Tag Archives: Spring Breakdown

Spring Breakdown: Age of Summer (dir by Bill Kiely)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier this week, Spring Break get derailed in both the real world and here on the Shattered Lens.  I had like four reviews left to go in my Spring Breakdown series before the whole Coronavirus panic broke out and I missed a few days of posting.

Well, fear not.  I’m never one to give up easily and hey, I’m working at home for the next month!  So, I should have time to watch a lot of movies, including at least four more movies to close out Spring Breakdown!  For instance, this morning, I decided to clean out my DVR by watching the 2018 film, Age of Summer!

Now, I guess I should start things out by admitting that Age of Summer is not really a Spring Break film.  In fact, it takes place during the summer.  However, the entire movie pretty much takes place on the beach and really, that’s just as good as being about Spring Break.  I mean, there’s a scene where a bunch of lifeguards spray beer on each other in slow motion and there’s some oddly gratuitous nudity and there’s whole big subplot about stealing a big marijuana plant.  So, it’s a Spring Break movie in spirit, if not in plot.

Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly good movie.  This is one of those movies that left me wanting to throw stuff at the TV and I probably would have if Jeff hadn’t pointed out that, if I broke the screen, it might be a while until I could get a new one.  The film is about a kid called Minnesota (Percy Hynes White), because that’s where he’s from.  (Fortunately, he wasn’t from Walla Walla.)  Minnesota has moved to California and he wants to become a life guard.  He also wants to get a girlfriend and retrieve his bike, which is stolen from him at the start of the film.  A grown-up Minnesota provides us with voice-over narration, assuring us that we’re watching the most important summer of his life and that, as a result of what happened during that summer, he would always love the ocean.  The problem with the narration is that, far too often, it tells us what we should be seeing.  Instead of visually making us fall in love with the ocean, the most just tells us that we should love the ocean.

Oddly, the main theme of this film seems to be that everyone in California is a jerk.  I’m sure that wasn’t what was originally intended but everyone that Minnesota meets is so obnoxious that you’re just kind of like, “Get that kid to Walla Walla!”  Eventually, Minnesota is sent on a quest to get wisdom from the mysterious Rock God (Peter Stomare) who lives on the beach and who some people say is just a local legend.  I’m not really sure what Minnesota got from his visit to the Rock God but at least Peter Stomare’s in the film.

Anyway, Minnesota does eventually become a lifeguard.  All of the lifeguards spray beer on each other in slow motion.  How are they going to save my life if they’re all drunk?  Where the Hell’s David Hasselhoff?  Someone needs to whip these boys into shape!

So, no, Age of Summer didn’t really work for me.

Spring Breakdown: Jurassic Shark (dir by Brett Kelly)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to Spring Break, there’s nothing worse than having all of your plans ruined by a prehistoric shark.

I mean, let’s just ask the characters at the center of the 2012 film, Jurassic Shark.  Jill (Emannuelle Carriere), Tia (Christine Emes), Kristen (Celine Filion), and Mike (Kyle Martellacci) were planning to spend their Spring Break taking a boat across the least impressive lake in Canada.  They thought it would be a good time but then the giant shark showed up, ate Mike, and left Jill, Tia, and Kristen stranded on a tiny island….

“Wait?” you’re saying,  There’s a shark in a lake?”

Yes.

“Sharks can’t live in lakes.”

This one can.

“Why?”

Because it’s prehistoric and shit.  Hence, the name of the film.

“But if it’s prehistoric, what’s it doing alive in the 21st Century?”

Well, y’see, the shark was frozen in a glacier but than a big evil oil company did some big evil things and, as a result, the glacier either melted or it fell apart or maybe there was an earthquake or something and now, as a result, there’s a big prehistoric shark swimming around the lake.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

It doesn’t have to make sense.  It’s a Spring Break shark movie.  Now, if I may continue my review….

Anyway, Jill, Tia, and Kristen are stranded on an island but it turns out that they’re not alone!  Not only is there a random oil company scientist guy but there’s also three suspicious-looking people who are dressed in all black and are carrying guns!  It turns out that the people dressed in all-black are art thieves.  They were attacked by the shark while trying to make a getaway with a stolen painting.  Now, the painting is at the bottom of the lake and no one can retrieve it because of the prehistoric shark.  However, once everyone gets together, surely they can figure out a way to escape with a minimal loss of life….

Nope!  Not going to happen!  Unfortunately, no one on the island is smart enough for the audience to really root for.  Instead of working together, they just point guns and debate who is going to distract the shark while someone else gets the painting.  This is a movie that will have you cheering for the shark all the way, which is probably the way it was meant to be.  Out of everyone in the film, the shark’s got the most personality and it’s always easy to understand his motivations.  He wants to eat.  It’s as simple as that.

The main reason I watched Jurassic Shark is because it’s got a 1.5 rating on the imdb and was, for a little while, the lowest rated film on the entire site.  Whenever I discover that a film is disliked by that many people, I simply have to watch.  As is often the case, I think the imdb voters are being a bit overly critical with Jurassic Shark.  Yes, the film is pretty bad and the shark spends way too much time offscreen.  There’s way too many scenes of people slowly walking from one end of the island to the other.  There are some major continuity errors and the CGI is really bad and there’s a scene that’s supposed to be set at night but the day for night lighting is so ineptly handled that it’s almost to follow what’s going on.

But — and here’s the thing — there’s absolutely nothing about this film that indicates that it was meant to be taken seriously.  I think for a film to be truly terrible, it has to lack self-awareness.  It has to be clueless as to how bad or silly or pretentious it is.  For better or worse, Jurassic Shark seems to realize that it’s a low-budget Z-grade horror film and that sets it apart from a serious relationship drama like The Room or an environmentalist statement like Birdemic.  I mean, as easy as it is to criticize almost every aspect of Jurassic Shark, this is a film that features a slow-motion shot of giant shark flying over someone’s head.  It’s a scene that is just ludicrous and silly enough to work.

Jurassic Shark may not be good but it’s not really pretentious enough to be terrible.  If nothing else, it teaches the viewers an important lesson about how easily Spring Break can go wrong, especially when you’re celebrating in Canada.  For the most part, it’s a forgettable film but it has just enough lunacy to occasionally be memorable.

Spring Breakdown: 7 Deadly Sins (dir by Glenn Plummer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I really get started on this review, I think I should make clear two things:

First off, this film can be found, for free, on Amazon Prime under the title 7 Deadly Sins.  That’s also the title under which it’s listed on the imdb.  However, all of the poster art that I’ve found for this film indicates that this film was originally entitled Charlie Charlie.  It makes sense, as the whole point of the film is that 7 idiots play a game called “Charlie Charlie,” where the point is to talk to some dead guy who never went to church and was therefore never cleansed of his sins.  Apparently, playing Charlie Charlie gets you killed.  Who would have guessed contacting an evil spirit would have such dire consequences.

Secondly, I tend to be forgiving of low budget horror films.  Some of my favorite films are low-budget horror films.  I respect any director who can create a frightening scene or maintain an ominous atmosphere on a low budget.  If you can make the paranormal seem real even when you can’t afford CGI, I have a tremendous amount of respect for your filmmaking skills.  My point is that when I tell you that this is not a good film and that it’s actually one of the worst horror films that I’ve seen in  while, I’m not just saying that because of the low budget.  I’m saying it because the movie freaking sucks.

7 Deadly Sins takes place at a Spring Break house party being thrown by the least likable teenagers on the planet.  Most of them are celebrating because it’s their last Spring Break before college.  Jamal (Steph Santana), on the other hand, is celebrating because it’s his last weekend before he starts a five year prison sentence.  At the start of Spring Break, Jamal was pulled over by a cop who discovered a huge amount of weed in the trunk of his car.  Apparently, in the world of 7 Deadly Sins, the justice system moves a lot quicker than it does in the real world because it only takes Jamal a few days to be found guilty and sentenced to prison.

Jamal’s girlfriend, Kim (Tori Vild), was in the car as well.  However, because she’s rich and she’s white, she’s only sentenced to a few months of house arrest.  She has to wear an ankle bracelet and listen to her racist mom and her pervy stepfather complain about her boyfriend. Kim swears to Jamal that she’ll wait for him to get out of prison.  Jamal suggests a threesome to help him prepare for life behind bars.  Kim kicks him out of her room.  It’s that type of party.

Sara (Gladys Bautista) has been hired, by Kim’s stepfather, to keep an eye on Kim for the weekend.  Kim is upset because Sara is Mexican and they’re both the same age.  Sara is upset because everyone screwed up the Charlie Charlie game.  “You have to play the game,” she repeats, “You have to repent your sins.”

“Shit’s fucked up,” Jamal says at one point and he’s probably right.

Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is one of those films that tries to be both a horror film and a comedy but it doesn’t work as either, largely because the characters aren’t sympathetic enough to care about and none of the actors are particularly comedic.  You don’t care when they die and it’s hard to be amused when someone says that Sara should be selling oranges along the freeway.

7 Deadly Sins does feature two semi-celebrity cameos.  Tom Sizemore plays a dude in an mental hospital while Eric Roberts plays the judge who sentences Jamal and Kim.  Eric Roberts has a lot of fun with his role, railing about how much he hates drug dealers and marijuana.  Unfortunately, Roberts only gets one scene and then he’s out of the film.

Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is pretty dumb.  It takes forever to get to the “Charlie Charlie” game and it doesn’t do anything particularly creative with any of the sins.  (At one point, we see written in blood: “Envy is a sin.”  Well, no shit.)  As far as Spring Break horror films go, you could just go down to Galveston and shoot your own and the end results would probably be superior to this one.

Spring Breakdown: Sand Sharks (dir by Mark Atkins)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“There ain’t no party like a Sandman party!” Jimmy Green (played by Corin Nemec) announces in the 2012 film, Sand Sharks, and he’s right.

Jimmy is infamous for throwing (or, at least, attempting to throw) big parties and organizing wild festivals.  This movie was made before the Fyre Festival but watching Jimmy as he runs around and assures everyone that he’s about to put together the greatest music festival that the world has ever seen, it’s hard not to be reminded of the determined and incompetent people who were behind that legendary disaster.  Then again, no one was eaten by a shark during the Fyre Festival.  Jimmy can’t make the same claim about his parties.

In fact, when we first meet Jimmy, he’s trying to rebuild his reputation after his previous party ended in tragedy.  Apparently, 15 people died at that party and, though we don’t get all the details, it’s insinuated that they were eaten by sharks.  Jimmy isn’t one to let shark-related tragedy get him down, however.  Instead, he’s doing to put on another Sandman Festival and this time, he’ll keep everyone on the beach and out of the water!  Fortunately, for Jimmy, his father just happens to be the mayor of a beachside community.

Unfortunately, it turns out that sharks aren’t just in the ocean.  There’s also on the beach, swimming underneath the sand.  They’re sand hharks!  Now, the movie does provide an explanation for why all of those sharks are moving around underneath the sand but it’s really not important.  The important thing is that they’re out and they’re eating just about everyone that they meet.  That’s going to be a problem as far as the Sandman Festival is concerned.  Fortunately, Jimmy and the authorities are able to kill one sand shark.  However, when Jimmy discovers that there’s more than one sand shark, he keeps that news to himself.  The show must go on!

You can probably guess what happens next….

The sand sharks are a lot of fun and this SyFy film provides plenty of spring break mayhem as festival goers are yanked under the sand but, for me, the main attraction of this film is seeing Corin Nemec just unleashed like a force of nature.  Nemec starts the film going at about 100 miles per hour and he doesn’t slow down for a single second.  As played by Nemec, Jimmy never stop talking and he never stops hustling and he’s so committed to putting on the greatest festival ever that it’s impossible not to like him, even if his actions do end up getting a lot of people killed.  Nemec seems to be having a lot of fun with the role of Jimmy and it’s just as much fun to watch him.

Of course, Jimmy isn’t the only character in the film.  Brooke Hogan plays Dr. Sandy Powers, who is a shark expert.  At one point, Sandy looks out at the beach and tells Sheriff John Stone (Eric Scott Woods) that “We’re stuck between a rock and a shark place,” and if you don’t cheer for that line, I worry about you and your sense of humor.  As that line indicates, Sand Sharks is a film that cheerfully embraces the ludicrousness of it’s storyline.  It doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you.  This is the type of film where people often snap, “Bite me!” right before a shark leaps out of the sand and does just that.  This is pure entertainment and, if you’re a fan of SyFy shark films, Sand Sharks is a lot of fun.  Between the sand sharks and Corin Nemec playing the hipster-from-Hell, what more could you want?

Spring Breakdown: The Spring Break Murders (a.k.a. To.Get.Her) (dir by Erica Dunton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“It’s a weekend of no consequences.”

That’s a phrase that is uttered many times over the course of the 2011 film, The Spring Break Murders (which is also known as To.Get.Her.)  In fact, it’s a phrase that’s uttered so many times that I actually started to get sick of hearing it.  Initially, I thought that it was evidence of lazy writing and that the film’s director and screenwriter, Erica Dunton, was so oddly proud of the phrase that she was determined to push it on us whether it actually meant anything or not.

By the end of the film, my opinion had changed.  There’s a big twist in The Spring Break Murders, one that took me totally by surprise and which I’m still thinking about as I write up this review.  Needless to say, I can’t reveal the twist here in this review.  But I can say that it’s a good one and it’s worth the wait and, by the end of it, you’ll understand why the characters were so fixated on that phrase.  By the end of the film, “It’s a weekend of no consequences” goes from being a cliche to a truly brilliant piece of dialogue.

The Spring Break Murders tells the story of five friends and one eventful weekend.  At the start of the movie, a voice-over informs us that, by the end of the weekend, only one of the friends will still be alive and the four others will be dead at the hands of one man.  The five friends have flown in from all over so that they can spend the weekend at a beach house owned by the mother of Ana Frost (Jazzy de Liser).  Ana is apparently a bit of a problem child.  Haunted by her father’s suicide, she hates her mother’s fiancee, Robert (Ed Wagenseller), and is secretly paying for the entire weekend with his credit card.  (She even bought everyone’s plane tickets.)  Robert is supposed to be staying at the beach house with Ana while Ana’s mother has a weekend to herself but Ana sharply informs him that he will be spending the weekend at a hotel.  Though angered, Robert agrees.  At first, it’s tempting to assume that Ana is just a spoiled brat but, as with everything in this movie, there’s more to it than that and nothing is what it first seems.

All five of the friends have their own issues that they’re dealing with.  One of them has just discovered that she won’t be attending Oxford.  Another one blames herself for death of her sister.  The token religious girl is scared to come out to her parents while the pregnant girl has been dumped by her boyfriend and has been overly medicated by her family.  And, at first, it’s easy to roll your eyes at the fact that everyone has at least one dramatic problem.  As I watched these five friends acting miserable in a nightclub, I found myself wondering if I really wanted to watch a movie about the type of depressing and overly dramatic people who I usually mute on twitter.  But I kept watching because I suspected there was more to the story than was immediately apparent.

And it turned out that I was right.  There’s a lot more to the story.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what it is without spoiling the film.  What I can tell you is that this is a film that worth sticking with.  During the film’s first half (which can seem unfocused before you learn the film’s twist), you may be tempted to stop watching but stick with it because almost everything that initially seems self-indulgent pays off in the end.  Though both of this film’s titles — To.Get.Her and The Spring Break Murders — might make it sound like a generic horror film, it’s actually an intriguing mystery with a clever twist.  It’s a movie that sicks with you.  I imagine that I’ll be thinking about it for days to come.

That said, it’s not a perfect film.  There’s a subplot about Ana’s mother cheating on Robert that never really makes much sense and the pace lags whenever the attention is taken away from the friends and given to any of the film’s other characters.  There are also a few flashbacks that, occasionally, feel a bit awkward, as if they’ve been forced into the action.  As one might expect from a low-budget independent film, some of the actors are better than others.  Jazzy de Lisser is a stand-out and she gets good support from Chelsea Logan, who plays the pregnant friend.  The rest of the cast is a bit more uneven.  In the end, though, this is an effectively clever little film and one that will reward repeat viewings.

Spring Breakdown: Long Weekend (dir by Colin Eggleston)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1978 Australian film, Long Weekend, is about what happens when two unlikable humans decide to spend the weekend with nature.  Nature, it turns out, doesn’t really like the company and decides to kill them.

Or does it?  From what I’ve read, the screenwriter for Long Weekend, Everett De Roche, did intend this to be a nature’s revenge type of film.  The idea behind the film is that these two city dwellers aren’t respectful of nature when they go camping and, as a result, all of the plants and the animals decide to get revenge.  But the film is shot in such a way that your interpretation may vary.  Are the humans really being targeted by nature?  Or are the humans themselves just so paranoid and craven that they don’t even realize that they’re destroying themselves?  For instance, when one of them gets attacked by a possum, is it because the possum has been sent on a search-and-destroy mission or was it just because someone was stupid enough to stick their hand in a possum’s face?  I mean, you can really only expect any animal to put up with so much, regardless of whether they’re a member of an organized army or not.  Whether or not it was intentional on the part of the filmmakers or just the result of having to adjust to working with a low budget, Long Weekend is actually a rather ambiguous film and it’s all the more effective for it.

Long Weekend opens with Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) driving through the rain.  They’re heading off to an isolated beach camping spot that Peter has discovered.  Peter considers himself to be a great outdoorsman and is very proud of the hunting rifle that he’s bringing with him.  Marcia is a self-described “city girl” and is considerably less enthused about the prospect about spending the weekend in the rough.  (I immediately identified with Marcia because I have always hated the idea of camping.)  Marcia and Peter spend half of their time talking about how much they love each other and the other half talking about how much they hate each other.  Marcia’s also having an affair and Peter might know about it.  (When Peter first brings his new rifle home, he points it directly at Marcia.  Is he just testing the sight or is he fantasizing about murdering his wife?  The film leaves it up to us to decide.)  Along the way, Peter runs over a kangaroo while driving to the campsite but neither he nor Marcia seem to notice.

Once they’re camping, Peter and Marcia only get more obnoxious. Marcia complains about nature. Peter litters the ground with cigarette butts and he kills a manatee.  He also shoots a tree with a spear gun.  He claims it was an accident, though it’s hard not to notice how close the spear comes to hitting Marcia.

The surroundings start to grow more ominous.  The wind howls.  The skies grow dark.  Eagles attack.  Possums attack.  A dog attacks.  Marcia wants to leave and eventually, even stubborn old Peter agrees but it turns out that leaving is not going to be as easy as they think….

Long Weekend takes a while to really get going but, if you stick with it, your patience will be rewarded.  The time taken to reveal who Peter and Marcia are and to show us how their relationship works definitely pays off in the end.  Shot on location in the Australian bush, this is one of those horror films that creates a perfectly ominous atmosphere and then doesn’t let up until the end credits roll.  Peter and Marcia are so unlikable that you don’t really mind seeing them being tormented but, by the end of the film, it’s impossible not to share their desperation as they try to figure out how to escape the wrath of a seriously pissed off planet.  The film ends on a rather abrupt yet totally perfect note.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, one of the things that makes Long Weekend so effective is that it does maintain a certain ambiguity as to what’s happening.  There are hints throughout that whats happening might not just be isolated to that campsite and that Peter and Marcia aren’t the only ones who have gotten on the bad side of nature this weekend.  At the same time, it’s also possible to interpret the film as being less about nature’s revenge and more about an unhappy couple who lets their own paranoia get the better of them.  Are they really victims of nature or are they just two people being driven mad by their own dysfunctional relationship?  While the filmmakers are on record as saying that they meant for it to be the former, the film itself leaves it up to you decide.

Long Weekend is an intense and effective horror film.  If you’re tempted to go camping this Spring Break, be sure to watch this film first.

Spring Breakdown: Super Shark (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here’s the thing: when I was making out my list of films to review for Spring Breakdown, I was under the impression that the 2011 film, Super Shark, was a Spring Break film.  I was convinced that it was a film about a giant shark that ate a bunch of people over the course of Spring Break.

Fortunately, right before posting this review, I decided to rewatch Super Shark.  Normally, I probably wouldn’t have because I’m currently on vacation but it’s also currently raining and it’s also about 7 degrees outside.  (That’s 7 degrees Celsius but it’s still pretty cold.)  It’s like God was reading through my drafts folder last night and said, “Uh-oh.  Lisa needs to rewatch the movie before she posts the review.”

Anyway, upon rewatching Super Shark, I discovered that 1) the film is still awesome as Hell and 2) it’s not actually a Spring Break film.  Instead, it’s a summer film.  There’s even a scene where two lifeguards talk about what a great time they’re going to have working on the beach during the summer.  So, technically, I probably shouldn’t be reviewing this film as part of a Spring Break series but …. well, I’m going to do it anyways.  I mean, it may be a summer film but it plays out like a Spring Break film.  Plus, it’s got a giant shark.

Not surprisingly, for a film called Super Shark, the giant shark is the main attraction.  The CGI’s a bit dodgy and the shark does look a bit cartoonish but that actually adds to the film’s charm.  Whereas Steven Spielberg dealt with the reality of a fake-looking shark by keeping the shark off-screen as much as possible, directed Fred Olen Ray takes the opposite approach and seriously, more power to him.  Ray puts the shark in as many scenes as possible, as if he’s saying, “Yes, this is a low-budget B-movie and why should we pretend that it’s anything other than that?”  There’s an honesty to this approach that’s impossible not to respect.

The shark is prehistoric in origin.  It was safely separated from society until the big bad oil company did some bad corporate stuff and, as a result, the shark is now free to ruin everyone’s summer.  You know that whole thing about how sharks have to stay in the water or they’ll die?  That’s not a problem for Super Shark.  Super Shark will jump on the beach and eat you, he doesn’t care.  In fact, Super Shark is such a rebel that he’ll even take on a tank and win!  WE LOVE YOU, SUPER SHARK!

As always, there’s a group of humans around who don’t love Super Shark as much as the viewers.  There’s the evil corporate guy played by John Schneider.  He’s into money and drilling.  And then there’s the scientist played by Sarah Lieving.  She hates corporations and she doesn’t like sharks.  There’s a DJ played by Jimmie “JJ” Walker.  And then there’s the lifeguards and the beachgoers and the people who just want to participate in a wholesome bikini contest.  Sorry, everyone, Super Shark has other plans.

Anyway, I have a weakness for films about giant sharks attacking oil wells and eating people on the beach.  It’s a silly film but it’s obviously been designed to be silly.  This isn’t Jaws nor is this a serious film about the issues surrounding underwater drilling.   This is a B-movie about a giant shark and if you can’t enjoy something like this, I worry about you.  This is a film that you watch with your friends and you have a lot of fun talking back to the screen.  Don’t take it seriously and just enjoy the giant shark action.  Who could ask for a better summer?  Or a better Spring Break for that matter?

 

Spring Breakdown: The Sand (dir by Isaac Gabaef)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2015 horror film, The Sand, is the movie that asks, “What would you do if the beach was literally eating you?”

The answer, to judge from this film, is “Die.”

I mean, seriously, think about it.  If you’re on the beach and you’re still hungover from the night before and your friend is like literally trapped inside of a trash can (and yes, that does happen in this movie), then you’re pretty much screwed if the sand suddenly decides to start ripping apart your body.  I mean, that’s one thing about the beach.  There’s a lot of sand.  The sand has the advantage.

Of course, despite the title of this movie, it’s not really the beach that’s eating people.  Instead, it turns out that some sort of previously unknown sea serpent hatched out of an egg in the middle of the night and burrowed under the sand.  We don’t learn much about the serpent, other than it has tentacles and it apparently injects a numbing poison into your body before killing you.  That leads to a lot of scenes of people sinking into the sand while screaming, “I’ve gone numb!  I can’t feel anything!”  I can’t remember if anyone in the film actually yells, “The sand’s got me!”  It seems like a missed opportunity if they didn’t.

This is one of those movies that opens with a big spring break party, which means booze, lost bikini tops, and drunken hook-ups in the lifeguard tower.  As I mentioned before, it also means that one unfortunate fellow ends up getting tossed into a trash can, where he promptly gets stuck.  Making things even worse is that his friends use a felt tip marker to draw a penis on his face.  He’s definitely not going to die a dignified death.  That’s just the way things go when the beach turns on you.

The next morning, a few people wake up and discover that almost everyone else from the party has disappeared.  That probably has something do with the fact that only a few people were smart enough to fall asleep somewhere other than on the sand.  So, you’ve got one couple in a lifeguard station.  And then you’ve got four people in a car.  And then you’ve got the poor guy in the trashcan.  They’ve got to figure out how to get to safety without getting eaten by the beach.

They also have to work out their own personal issues.  For instance, one of the girls in the car cheated with the girl in the station’s boyfriend and the boyfriend happens to be in the car so there’s a lot of scenes of people apparently forgetting that they’re on the verge of dying so that they can argue about who cheated first.  It gets kind of annoying.  I would put all that personal stuff to the side if I was trying to figure out how not to get eaten on the beach.

(Actually, I probably wouldn’t.  Sometimes, personal drama just can’t wait.  But then again, I’d never survive a horror film….)

On the plus side, The Sand doesn’t take itself seriously at all.  It knows that it’s a ludicrous, low-budget horror film and it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is.  Jamie Kennedy shows up as a fascist beach patrol guy.  When he’s told that his shoes are the only thing that’s dissuading the beach from eating him, he promptly takes his shoes off.  He’s an idiot.  Everyone in the movie is an idiot.  But the movie understand that they’re all idiots and it plays up the fact because it understands that everyone watching is going to be on the side of the monster under the sand.  GO, MONSTER, GO!

So, I guess my point is that The Sand is what it is.  It knows its audience and it goes out of its way fulfill their expectations and you always have to give credit to a film that understands both its strengths and its limitations.  If you want to watch a bunch of unlikable college students get eaten by the beach, have had it.  This film has what you’re looking for.

Spring Breakdown: The Ghost In the Invisible Bikini (dir by Don Weis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1966 film, The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini, asks the question, “What can you do if you want to have a beach party but you don’t have a beach?”

The answer: “Find a pool!”

Seriously, a pool is just as good as a beach and fortunately, Chuck (Tommy Kirk) has a pool where his friends can hang out and listen as Vicki (Nancy Sinatra) sings a song.  It’s in a big old mansion and hey, it might be haunted.  It used to belong to Hiram Stokeley (Boris Karloff) and he’s dead now so he certainly won’t mind, right?

Well, what if he’s not dead!?

Oh wait, actually, he is dead.  But he’s still hanging around.  It turns out that he needs to do at least one good deed in order to get into Heaven.  (Isn’t starring in Frankenstein enough?  I mean, c’mon…..)  It also turns that Hiram only has 24 hours to do that good deed or it’s off to Hell for him.  Maybe he could figure out a way to help Chuck and his family win his fortune!  Hiram enlists the help of his long-dead girlfriend, Cecily (Susan Hart).  Cecily, we are told, is wearing an invisible bikini but we just have to take the film’s word on that because it’s invisible and, seeing as how Cecily’s a ghost, it’s always possible that only reason she’s transparent is because she’s a spirit.  I mean, seriously, who knows how ghosts work?

Anyway, it’s not going to be easy for Hiram and Cecily to ensure that Chuck inherits that fortune, largely because Chuck and all of his friends are idiots.  The other problem is that Reginald Ripper (Basil Rathbone), Hiram’s lawyer, is determined to win that money for himself and, if you have any doubt that he’s a bad dude, just check out his name.  GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT NAMED REGINALD RIPPER!  Fortunately, even though Reginald graduated from law school and is played by Basil freaking Rathbone, he’s still an idiot and he comes up with the stupidest plan possible to get Chuck and friends out of the house.

He’s going to make them think that it’s haunted!

(But it is haunted….)

Reginald’s plan is to have his evil associates, J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White), Chicken Feather (Benny Rubin), and Princess Yolanda (Bobbi Shaw), pretend to be monsters and ghosts in order to scare all of the teens out of the house.  He also enlists his daughter, Sinistra (Quinn O’Hara), to help but Sinistra isn’t really bad.  She’s just extremely near-sighted and someone thought it would be a good idea to name her Sinistra.

And then the bikers show up!  This is one of AIP’s beach party films so, of course, there are bikers.  Eric von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) shows up and pretends to be Marlon Brando in The Wild One.  Of course, at the time this film was made, the real Marlon Brando was filming Arthur Penn’s The Chase so I’m going to guess that Harvey Lembeck probably had more fun pretending to be Brando than Brando was having being himself….

Anyway, this is a stupid movie even by the standards of the AIP beach party films.  It’s also notably disjointed.  That probably has something to do with the fact that Karloff and Susan Hart weren’t actually added to the film until after the movie had already been shot.  Apparently, AIP felt that the first cut of the movie was missing something so they said, “Let’s toss in a little Karloff!”  Of course, Boris Karloff was such an old charmer that it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t ever really interact with anyone other than Susan Hart over the course of the film.  You’re just happy to see him.

So yeah, technically, this is not a good film but, at the same time, you kind of know what you’re getting into when you watch a movie called The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini.  The jokes fall flat.  The songs are forgettable.  But the whole thing is such a product of its time that it’s always watchable from an anthropological perspective.  Add to that, you get Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, doing what they had to do to pay the bills and somehow surviving with their dignity intact.  Good for them.

Spring Breakdown: The Beach Bum (dir by Harmony Korine)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

February is over!  Welcome to March!

Now, the first two weeks of March is, traditionally, when most schools give their students a week off for Spring Break.  I have a lot of good Spring Break memories and, to be honest, I’ve always kind of resented the fact that Spring Break is something that only schools do.  To me, it should be like a national holiday where everything stops for a week and everyone hangs out at the beach for a few days.

Of course, this year’s Spring Break may be a bit of a disappointment, what with everyone freaking out about …. well, everything.  That’s a shame but fear not!  You may not be able to leave behind your fears long enough to go down to the beach but at least you can still watch movies about the beach, right?  So, with that in mind, over the next two weeks, I will be reviewing some films for Spring Break!

It’s time for Spring Breakdown!

Let’s get things started with the 2019 film, The Beach Bum.

The beach bum of the title is an always stoned, alcoholic poet named Moondog (Matthew McConaughey), who spends his time wandering around the Florida Keys.  Moondog has been working on a book for several years and he’s a bit of a local celebrity.  Everyone that he meets tends to like him, or at least they do until he ruins their lives.  Moondog is irresponsible, immature, and apparently some sort of genius as well.  Moondog is also extremely laid back.  Even when he finds out that his wife, Minnie (Isla Fisher), cheated on him with his best friend, a singer named Lingerie (Snoop Dogg), Moondog is okay with it.  He’s always loved Minnie but he’s never had a problem cheating on her so why shouldn’t she do the same to him?

After Moondog shows up late for his daughter’s wedding and goes out of his way to make a scene, he goes for a drive with Minnie.  Of course, since Moondog is drunk off his ass, he ends up crashing the car and killing his wife.  In her will, Minnie leaves half of her fortune to their daughter, Heather (Stefania LaVie Owen).  She leaves the other half to Moondog, with the stipulation that Moondog will only get the money after he finishes his book.

The rest of the film follows, in an episodic fashion, Moondog as he tries to finish his book and get his money.  Along the way, he commits crimes, dabbles with various jobs, and spends time in jail and drug rehab.  He meets a host of eccentric and destructive characters, almost all of who are the type of outsiders who seem as if they’re destined to eventually be the subject of a “Florida man” headline.  For instance, Flicker (Zac Efron) is a pyromaniac.  And Captain Wack (Martin Lawrence) hosts dolphin tours but, unfortunately, cannot tell the difference between a dolphin and a shark.

When The Beach Bum was first released in March of last year, it was eagerly anticipated because it was Harmony Korine’s first film since 2012’s Spring Breakers.  Despite the fact that Spring Breakers and The Beach Bum both take place in Florida and feature a lot of beach action, the two films might as well be taking place in separate universes.  The Beach Bum is as laid back as Spring Breakers was violent.  If Spring Breakers was a film that seemed to be fueled by ecstasy and cocaine, The Beach Bum is a celebration of getting high and enjoying life.  If Spring Breakers was all about being young, The Beach Bum is about growing old without giving up your individuality.

In many ways, The Beach Bum is the ultimate Matthew McConaughey film and how you react to the film will depend on how much tolerance you have for Matthew McConaughey at his most McConaugheyest.  Indeed, if you like Moondog, it’ll probably be because you like Matthew McConaughey.  As a character, Moondog is a jerk.  He nearly ruins his daughter’s wedding.  He drives drunk and kills his wife.  He refuses to take responsibility for being a general fuck-up and, from what little we hear of his work, he appears to be a subpar poet as well.  And yet, Matthew McConaughey brings enough of his own natural charm to the role that it’s tempting to forgive Moondog.  You can understand why some people in the film are willing to tolerate him, even though he’s basically a pain in the ass to have around.

The Beach Bum is not a film for everyone.  I appreciated Matthew McConaughey’s performance and I also appreciated the fact that Harmony Korine didn’t try to remake Spring Breakers.  At the same time, the film was a bit too loosely constructed to really hold my interest and a little bit of Moondog goes a long way.  I saw this film last year and I’ve really had no desire to rewatch it.  That said, the cinematography frequently makes Florida looks like the most beautiful place on Earth and, regardless of what you may think about his poetry, at least Moondog just keeps on L-I-V-I-N, livin’.

Add to that, Moondog’s going to enjoy Spring Break, no doubt about it.