Blood Beach (1981)
Review by Michael Varrati
Following the financial wake left by Jaws in the filmic harbor, the rise in aquatic and beach oriented fright flicks seemed not only extremely timely but also corporately inevitable.
Movies like Piranha and its sequel, by their own admission, riffed on Spielberg’s blockbuster, whereas flicks such as Orca: The Killer Whale maintained a relative indignant stance that they had nothing to do with the aforementioned great white, despite suspiciously coincidental timing and themes. However one chose to look at these films though, the truth was undeniable: Jaws had changed the genre landscape forever, and because of that, imitation and comparisons were bound to be aplenty.
One such film, and coincidentally the movie also under review today, was so bold as to riff openly on Jaws 2’s famous tagline, stating: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water – you can’t get to it.”
That movie was Blood Beach.
…and Jaws (or its sequels, for that matter), it ain’t.
The film, as the tagline and very title so daringly imply, concerns itself not with the ocean proper, but the beach leading to it and the subterranean sand monster that lurks below its scenic dunes.
Forget sharks, this sea-monster is on land…and boy it is hungry.
Essentially when you get this concept down, there isn’t all that much more to know about Blood Beach (or as I like to call it, Tremors: Beach Blanket Bingo), as it is not a horribly well developed film. The protagonists of the movie, as horror movies are wont to do, are split into two camps: A duo of winsome young adults who are determined to solve the mystery Scooby-Doo style and the local authorities. However, neither set of heroes is particularly good at what they are doing, nor are they even all that likeable.
Our intrepid couple, as played by David Huffman (Firefox, F.I.S.T) and Marianna Hill (Schizoid, The Godfather: Part II), are given the paltry back story of being once almost-married friends who are reunited over the grisly sand attacks. Inexplicably, this leads to them exploring abandoned locations that they once visited as children in an attempt to discover the secret of the monster. They ultimately do some good, but this is only because the film had to end at some point.
On the other side, we have the law, manifested in the form of Sgt. Royko (as played by Burt Young, whom you’d know as Paulie from every single Rocky movie ever). Snide, hapless, and totally devoid of interest in the case he’s pursuing, I have to give some credit to the character of Royko, as he’s possibly the only cop I’ve seen in the entirety of cinema who seems actually bothered by the fact that he has to expend some effort catching a “criminal”. A totally unlikeable character, Young’s sarcastic delivery does, however, score some of the film’s most memorable lines. Behind Royko is the chief of police (played by genre legend John Saxon – Cannibal Apocalypse, A Nightmare on Elm Street), who is slightly less sarcastic and more concerned about solving the murders, but apparently not too much…since he’s assigned Royko to the case.
With these four on the job the audience can rest assured that there will be plenty more deaths before the end credits, because in terms of credible heroes, you’ve come to the wrong movie.
The problem with Blood Beach is that, beyond its insipid characters (though that’s not entirely fair to John Saxon, who actually remains cool, despite his surroundings), it’s just dreadfully uninteresting. Not that a film needs to be a constant barrage of action and engaging scenarios (in fact, the slow burn method can be quite effective if utilized properly, as in Ti West’s House of the Devil) to be good, but it still has to operate on substance. Between monster attacks, of which there are woefully few, are lengthy scenes of a whole lot of not much. Sure, there’s the burgeoning romance emerging between Huffman and Hill’s characters, but as a plot point that seemed haphazardly introduced to give the characters some depth, it makes it relatively hard to feel all that emotionally connected to them. The pacing is slow, the writing isn’t all that great, and the characters are just not all that interesting.
That is not to say that this movie is entirely bad, as there are some small saving graces.
As previously alluded to, it’s hard to suppress John Saxon’s ability to own a role. A good portion of the film’s most enjoyable scenes include Saxon’s repartee with the city government on his policemen’s handling of the monster issue, and never once does he ever come across as an officer of the law whom you would ever dream of crossing. Saxon’s good, in fact probably too good for the material here, and the only real problem with his role in this movie is that it’s a part he has certainly played in other, far superior motion pictures.
Also of positive note are the creature effects. While generally obscured or outright left off frame for the majority of the film, during the monster’s big reveal in the picture’s finale one cannot help but be impressed with the detail and magnitude of the creature’s presentation. However (again), the unfortunate downside of this positive note is that we see too few of the creature before the film wraps. Perhaps true to the real grindhouse formula, they saved their budgetary “money shot” for the very end, but sadly shot the wad far too quickly.
This is one movie that one cannot, in good conscience, truly recommend as a decent entry into the pantheon of horror. Perhaps the film’s tagline was a tongue-in-cheek jab at the Jaws franchise, but all it really did was remind the viewer that there are far superior tales of beach terror one could be watching than the one in front of them. A dismal affair, I’d say it might actually be a fortunate thing that it is not currently available on DVD, but I know there are those who might wish to seek if out anyway. For those who don’t have the means to track down a VHS copy of the film, there is some stalwart (or sinister, depending how you look at it) character who has uploaded the motion picture, in parts, to YouTube. However, before you go running to Blood Beach, heed this warning…sometimes it’s better to make it to the water and drown than get stuck in the sand.
Buy the VHS on Amazon
Watch the trailer:
Popularity: 1% [?]
[ ‹‹ Book Review: And Falling, Fly by Skyler White Book Review: The Canal by Daniel Morris ›› ]
2006 2007 2008 2009 awesome 80s bad movies Best of bloody book review boring brutal campy creepy disturbing Fatally Yours film festival fun ghosts gore haunted horror comedy Horror Literature humorous independent insanity interview low-budget madness monsters murders News psychological release info revenge sequel serial killer short film slasher supernatural unique vampires violent Women in Horror Worst of Zombies