BloodBeach

Blood Beach (1980)

Now here is a movie that I’ve heard about forever and just never took the time to watch until recently. I’m really glad that I finally took the time to check it out. A fairly innocuous stretch of beach becomes the hunting ground for a strange creature that feeds on the unfortunate beach goers that it runs into. Initially the local authorities don’t put the pieces together, but after a few more bodies turn up they finally close the beach. But then for a closed beach there are still a lot of people walking around on it! But this only adds to the fun of what is a cheesy little “B” movie from the early 80s. Heck we even get the “scary” ending that forebodes that things are far from solved by blowing the creature to bits and pieces.

Blood Beach is way better than I expected it to be. The movie is paced very well and keeps the action moving. There is always another victim, funny bit of dialogue, or plot twist being thrown at the audience. This makes for a really fun viewing experience. John Saxon shows up for what I thought was going to be a glorified cameo. But then he gets a surprising amount of scenes and dialogue. This is a good choice because I found the leads, David Huffman and Marianna Hill to be a bit dull. They have little to no onscreen chemistry and are the weakest part of the movie. As much as I don’t like the leads Blood Beach does boast a great performance that I think steals the show. Burt Young of Rocky fame is perfectly cast as the wisecracking Sergeant Royko. He has all the best lines and makes what might have been a low budget by the numbers creature feature just a bit more fun. Of all the great work that he has done this might be my favorite character that he has ever played.

Blood Beach avoids the biggest pitfall of most low budget creature features. Limited budgets normally lead to cheesy looking monsters. But by keeping the creature under the sand until the last few minutes of the movie the filmmakers avoid making the creature funny rather than scary. Not that Blood Beach is overly scary, but there is some mystery as to what the creature is and what it looks like. I dig this and think that it works well here. Even when the creature shows up it is only seen on a video monitor that the characters have set up to detect it, so again you never get to see the creature clearly. When it comes to special effects sometimes less is more, and I think that Blood Beach is a good example of this.

I dig this movie. It doesn’t break new ground, but is a good example of the kind of fun and entertaining flick that can be made on a budget. Unlike many of the movies whose reputations have been enhanced by not being on DVD Blood Beach really needs to get an official release. Until then if you can track down a copy on VHS I recommend you do.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer