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PSYCHO BEACH PARTY originally opened off-Broadway in 1987 and emerged as a cult hit, with Busch as Florence Forest, aka Chicklet, a 16-year-old girl surfer with a tendency to abruptly, involuntarily switch to the persona of domineering Ann Bowman.


Now PSYCHO BEACH PARTY has been brought to the screen, with slasher films as a new theme added to the other two. Lauren Ambrose now plays Chicklet (and Ann Bowman), while Busch takes on the newly-created role of Capt. Monica Stark, a shrewd LAPD detective who is investigating a series of suspicious murders among the beach crowd. These include the revered surfer Kanaka (Thomas Gibson), the only guy on the beach willing to give Chicklet lessons in hanging 10 - mainly because he's got the hots for her uninhibited alter ego. There's also Starcat (Nicholas Brendon), the hunky dreamboat Chicklet pines for, Chicklet's erstwhile best friend Berdine (Danni Wheeler) and B-movie starlet Bettina Barnes (Kimberley Davies), whose rented house may be haunted. Chicklet's mother, Mrs. Forest (Beth Broderick), disapproves of her daughter's antics, even as she flirts with her border, nonplused and polite Swedish exchange student Lars (Matt Keeslar).


Ambrose shows impressive range, channeling Gidget, Joan Crawford and a LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS chorus-girl type with gusto and hilarious accuracy. Busch's pragmatic Monica, at once matter-of-fact and subtly arch, is a scene-stealer. Brendon contributes the same kind of slightly insensitive yet good-hearted befuddlement that he gives to Xander in the TV show BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (which is exactly what his role here calls for) and Davies makes Bettina as silly and fluffy as can be.


There's nothing wrong with the hard-working cast, but PSYCHO BEACH PARTY largely succumbs to a problem that affects many filmed versions of stage movie spoofs. Much of the theatrical humor depends on the fact that we know we're seeing live-action shorthand for cinematic conventions. It's a lot funnier, for example, seeing somebody "surfing" on a stage than pretending to do so on screen, even with the world's cheesiest rear-projected waves behind them.


Director Robert Lee King and writer Busch have perhaps done their homework a bit too well. On celluloid, PSYCHO BEACH PARTY plays less like a clever send-up than a faithful replication, which narrows its potential audience to those who enjoyed all the original beach blanket silliness from 40 years ago and want to see a bit more in the same vein. However, they may be unsettled by the slasher material, which has a conceptual grossness that would make it laudable in a tougher context but comes off as a little forced here.

Those who never enjoyed sand and sea teen romps in the first place are likely to simply feel impatient, even though the cast and the movie's ability to evoke another era are both admirable.-- Abbie Bernstein

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originally posted: 02/23/01 10:41:21
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