Nightmare Beach

Year: 1988 Directed by: Umberto Lenzi Cast: Nicolas De Toth (The Stuff) Sarah Buxton (Sunset Beach, Primal Rage) Rawley Valverde (Santa Barbara) Lance LeGault (Dallas, The A-Team)

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A cold-blooded murderer gets electrocuted but swears to
take revenge on the small town. It's spring break and the
small town is crawling with horny and drunk teens who are
party mad. It seems as if it's the perfect place to spend
the holiday, until a serial killer in a bikers helmet shows
up and starts killing the teens one by one.

Nightmare Beach, doesn't that sound like some awful cheesy
Jaws rip-off? Well, it's a slasher so don't let the title
fool you. After having seen Umberto Lenzi's cheesy but
entertaining supernatural slasher flick, Ghosthouse,
yesterday, I decided that it was necessary to check out
his other slasher flick. Well, this one is almost as cheesy
but not nearly as entertaining. Nightmare Beach feels much
more American than Ghosthouse did, perhaps it's because
this one was shot entirely in the US while Ghosthouse was
partly made in Italy.

The story involves a bunch of teens partying in a small town
for spring break. We only have three real characters in the
movie and one of them dies relatively early and watching
random teens that we know nothing about getting killed off
one after the other for no apparent reason didn't feel very
interesting. There's also the disappointing fact that almost
every victim is electrocuted or burnt to death which leaves
us with very little gore.

Umberto Lenzi is not one of my favourite Italian cult
directors. Comparing D'Amatos, Argentos or Deodatos movies
to Lenzi's flicks makes Lenzi's flicks feel a whole lot
less unoriginal. The directing is far from impressing and
feels very average. The movie is way too slow for a slasher
flick and they've unsuccessfully tried to get the story
interesting even though the only thing which entertains
you at any level are the dull death scenes.

All we get is a melting skeleton and lots of electrocutions.

American 80s rock music which feels very cheap, even for the
time being. There is no real suspense score in it either.

This might be a guilty pleasure for some people but I didn't
find this entertaining at all. It's a very slow movie and
the death scenes are hardly impressive even though the death
scenes is the only interesting thing about this movie. The
story is dull and pretty predictable and the movie is too
long for its own good. Not recommended.

Review By: AnthroFred