macpet49-1 I've been a cult fan of this film for its entire life! I have watched it dozens (if not more) of times and love the characters more each time. Lauren Ambrose does such a fabulous job of bringing it all together and making the other actors shine. It's fun, camp, comic, satirical, derivative, spoof, loony nature goes the full tilt. It's a joy ride for those of us old enough to remember 'Gidget' 'Marnie' 'Beach Blanket Bingo' 'Attack of the 50 foot Woman' et al. plus there are a bevy of great cars from the 50s/60s to ogle! Very good interpretation of those eras and the way we somewhat were. Charles Busch is fab as always but his genius is in creating the script/play originally. I have two copies on DVD in case one dies.

capone666 Psycho Beach PartyOne telltale sign that you have had sex on the beach is that human/jellyfish hybrid you just gave birth to.Luckily, the amorous adolescent in this comedy is avoiding interspecies breeding.Prudish Florence (Lauren Ambrose) wants to learn how to surf from The Great Kanaka (Thomas Gibson) and his crew (Amy Adams, Nicholas Brendon).While making great strides on the waves, Florence - now Chicklet - still struggles with the unpredictable blackouts that turn her into a sex-crazed psychopath.Meanwhile, a police detective (Charles Busch) has come to the seaside to investigate a recent rash of murders that seem to implicate everyone Chicklet knows.Based on the off-Broadway production, this subversive sixties surf movie spoof has ample seventy slasher film tendencies to please both fans of deliberate camp and low-budget horror.By the way, if you're going surfing after committing a murder make sure to wash the blood off beforehand.Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

moonspinner55 Murder-mystery send-up of the teen films from the early '60s--complete with a schizophrenic Gidget at the steering wheel--is keenly aware of what it wants to be, and how to duplicate the look of those A.I.P. beach flicks...yet it never develops a rhythm of its own. The cast is game, but green; co-star Charles Busch, in drag, also adapted the script from his own play, and maybe should have directed as well: none of the other performers matches his irreverent tone (although he does give himself the wittiest lines). The plot, about a killer amongst the surfing set, is a dull, talky one, and the camera-work is as insecure as the general handling. A fair attempt, this was probably a lot more successful on a small stage in front of a salacious audience. *1/2 from ****

Skragg This has a partial "spoiler". Practically the only thing I have against this movie is its "second" ending. I know that a false ending, followed by another one, is a horror film cliché, so this horror "spoof" had a reason for imitating that, but my problem with it is this- the rest of the movie was a comedy, and in some ways not all that DARK a comedy, in spite of the murders, because it's such a farcical one. But that second ending seems JUST PLAIN DARK, which doesn't go with the rest. Maybe that was the intention, I don't know, but I still don't care for it. Apart from that, I think it's better than most parodies I've ever seen, whether of horror movies, beach movies or anything else. For one thing, it's somehow less "self-conscious" (if that's the term I'm looking for), than so many horror comedies, let alone ones set in other decades. The writers had to really know those Gidget stories, and to some degree that other famous set of beach movies (the Avalon and Funicello ones). And they even worked other movies into it, like "Marnie" (which isn't little-known, but isn't a hugely famous Hitchcock film, I think). But one of the things I like about it is something that it DIDN'T do. It seems like almost every "period" kind of story I see (regardless of the decade it's set in), overdoes those reminders of which decade it is, like the songs and the topical talk and so on. This is certainly true (to me) of most of those ones set in the early ' 60s. But this over-the-top comedy - a combination Gidget movie and mad killer movie - somehow decided to go very EASY on that. About the most obvious example is the mother of "Chicklet" (played by Beth Broderick). She's played as a comical "early ' 60s mom", but with just a LITTLE BIT of exaggeration. But in so many comedies that are supposed to be more down-to-earth than this one, and for that matter, in so many dramas (with that same kind of character), that kind of thing is laid on pretty heavily. And another thing is that the handful of songs were written for the movie itself, instead of how it's usually done with a "period" one, of any kind. And of course, practically the most "underplayed" thing about it was Charles Busch as the policewoman. Anyway, apart from the one obvious complaint, I think it's a great one. I've always been hugely attached to beach movies, but whether you love them or hate them, there's equal reason to watch Psycho Beach Party.