The Beach Girls and the Monster is a horribly inept horror film and, more importantly, one of my all time favorite bad films. It attempts to crossbreed two genres - the horror and beach party movies and fails miserably at both. It plays like Creature From the Black Lagoon meets Beach Blanket Bingo.
The film doesn't waste time in claiming it's first victim, a giggling blonde conveniently named Bunny. Bunny is being chased on the beach by her boyfriend and hides behind a couple of rocks, located near a dark cave. Just then the monster slowly emerges from the foreground and strangles her to death. This scene is a missed opportunity. It begins promisingly enough with the camera stationed inside the a cave; everything in the foreground is in shadows while Bunny is standing in the background, outside the cave, in sunlight. The monster emerges from the shadows and can only be seen in silhouette. It then slowly creeps upon Bunny and then ATTACKS! Unfortunately, the camera then cuts to an all too revealing close up of the monster and, needless to say, it is extremely laughable. The monster mask is cheap knock off of The Gill Man and looks like something you might find in the Halloween section of a department store. After Bunny's murder, there is a shot of a newspaper with the headline, "SURF BEAUTY CLAWED TO DEATH."
Bunny's murder is cruel in that it teases the audience into believing that they will be watching a much more exciting movie. Unfortunately, the next monster attack won't occur for another forty minutes. Instead, the audience is treated to endless surfing stock footage, rock n' roll numbers, and lots of family squabbling.
The Beach Girls and the Monster is noteworthy in that it has the one of the most inept (and apathetic) protagonists in cinema history, Richard Lindsay. After Bunny's murder, Richard goes on with his life as if nothing happened. When his girlfriend Jane begins to lament Bunny's death, he comforts her with, "Don't feel bad. Let's try to forget it." Richard has given up his career in oceanography to become a full time beach bum, much to the annoyance of his father, Otto. When Richard isn't getting any hanky panky from Jane, he's riding the waves with his buddies or watching surfing footage. He is a remarkably dull and ineffectual character. He doesn't do a damn thing in the entire film, other than argue with his father and sneer at his drunken (and two timing) step mother. Even in the film's climax, he is more of an observer than an actual participant. Yet, he's the guy the audience is supposed to be rooting for!!!! The low point of the film is when Richard brings out the acoustic guitar and serenades Jane with an original composition, "More Than Wanting You." This happens during a beach party and Jane, along with a few other girls, begin to swoon over Richard's, theoretical, musical talent.
His girlfriend Jane is pretty much a non-entity - she is extremely cute and looks good in a bikini, and that's about it. She is given center stage later in the film when she and a puppet Lion, named Kingsley, lead the merry band of surfers in a sing a long, "There's a Monster From the Surf."
The beach party scene happens about 40 minute into the film and is tonally different from the rest of the film. Everything before and after has a fairly somber tone, but this scene is played entirely for laughs; to the point that even wacky sound effects are played on the soundtrack. It should be noted that the surfers are having the beach party on the exact spot that Bunny was murdered. Talk about sensitivity! Kingsley appears literally out of nowhere; there's some brief comic banter between him and Jane (who dons an annoying Betty Boop voice) and then they begin their painful sing a long. It goes on and on to the point that you wish the monster would show up and just off everyone in sight, just to put an end to this movie. Sadly, this does not happen. Finally, after this "comedic" interlude the monster shows up and kills some random surfer dude who happens to be all alone. Despite everyone being a stone throw away, no one witnesses the murder except for Richard's friend Mark, who literally stumbles upon the scene. The surfer dude's girlfriend, Sue, accuses Mark of murdering her boyfriend and the police are called in. Mark has a gimpy leg, due to an auto accident he was in with Richard, yet some how manages to sneak away and steal a police car. Yet another scene that will make you slap your forehead in sheer frustration!
Beach Girls and the Monster is 66 minutes long and about ten minutes of that is devoted to surfing stock footage. Despite its short length, there apparently wasn't enough of a story to fill up an entire feature length movie, hence the filmmakers padded it's running time by adding endless surfing stock footage. It's also done in the least subtle way possible; at one point in the film Richard and his gimpy friend, Mark, watch surfing footage on a film project, while generic surf music (by Frank Sinatra, Jr.) plays on the soundtrack. This scene last FIVE MINUTES. It has absolutely no narrative value, it's just there to waste precious screen time. In another uproarious scene, Mark comes upon three attractive women dancing on the beach, while commenting on what good surfers their boyfriends are. The scenes plays like this:
Attractive Brunette: Look at my Billy go!
Cut to surfing stock footage.
Then other two women comment on their boyfriends surfing skills and we are shown more surfing shots. These three women have no purpose in the entire movie; this is the first and last time they appear. Though, oddly enough, the print floating around on the Internet uses an alternative take for this scene - instead of the three girls cooing over their boyfriends surfing abilities, we are shown a medium long shot of four bikini clad girls dancing to music emanating from a nearby radio.
The horror, and even the beach movie shenanigans, often are shoved to the sideline to make room for the subplot involving Dr. Otto Lindsay. Dr. Lindsay completely disapproves of Richard's lifestyle and blames his son's seemingly downward spiral on his beach bum friends. At one point Dr. Lindsay tries to pinpoint the murders on those "no good " surfers. The sheriff counters that most surfers are just young people trying to find themselves. Dr. Lindsay retorts, "They'll find themselves....in your jail one day!" The sheriff backs down, realizing he can't argue with such sound logic.
When Dr. Otto isn't bemoaning his son's fall from grace, Dr. Lindsay spends most of his time trying to please his bitchy, alcoholic wife Vicky. She is completely bored with Otto and tries to seduce Richard at one point, who flat out rejects her. She then spends most of waking hours tormenting Mark, who is overwhelmed with his lust for her. Mark is a sculptor that lives in the Lindsay household; he has been free loading off of Dr. Otto's good will for over a year. He has been making a sculpture of Vicky for some time and has her pose for him, so he can spend time with her. She is the ultimate cock tease, often tantalizing Mark with hints of sexual goodies, only to pour a bucket of cold water over him every time. This enrages Mark so much that he smashes the clay sculpture of her, screaming, "I'LL KILL YOU!" Of course, this only serves to make Mark a, rather unconvincing, red herring.
In a not surprising twist ending (SPOILERS) the monster turns out to be Dr. Otto Lindsay dressed up in a ridiculous costume. His plan of murdering surfers to help snap Richard out of his funk proves to be a bust. Oh, both Vicky and Mark meet untimely ends as well. Vicky gets hers after coming home from a date and Mark bites it after discovering the monster's true identity. However, before Mark kicks the bucket, he manages to stab Dr. Lindsay with a knife. While fleeing from the police in Jane's car, Dr. Lindsay loses consciousness and goes careening off a cliff, meeting a firey end. Richard with Jane in his arms just stares at the wreckage. THE END!
The most irritating thing about the movie, aside from the personality free Richard, is it's overuse of the zoom lens. Practically every other scene begins with a close up of an object or person, only to zoom out to a long shot of a room or location. One scene begins with a close up of Vicky's legs and then zooms out to reveal that she is sitting on a bar counter, while Richard looks on disapprovingly. The beach party scene is filled with endless zooms; when Richard is serenading Jane on the acoustic guitar, the camera constantly zooms in on Jane's face.
The Beach Girls and the Monster wasn't the only film to combine the horror and the beach party genre, a year before Del Tenney made The Horror of Party Beach, which, while terrible, is a lot more entertaining movie, due to it's more excessive nature. The body count in The Horror of Party Beach is much higher; there is a memorable scene in which the mutations crash a slumber party, abruptly putting an end to an acoustic guitar sing a long. Plus, the protagonist in that film actually does something as opposed to just sitting around. It's wonderfully awful movie filled with unintentionally surreal moments.
The Beach Girls and the Monster was directed by Jon Hall, who also stars as Dr. Otto Lindsay (and was the film's director of photography as well). Hall was a matinee idol in the 40s, best known for the six technicolor adventures movies he made with screen goddess Maria Montez; the most entertaining one being the wonderful silly Cobra Woman. He also starred in not one, but two Invisible Man movies, The Invisible Agent and The Invisible Man's Revenge. Unfortunately, by the 50s his career (and his good looks) had faded and he was reduced to making films like The Beach Girls and the Monster.
The Beach Girls and the Monster is largely enjoyable, due to the stupidity (and inactivity) of the characters. It lacks the excesses of The Horror of Party Beach, but it makes up for that with its "What the hell were they thinking?" moments. Whose idea was it to make Richard so apathetic? Why is Mark constantly at the wrong place at the wrong time? This guy has knack for getting into trouble. Laugh at the non-existent chemistry between Arnold Lessing (Richard) and Elaine DuPont (Jane). Practically every ten minutes there is either a shot of a random bikini clad woman shaking her booty, or of Mark sulking over his impotence. The less said about the soundtrack by Frank Sinatra, Jr. the better.
Credits
Cast: Jon Hall (Otto Lindsay), Sue Casey (Vicky Lindsay), Walker Edmiston (Mark), Arnold Lessing (Richard Lindsay), Elaine DuPont (Jane), Read Morgan (Sheriff Michaels), Gloria Neil (Bunny), Caroyln Williamson (Sue), Kal Roberts (Brad), Clyde Adler (Deputy Scott).
Director: Jon Hall
Screenplay: Joan Gardner
Running Time: 66 min.
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