Beach House

About halfway through the film, the question "Why?" started popping into my head.

This is a teen comedy without comedy, a teen sex comedy without nudity, then suddenly, it takes a swing at being a teen horror slasher featuring a creepy stalker who is the least scary villain in moviemaking history.

It's a guidos versus college kids film sanitized down to earn a PG rating. Perhaps if you weren't old enough to get into R movies in 1982, this might have been a good half hour of entertainment squeezed into an hour and 14 minute film.

Without question, the highlight of this film is they let Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi" play in its entirety for the nightclub scene.

It's time for a 1980s youth-oriented comedy! So where are we going this time? Los Angeles? Florida? Nope - this time the action is taking place in... Ocean City, New Jersey? But the unlikely location is not one of the real problems that sink this movie. If you think you are going to get a lot of explicit material, you will be really disappointed. There's no real foul language, no nudity, and no real sex. The movie is strictly at a PG level at its most. Not only does the script not deliver the goods, it doesn't really have a story to tell - it's just one scene after another with little connection linking these scenes. More disappointing is that the movie THINKS it's funny, but it doesn't generate one single laugh or smile. I will say this for the movie - while the no-name cast gives amateurish performances, and some of the players look too old to be playing young adults (one of them is visibly balding), they all the same come across as somewhat likable. They deserved a lot better than this.

Beach House unquestionably has a distinctive East Coast vibe as compared to most teen-beach-T&A films from the late '70s thru the '80s which have the obvious So-Cal West Coast youth milieu. These South Philly and Brooklyn characters are fairly realistic and a welcomed change of pace for this type of film. And of course, there really are not enough films shot at the Jersey Shore. As stated by other reviews here, the characters really grow on you. Additionally, after living through absolute crap such as reality shows like The Jersey Shore, Beach House is now completely charming, and frankly, much more realistic. The amateur actors are so realistic it almost seems like a reality show filmed in a traditional manner. Beach House also avoids an unnecessary mean vibe which many beach-teen films did not purely out of lazy writing. The sub plot of a sexual predator was a good idea for a climactic scene. This films is really just a good independent film more than a traditional T&A-teen film. But Indy films wouldn't be truly welcomed or popular for at least 10 years from then. Kudos to 21 year old writer-producer Marino Amoruso.

A group of young people arrive on the beach for fun and frivolity.

Many of them have ridiculous, over-the-top Brooklyn accents.

Lots of "HEYYY", "UHHH?", double negatives, and characters with names like Mikey and Frankie. It's like an Andrew Dice Clay set, cleaned up.

Their neighbours are, perhaps, supposed to be punk rocker types - at least that is how the guidos refer to them.

One of the cute Brooklyn girls seems improbably charmed by the quasi-punk types. They take her to meet their friends, who turn out to be even more obnoxious than they are. She doesn't seem to mind.

The movie has some musical scenes that for once aren't just a slog to sit through, and a lot of hot bikini babes - but no nudity. It's not really a sex comedy.

A relationship between a tough Brooklyn chick and one of the other guys actually turns into a kind of touching love story - at least in one scene.

There is an ill-advised chase sequence toward the end of the movie, which I didn't understand or appreciate.

Then the movie segues into a kind of gig on the beach, when the punk rock types play a mediocre song and the other cast members dance around with what looks like painful over-enthusiasm.

And that's it. No sex or nudity, but some romantic scenes. And nothing else to set this one apart, and certainly, nothing in particular to recommend it.

Beach House is just a fun movie. It is one movie in my VHS collection that I will never give up. My wife and I love to watch it when we're lazing on a Saturday afternoon. If you're from Philly and went down the shore as a teen (which I am and did) you'll love it too. But don't just watch it once, watch it a few times because it grows on you. Scenes from the Jersey Turnpike, Jersey Shore, Ocean City and the bars there of the late seventies. The soundtrack music is excellent, Ramones-like punk and other great catchy tunes with a late 70's early 80's feel. The comrodory within the cast is great. There's lots of catchy phrases in it that stick with you. Kate ("a little lower") McNeil went on to star in many other movies and TV shows, the mini-series "North and South" being one. If there's any Beach House cast out there reading this, please drop me a line to let me know what you've been up to. I feel like I know you guys.