It's the 1960's something and the young and happy Florence Forrest becomes the so-called "Chicklet" - the first girl surfer at Malibu Beach. At the same time, people starts turning up dead here and there and the police find themselves struggling with the case of finding out who could be the killer.
Written by Charles Busch, who also stars in the movie as the female police captain Monica Stark, Psycho Beach Party is a spoof of 1960's surf & beach movies and is first and most a comedy, but that has a slasher kind of theme to it. Don't expect too much horror though and the only reason why you should watch this is for the fun stuff that it has to offer. Sure, it has that slasher theme going; someone is killing people around the beach area and where else, but don't expect to see any hack and slash type of stuff, it's just not that kind of flick. Very early on I thought it seemed a bit too lame and I was worried what I had gotten myself into. The whole 1960's theme got old fast and I could say the same for some of the lingo used. Eventually it got a bit better though and the comedy started to effectively kick in every here and there. While I can't say that it was a great film, it sure was easy to sit through it and after all, it did provide some good quality entertainment.
 
I'm sure you'd have to be in the right kind of mood in order to be able to appreciate a film like this. It has a certain type of charm to it and manages to catch that 60's feel real well, but it also tends to drag a little here and there, although, it's not a big deal. We get to follow this young girl named Florence Forrest (played by Lauren Ambrose) who wants to become a female surfer and so gets the name of "Chicklet". She suffers from schizophrenia though and sometimes her alter ego, some girl named Ann Bowman who's the complete opposite of nice Florence, takes over. Florence starts hanging out with surfer guru Kanaka (Thomas Gibson from Dharma & Greg) and some other beach bums (one of them being Nicholas Brendon from Buffy fame) and everything is just swell until another dead body is found. The first killing took place at a drive-in theater in the very beginning of the film. As the movie keeps moving forward, more victims starts to pop up and you just gotta wonder who the killer could be; is it Florence's alter ego Ann, the Swedish exchange student Lars (who can't seem to imitate an accent for shit) or Florence's pedantic mom? Well, it's a big mystery for sure..
I guess this film has its fair share of fans who really can appreciate the film for what it is and what it tries to do. While I didn't hate it, I'm just not sure how much I liked it, but let's just say that, if in the right mood, it can be somewhat entertaining. I'm not a big fan of the 60's and since I grew up in the 70's, I can't really say that I can relate to it either. But it all looks all right and the acting is good - sometimes way too over-the-top, but I guess that's just part of the film's charm and it's quite clear that it's supposed to be that way, still it's a little hard to sit through at times though. I gotta admit that I loved some of the lower kind of humour that was delivered a few times in the movie, but at the same time, the film's very far from being anything remotely close to hysterical and most of the humour was just cute (which translates to that it did not work).
Psycho Beach Party is a title that has a nice ring to it, but unfortunately it's not a film that's awesome, but it works though, at least for most of the time and it's easy enough to sit through. Don't expect any horror or much slashing though, but instead just a comedy that is a nice throwback to the 60's.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2000
DIRECTOR: Robert Lee King
WRITING CREDITS: Charles Busch
GENRE: Comedy, Horror
CAST: Lauren Ambrose, Thomas Gibson, Nicholas Brendon
COUNTRY: Australia, USA
RUNTIME: 95 min
RATING: 5/10
Psycho Beach Party Website/IMDB Click here
Psycho Beach Party Trailer Click here
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