Psycho Beach Party


2000 spoof

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A gal named Chicklet who wants nothing more but to surf beings to wonder if she's behind a series of murders after several blackouts.

I'm wondering how this would work on stage. I like the idea of mashing together the beach movie genre with a slasher film. It's kitschy which is exactly why my brother recommended this and loaned it to me about seven years ago. It's a movie that really should be more fun than it is, but I can't recall laughing at all. Everybody tries really hard, maybe even too hard, but it's just sort of a mess, and none of the humor really connects.

I think part of the problem might be that it's lampooning something that is so goofy anyway. Nobody's going to take these beach pictures seriously anyway, so a parody of them doesn't really work all that well. It's smarter than your average parody work that pokes fun at contemporary blockbusters or whatever, but the gap between them isn't as great as you'd like it to be. It's campy, but it's just not clever enough.

I did enjoy some of the performances. Lauren Ambrose showed a little versatility as Chicklet. I also enjoyed Ambrose in Birbiglia's Sleepwalk with Me. Writer Charles Busch plays a woman, and he does it fairly well. For those of you who like Amy Adams, she's got a small role in this and loses her bikini bottom at one point. There's a lot of nudity in this actually, and it's almost off-putting.

My favorite moment was a too-brief shot of masked beach rockers.

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