Blu-ray Review: The Horror of Party Beach (1964)

August 22, 2018

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

Scientist Hank Green (John Scott) attends a beach party with his world class booze hound of a girlfriend Tina (Marilyn Clarke) while at the same time, some real asshole sailors chuck a barrel of leaking radioactive waste into the drink which contaminates the bones of long dead sailors on a sunken ship which causes them to fuse with marine life and become sea creatures with what looks like mouths full of Ballpark Franks…man, I just love fucking science…Meanwhile on the beach an unholy combo of The Beach Boys and Buddy Holly and the Crickets croon some do-woppin’ bullshit about making a left hand turn in a car then going to jail as the camera whip pans to a girl’s ass when a muscle bound hunk mentions hot dog buns. I may need to lie down before this is over…
Anyway much making of the out occurs, some greasers show up and start some static, Tina is killed (although how she isn’t just preserved like a mummy from all the joy juice a-coursing through her veins I’ll never know), and that damn band sings an ode to ‘wigglin’ and a-wobblin’ around’ (as any self respecting musician does) before blasting triumphantly into their award losing (s)hit single ‘The Zombie Stomp’. Soon the action moves from the beach to the nearby town where the creatures go on a kill-crazy rampage at a slumber party sending the community spiraling into chaos! Can this terror from the briny depths be stopped by Hank, and how many more victims will they claim?!!
First of all, The Horror of Party Beach may be the only beach movie ever filmed in Connecticut, and believe me, it doesn’t look all that warm in many of the scenes. That bit of trivia aside, this film is one hell of a freaky fun time in the ol’ horror biz boils n’ ghouls! You got “teens” (seriously, some of these kids look like they are pushing thirty easily) being ripped to pieces by crazy ass creatures, sketchy science, girls in bikinis, bikers, tacky musical numbers, an obviously dubbed lead actress…it all adds up to a fast moving, monster filled, hootenanny where even the filler is fun to watch!
On the negative side, this being a fifty four year old picture, there are some…okay one…thing that will make audience members of today cringe; namely the character of the maid Eulabelle (Eulabelle Moore) who while not being completely balls to the wall offensive, is nevertheless a broad caricature…voodoo doll and all.
While the main event is a blast, Severin have included some eerie extras on this Blu-ray release! Included are: an excellent, massively informative retrospective documentary on how the film was created, an interview with members of the Del-Aires (the band referenced above), a featurette where filmmaker Tim Sullivan discusses the history of Rock & Roll horror movies, an archival interview with the film’s director Del Tenney, and the film’s trailer.
Filled with corny jokes, terrible songs, goofy (but in it’s own way brilliant) creature design, some scenes of shocking gore (relative to the time) and a whole mess of flat-out fun creature feature goodness, The Horror of Party Beach delivers the ghoulish goods in my beastly book!
 

 

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