Psycho Beach Party
Directed by: Robert Lee King, Written by: Charles Busch, Starring: Amy Adams, Thomas Gibson, Kimberley Davies, Nicholas Brendon, Run Time: 95 minutes, Release: 2000
Spoof of 1960's Beach Party/Gidget surfing movies mixed with slasher horror films stars Lauren Ambrose as Florence Forrest, a not-so-innocent girl in 1960's Malibu who becomes "Chicklet" the first girl surfer at Malibu Beach, only Florence suffers from dissociative identity disorder and occasionally her alter ego Ann Bowman, a sexually aggressive, foul-speaking girl, comes out in which during that time several beach goers are found murdered. The suspects include Chicklet herself, surfer Kanaka (Thomas Gibson), B-horror film actress Bettina Barnes (Kimberley Davies), exchange student Lars (Matt Keeslar), and even Chicklet's own mother, Ruth (Beth Broderick).
Psycho Beach Party is based on the stage show of the same name by Charles Busch. Although, that means absolutely nothing to me, since I have never heard of it before. At least that gives me the benefit of not having to compare the two. This film has been sitting in my collection for a while now and I guess I have been avoiding it on the basis that I thought it was going to be fucking terrible.
This has to be one of the most uniquely hilarious films that I have seen in a very long time. It's just utterly brilliant. Psycho Beach Party is a wonderfully cheeky parody of 50s psychodramas, 60s teen beach party/surfer films and B-movie slasher films and it pulls this off with pure excellence. It has beautifully faithful look to it, which is backed in its authenticity by the chipper surf score soundtrack and fantastically hammed-up, bubble gummed, caricatured acting from every member of the cast. Its ridiculousness is played with such straight laced humour that it really does have you laughing out loud all the way through. It's spoof film-making at its near finest. Not as brilliant as films like Airplane (1980) or Top Secret! (1984) but to be fair, this is a different kind of spoof.
The casting is pure perfection. As the multi-identity'd Florence, the gorgeous Lauren Ambrose is marvellous. She flips from one persona to the other (and back again) with disturbingly natural ease. It really was awesome to see her shift effortlessly between them. Nicholas Brendan stars as the popular surfer and leader of the pack, Starcat. He's cool as a cucumber and brilliantly charismatic in the role. A fresh-faced Thomas Gibson plays Kanaka, the laid-back surf legend with a penchant for talking in rhyming sentences (that's just how cool he is). Gibson brings great charm and mystique to the character. There are some great supporting cast members, too, including Amy Adams as Starcat's girl, Marvel Ann, Australian actress Kimberly Davies as the Marilyn Munroe-esque, Bettina Barnes, Charles Busch as Captain Monica Stark, Kathleen Robertson as super-bitch, Rhonda and a wonderfully comical turn from Nick Cornish and Andrew Levitas as surf bums, Yo-Yo and Provoloney.
I could really go to town on how good this film is but that would be too long a read. So, I'm just going to say that if you have not yet seen this and you like a bit of spoof in your films, then you should get hold of this delightful, piss-taking whodunnit as soon as you can, and give it a look. It's wildly wacky, total fun and a solid way to spend an hour-and-a-half of your time. I haven't laughed this much for a long time. I will definitely be watching this again real soon.
You can purchase the soundtrack on Amazon.
