Director: Robert Lee King
Cast: Lauren Ambrose, Nicholas Brendon, Thomas Gibson, Amy Adams, Matt Keeslar
Screenplay: Charles Busch
95 mins. Not Rated.
So, I let my fiancé pick the movie today. I’m not sure I’ll let that happen again.
Psycho Beach Party is a satire of Beach Movies and Slasher Films. Florence Forrest (Lauren Ambrose, TV’s Six Feet Under, Wanderlust) is a young beach bum who wants to learn to surf. When Florence starts showing signs of multiple personalities, she begins to look like the prime suspect in a series of slayings all happening in her small town. Surfing legend Kanaka (Thomas Gibson, TV’s Criminal Minds, Son of Batman), college drop-out Starcat (Nicholas Brendon, TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Coherence), and his girlfriend Marvel Ann (Amy Adams, Man of Steel, Big Eyes), and others must unite to discover the identity of the real killer in his not-so-hilarious send-up of the genre.
Damn, this movie is boring. My fiancé had last seen it when it released back in 2000, and she suggested it from fond memories. Those memories disappeared for her soon after starting the film. This movie was boring, cliché (even from a satirical perspective), convoluted, and unfunny. Even performers like Ambrose and Adams are wasted in this truly disappointing spoof.
The principal issue with this film is one that plagues most spoof/satire films in recent memory. I remember reading a Mel Brooks interview where he was asked how George Lucas felt about his film Spaceballs. Brooks said something about how in order to satire something, first you have to love it, and you have to make it the best you can, and that Lucas could see that. Mel Brooks loves the films he’s satirizing, and he doesn’t make bad movies. This movie thinks in order to make a cheesy movie that you have to aim for cheesy. It isn’t like that. In order to make a B-Movie, you have to make it like it’s an Oscar-Winner. The satire will reveal itself. Psycho Beach Party aims for so-bad-it’s-good but instead finds so-bad-it’s-worse.
Psycho Beach Party has a lot to like. Wait, no, I said that wrong. Psycho Beach Party is awful. There, that’s better. It’s on Hulu right now, but I wouldn’t suggest subjecting yourself to it. I just saved you two long boring hours. These are some of the services I offer.
1/5
-Kyle A. Goethe
GOAT Film Reviews 
Leave a Reply