on to appear in the 1966 The Navy vs the Night Monsters.
