How's this for a novel premise: a foul, carnivorous, subterranean monster whose exact origin is never properly disclosed feasts upon sundry teenagers, pretty young honeys, cops, bums and little old ladies who are all unfortunate enough to be treading on the beach when the sucker is on the prowl, thereby puzzling the local clueless and ineffectual authorities and whipping up a heretofore sleepy California coastal community into a frenzied tizzy. Boy, does that ever sound fairly similar to "Jaws," now doesn't it?
Although the threadbare story ain't much, this surprisingly fun cheapo fright flick somehow manages to be quite entertaining. Veteran B-movie flatfoot John ("Black Christmas," "Welcome to Spring Break") Saxon as the dour, irascible police chief who's disgusted with the whole bloody mess and the ever-coarse Burt Young (Paulie in the "Rocky" films) as the boorish, jocund homicide detective investigating the baffling murders both delightfully grouch it up while longtime favorite unsung character actor Stefan ("Blue Sunshine," "Spellbinder") Gierasch gleefully commits thespic grand larceny as a pompous, pipe-smoking coroner with a ludicrously protracted drawl (Gierasch talks as if he graduated with top honors from the William Shatner Academy of Studiously Affected and Mannered Overdone Hammy Elocution). Despite several glaring flaws -- writer/director Jeffrey Bloom's hopelessly all-thumbs cinematic technique, sometimes excruciatingly sluggish pacing, drab performances by David Huffman and Marianna ("The Baby," "Messiah of Evil") Hill as a pair of middle-aged seaside lovers who make a belated attempt at rekindling their extinguished relationship, Gill ("A Cold Night's Death," "The Ultimate Warrior") Melle's rather inappropriate, but still funky moody jazz score, Steve ("Dead and Buried," "Donnie Darko") Poster's peculiarly fuzzy photography, and the lamest, phoniest, most pitifully unscary beast this side of the killer walking carpet in "The Creeping Terror" -- "Blood Beach" nonetheless still rates as a weirdly winning low-rent creature feature, mainly because a certain sweetly misguided, but very palpable and thus engaging enthusiasm permeates every single fabulously fumbling frame. It's this unusual synthesis of earnestness and ineptitude which ultimately makes this baby so endearing. And any picture which boasts a scene where a nasty would-be rapist gets gruesomely castrated by the rampaging monster will always get my vote.
Although the threadbare story ain't much, this surprisingly fun cheapo fright flick somehow manages to be quite entertaining. Veteran B-movie flatfoot John ("Black Christmas," "Welcome to Spring Break") Saxon as the dour, irascible police chief who's disgusted with the whole bloody mess and the ever-coarse Burt Young (Paulie in the "Rocky" films) as the boorish, jocund homicide detective investigating the baffling murders both delightfully grouch it up while longtime favorite unsung character actor Stefan ("Blue Sunshine," "Spellbinder") Gierasch gleefully commits thespic grand larceny as a pompous, pipe-smoking coroner with a ludicrously protracted drawl (Gierasch talks as if he graduated with top honors from the William Shatner Academy of Studiously Affected and Mannered Overdone Hammy Elocution). Despite several glaring flaws -- writer/director Jeffrey Bloom's hopelessly all-thumbs cinematic technique, sometimes excruciatingly sluggish pacing, drab performances by David Huffman and Marianna ("The Baby," "Messiah of Evil") Hill as a pair of middle-aged seaside lovers who make a belated attempt at rekindling their extinguished relationship, Gill ("A Cold Night's Death," "The Ultimate Warrior") Melle's rather inappropriate, but still funky moody jazz score, Steve ("Dead and Buried," "Donnie Darko") Poster's peculiarly fuzzy photography, and the lamest, phoniest, most pitifully unscary beast this side of the killer walking carpet in "The Creeping Terror" -- "Blood Beach" nonetheless still rates as a weirdly winning low-rent creature feature, mainly because a certain sweetly misguided, but very palpable and thus engaging enthusiasm permeates every single fabulously fumbling frame. It's this unusual synthesis of earnestness and ineptitude which ultimately makes this baby so endearing. And any picture which boasts a scene where a nasty would-be rapist gets gruesomely castrated by the rampaging monster will always get my vote.