The Beach Girls and the Monster (1965)

Simply A Masterpiece

Brilliant and touching

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Lousy horror movie about a sea monster attacking and killing 20-somethings at a beach in California. Most of the adults hate the kids because they dance to bad music and go surfing. You also see a killing within the first few minutes. A guy in a stupid suit covered with seaweed, a fish head and claws kills a girl. He just strangles her and casually walks away! The suit is stupid looking and most likely will have viewers laughing! The acting is lousy, the dramatics terrible and the killings just involve the victims being dead with some blood on their face or necks. Some of the kids are good-looking and have nice bodies but that's about it. Skip it.

Clocking in at barely over an hour,The Beach Girls And The Monster combines a monster who gently massages people to death,45 year old men playing teens and some of the worst acting ever caught on film. The plot is decent(for a 50 year old b-movie) but like most they fill a lot of time with nothing.The filler isn't on the absurd level of say Teenagers Battle The Thing(which was 59 minutes with 25 minutes of nothing)but it's too much.The movie could have been 15 minutes shorter with nothing missing.For some reason they made a big deal out of Frank Sinatra Jr. doing the music.I always considered him sort of a joke.Anyway,it's a good song but it's just one song over and over and over.If you value your time,don't watch this movie.

Completed in April 1964, "Surf Terror" had to wait over a year before finally being issued under the more exploitive title "The Beach Girls and the Monster," quickly making its way to TV screens under still another, "Monster from the Surf" (this version featuring about 7-8 minutes of added footage). Former matinée idol Jon Hall, remembered for "The Hurricane," "Invisible Agent," "The Invisible Man's Revenge," and numerous camp vehicles opposite Maria Montez, stars in his final screen appearance, doubling as both director and cinematographer. Following on the heels of Del Tenney's better known "The Horror of Party Beach," both films' reliance on black and white contrast with the sun drenched colors of AIP's 'Beach Party' series. After a nice opening murder done by the titular monster from a cave, the film quickly bogs down with the silly beach antics of the teens, the lowest (or highest) camp moment coming when 'Kingsley the Lion' does his rendition of "There's a Monster in the Surf," joined by super cutie Elaine Dupont, courageously squealing with abandon. The domestic drama finds Richard Lindsay (Arnold Lessing) losing interest in following in his father's footsteps after a car crash that cripples his artist friend (Walker Edmiston). His disapproving father, eminent oceanographer Dr. Otto Lindsay (Jon Hall), suggests that the marauding creature may be an African fantigua fish, which he says is capable of walking on land, and can grow to 100 lbs. Otto believes that those harmless teens are capable of murder, while his wife of five years (Sue Casey) rejects him while flirting outrageously with all the other males around, even her stepson Richard. Judging by these events, the twisted climax is perfectly fitting, almost apologizing for the lame monster suit. Hall still looked fit and trim just seven years earlier in "Hell Ship Mutiny," here nearly unrecognizable, sluggish and overweight. No great shakes in terms of acting or directing, an almost appropriate conclusion to his career, low brow adventure films and the cheesy series RAMAR OF THE JUNGLE, Hall's one last acting credit a 1965 PERRY MASON (he committed suicide in 1979, suffering from terminal cancer). Vanishing from the airwaves by the 1980s, "Monster from the Surf" made its lone appearance on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater June 29 1968, followed by second feature "The Magnetic Monster."

What "The Night of the Hunter" was for Charles Laughton--the sole directorial effort from a great film star--"The Beach Girls and the Monster" was for '40s matinée idol Jon Hall. But whereas Laughton's film is one of the eternal glories of the cinema, Hall's picture is...well, let's just say not nearly as glorious. In his film, Hall stars (at this point in his career, looking like Ernest Borgnine's older brother) as Dr. Otto Lindsay, an oceanographer whose troublesome son, rather than follow in his Pops' footsteps, prefers to go surfing with his pals and play his guitar at beach parties. This domestic friction is made even more problematic when a seaweed-draped, lumbering, rather ridiculous-looking monster starts to attack kids on the beach.... Anyway, Hall's film is silly in parts but not nearly as goofy as you might be expecting; certainly more serious than a Frankie & Annette movie! It has been well shot in B&W (although utilizes egregious rear projection for all driving sequences), showcases an annoyingly catchy theme song by Frank Sinatra, Jr., is decently acted, and features a twist ending of sorts that goes far in mitigating much of the silliness that has come before. Almost stealing the show is Sue Casey, playing Hall's trampy wife; my buddy Rob is quite right in pointing out that her sharp-tongued, shrewish vixen of a character would have been right at home in a '60s Russ Meyer flick. "Beach Girls," with a running time of only 66 minutes, still feels padded, with surfing stock footage, rock 'n' roll numbers accompanied by boogying bikini babes (played by the Watusi Dancing Girls from the Whiskey-A-Go-Go!), and assorted hijinks. Still, I can think of much less entertaining ways to spend an hour. As Michael Weldon succinctly puts it, in his spoiler review in "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film": "A cheap laugh riot with lots of bongos, murders, and girls in bikinis."