REVIEW / MOVIE\ THE BEACH PARTY FILM, 1981\ BLOOD BEACH - WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY JEFFREY BLOOM, STARRING DAVID\ HUFFMAN, MARIANA HILL, JOHN SAXON AND BURT YOUNG. AT THE SAXON AND\ SUBURBS. RATED R.
Boston Globe - January 24, 1981
Author: Michael Blowen Globe Staff
During the late '50s and early '60s, Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon played Beach Blanket Bingo and Jan & Dean sang "Surfin' Safari" beneath the Santa Monica Pier. They drank Coke instead of sniffing cocaine. But things have changed. The golden sands that beckoned the California girls have turned into "Blood Beach," a few acres of prime real estate with one major drawback - a tenant who lives under the sand and devours the sun worshippers. Is it a mysterious force? A sea monster? The bag lady? While the answer to this question will not keep you riveted to your seat, it does provide enough of a central theme to keep you from making trips to the concession stand.
The film opens, a la "Jaws," with Harry (David Huffman) taking a swim while his neighbor strolls along the beach with her dog, Feiffer. The closeups of Harry's strokes with the boom-boom, boom-boom of the soundtrack resurrect images from Steven Spielberg's thriller. But, instead of Harry being yanked into the briny deep, his neighbor is sucked under the sand.
This flip-flop idea is hardly original, but it's effective. The film is pure exploitation and any fan of "Friday the 13th" and " Halloween " will probably delight in the camp humor and occassional thrills of "Blood Beach."
In one scene, the surviving wife of a victim is asked to describe her husband to the investigating officer. "He was wearing blue and red bleeding madras Bermuda shorts," she says. "I didn't like them very much, but he was attached to them." There is very little sympathy for the victims. In fact, the police department can't get any extra men assigned to the case until Feiffer, the mangy mutt, bites the dust and the city council is flooded with complaints
from animal lovers.
The performances by David Huffman, Burt Young and John Saxon are appropriately one-dimensional. Saxon looks as if he had a furrowed brow implantation; Young chews cigars and eats hamburgers better than any of his contemporaries and David Huffman, if he plays his cards right, could become the Tab Hunter of the '80s.
It would be unfair to reveal the ending, but writer-director Jeffrey Bloom left plenty of room for a sequel. Bloom may not have a focused directorial eye but he certainly has a sharp eye for the box office.
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