Beach House (1982)

Beach House (1982)
Directed by John Gallagher
Starring Ileana Seidel, John Cosola, Kate McNeil, Dana Nathan
Rated PG
USA 

"C'mon Cindy, lets get Freudian. Loosen your mandible. "

This is the debut film from John Gallagher (sadly, not the dude from Raven), who has gone on to have a reasonably successful career as an indie producer/director in NYC. My guess is, he keeps this one off of his promotion reel. Ostensibly a free-wheeling 80’s T&A beach comedy, this (I’m assuming) largely improvisational, extremely low-budget time-waster seems more like a collection of grubby home movies made by stoned goofballs. It’s outsider cinema, like a hetero John Waters with really lame friends. Still, it casts a mesmerizing spell, like some kind of fucked-up dream that you can’t quite remember, but can’t quite shake out of your head, either.

An assorted, mis-matched collection of kooks, creeps, cretins, and gum-snapping hussies from Brooklyn head to Ocean Cityon on the Jersey shore for a week of fun in the sun. They end up sharing a house with a pseudo-punk band from Philadelphia who, inexplicably, hang out with a bunch of stuck-up preppy types. Some of these people are teenagers, but a couple of the guys look about 35. It’s nearly impossible to tell who is who. No one, as far as I can tell, is an actual actor. I'm pretty sure it's just a bunch of locals getting wasted on a cheap beer and rag weed and making a "movie."  The mugging is pretty incredible, particularly from frizzy haired Cecile (one-time actress Ileana Seidel), the crass Brooklyn chick who bounces constantly and says stuff like, "Honey, I was your age when I was 12."

There’s no plot to speak of, just one meandering “party” scene after another. And even though the set-ups are pretty standard, the results are always weird and awkward to watch. For example, the gang takes a trip to Phil's Disco Inferno where they guzzle booze and dance to Plastic Bertrand, which seems perfectly reasonable for 1982, but then they head for the Boardwalk to do a barbershop quartet routine. Haha, what?

Later on, some big fucker named Marty (Al Wheatley, who also never acted again) walks into the Brooklyn pad and starts hitting on the chicks. It's entirely possible that he actually just wandered in off the street, completely unaware that a movie was being made. One of the girls (Angela? They might all be named Angela) tells him to fuck off, and he says, "Hey, I was just trying to be gregarious,” and then he leaves. And that's the whole scene.

The Brooklyn gang and the punk/preppies mingle at the beach and the alpha-preppy chick, Cindy (Kate McNeil, House on Sorority Row),  invites our scraggly heroes to their 4th of July 'turkey and tequila' (what?) party because she's got a crush on Anthony (they might all be named Anthony), but it quickly descends into a booze/fist/food fight. No one wins. Everybody is a loser at the Turkey and Tequila party.

All the fellas end up getting arrested, although they couldn't find an actual police station to shoot the scene. I think it's actually the coat room at the Elks club or something.

The next morning, they decide to play softball to hash out their differences, but quit halfway through because Baby (Paul Anderson), the perpetually stoned 40 year old they hang out with, wants a drink. And that's how the scene ends. It is entirely possible that the scene ended because the guy who plays Baby really did want a drink.

Did  I mention that there's a guy named Snookie who looks like Howard Stern and acts like Bowzer from Sha Na Na? Well, there is. Incidentally, Snookie was portrayed by Eddie Brill, who went on to be David Letterman's warm-up guy.

So anyway, a couple inter-group romances develop, which naturally causes friction between the two groups. To blow off some steam, Cindy wanders over to the amusement park after hours and starts riding the merry go round, which is inexplicably running all by itself.

Turns out its Marty stalking her behind the scenes. He chases her into a dark tunnel, presumably to rape her, while Anthony and her brother desperately search for her. Holy fuck, did this movie take a dark turn! Luckily, Anthony shows up and saves the day.

And then everybody goes to the beach to make out and dance to the band, who perform, right there, in the sand, with no electrical outlets in sight. It says The Pleasantville Music Shop on their bass drum, but I have no idea if that's the name of the band, or where they rented the drums. Anyway, it's a good party. The end. Really. The whole thing is over in a merciful 75 minutes.

You know, I think if you watched this drunk with a bunch of your snarky friends, this would probably seem like the greatest movie ever made. Stone cold sober, it’s a head-scratcher. This is definitely the lowest-budget, shot-on-film, non-porn 80’s teen-romp I’ve seen, cheaper even than woeful softcore Archie rip-off Hot Times, and it doesn’t even deliver on the basic T&A goods. Nobody gets naked, and even if they did, the entire cast has a ‘real people’ vibe, so you’d  probably be disappointed if they did (although Ileana does have a Linda Lovelace-y appeal).

There are no real jokes, just a lot of puns and forced slang, there’s no character development, and no acting, just people spouting lines. The picture is grimy and grainy, the lighting is non-existent, and the sound mix is muddy. For all intents and purposes, Beach House should be thoroughly unwatchable, but still, there’s something hypnotic about it. It seems sorta mysterious, like maybe we’re peeping in somebody’s private stash of long-gone goodtimes, like perhaps this was never meant for our eyes, it was meant for Snookie and Googie and whoever to reel up and project on a sheet in their basement every twenty years to remember when they were young-ish and free and the Jersey shore was an exotic wonderland where anything could happen. As an actual movie, something you would pay to go see and sit through in a theater, Beach House is ridiculous. But as a hazy, bizarre artifact from a weirder time, it’s sorta spellbinding. You ever hear a Shaggs record? Same thing here. I kinda wanna watch it again, and I kinda wanna never see it again as long as I live. Ding?

- Ken

Stacey says:

It's entirely possible that the majority of  Beach House was improvised. The "actors" appear to have been given an extremely loose plot line and been told to riff. It's also possible that MTV got the idea for the Jersey Shore from this "reality show" before it's time.

 This movie is terrible and awesome at the same time. At first, I kind of wanted to shut it off, but kept watching... it was crazy! The dudes are mostly off-putting and the girls are kind of annoying, but somehow it all works. I am with Ken on this one... Ding?

Private Resort (1985)

Private Resort (1985)
Directed by George Bowers
Starring Johnny Depp, Rob Morrow, Emily Longstreth, Leslie Easterbrook, Hector Elizondo
Rated R
USA 

"Just ‘cuz some idiot gorilla with a gun hates our guts, we're not gonna let it ruin our weekend."

From the boner champ who brought us My Tutor, Private Resort is a quintessential 80’s T&A romp remarkable mostly because it stars two future somebodys in the leads: Johnny Depp and Rob “Guy from Northern Exposure” Morrow. And also because you get to see glamazonian alpha-blonde Leslie Easterbrook (mostly) naked. Your brain is definitely not required to watch this one, so you can send it on some errands or something for the next 82 minutes. 

Private Resort opens with lots of ass, which is a good sign. Chasing some o' that ass? Jack (Depp, 22 but looking about 16) and Ben (Morrow), on a expensive weekend vacation. Oh, and a fat kid.  It's a pool party at a resort. A private resort! If you’re wondering what the tone of this movie is, in the first five minutes, the fat kid uses a fishing rod to snatch ladies’ bikini tops, and then gets chased around by a bumbling security guard with a greasy mustache. Boing!

Also at this resort, an eye popping Leslie Easterbrook as bouncing southern belle Bobby Sue. For whatever reason, she's hanging out with shifty Hector Elizondo. He's "The Maestro" and he's here to steal some old lady’s diamonds, or something. Intrigue!

Bobby Sue accidentally leaves her room key at the pool. Jack thinks she did it on purpose because she wants to bone him, so he strips naked and hides in her room like some kind of fucking maniac. Ben's there too. Instead of Bobby Sue, the goddamn Maestro shows up and assumes Ben is the barber. He is definitely not the barber. 

So while he's mangling Maestro’s head, Bobby Sue really does show up and slips into something extremely comfortable, i.e. a see through nightgown, and discovers a naked Jack in her closet! 

And then the real barber, an angry German dude, shows up! Holy fuck!

By the way, the story goes that Easterbrook told director George Bowers that she wasn’t getting naked for the scene, so he compromised and gave her the nightgown, promising her it wasn’t too sheer. It’s way too fuckin’ sheer. Nice one, Georgie boy!  Anyway, they get the fuck outta there and run....right into an all-girl aerobics class!  The 80's really were magical, weren't they?

Even though he's hiding under a table to avoid the Maestro, Ben manages to score a date with Patty (the elusive but alluring Emily Longstreth from American Drive In), the foxy blonde waitress at the pool bar. Nice work, Ben. 

Meanwhile Jack's in love with a rich blonde chick named Dana (Karyn OBryan) that he met in the aerobics class. But she'll only go out with guys her snooty grandma approves of, so he just tells the screwy old broad that he's a surgeon, and they're good to go. They arrange a double date with Dana and her cousin Shirley (crazy-eyed Hillary Shepard) who is some kinda lunatic in a turban. Ben wants out of the deal, especially since she doesn't even want to go out, but Jack gives him a bottle full of Quaaludes and tells him to feed a bunch to her and then go nuts. That is what we call 'date rape' these days.

Anyway, it turns out the old broad Maestro is here to rob is grandma. Maestro tries to put the moves on her on the dance floor, but she sees his fucked up haircut and laughs in his stupid face. 

Also, turns out Shirley is totally hot under the turban. We find this out when she gets completely naked and then makes Ben get naked, too. 

He figures this is his lucky day, but it turns out to be religious nonsense and she leaves him there with his boner flapping in the breeze. Naturally, this is exactly when grandma gets home! So he ends up tearing ass naked down the hallways (again), while grandma gulps down the Quaaludes, thinking they're aspirin.  And just when it looks like things couldn't go any wore for Ben, he somehow ends up in a bathtub with The Maestro! What a night of hijinks!

But fuck, in all the excitement, he ends up missing his date with Patty, who accepts a ride home from her asshole boss Scott (Michael Bowen AKA Tommy from Valley Girl). "I want you to know that this is not a date," she says. "Ok," he tells her, "but you never know what can happen." Sounds threatening to me.

Later on that night – of the next day, who the fuck knows - Andrew Dice Clay, of all fuckin' people, is at the bar trying to cheat on his drunk girlfriend. She tells him she gonna go bang the first guy he sees for revenge, so Jack takes her up on the offer. Because that's the way these things go, Dice ends up in the same hotel room with his new gal pal while his out-of-it girlfriend stumbles around, waiting to be discovered.

 It ends like every scene in this movie ends, with half naked people running and screaming down the hallway.

The next morning Ben decides he's had enough of all this nonsense and decides to go the fuck home, but then Patty convinces him to stay. Cue the goddamn love montage, including the obligatory bicycle rides and sunset make-out scene at the beach.

Because something’s gotta get us to the inevitable climactic pie fight, Maestro tries to get the diamond again, but it turns out grandma knows Kung Fu! But Maestro knows Gun Fu, so he wins. Well, he almost wins. He's on his way to easy street until he runs into Ben, who Maestro still thinks is a crazy barber, so he decides to kill him before he leaves. Ben dresses in drag to get away and Maestro and Dice molest him in an elevator, because they think he’s a hot chick, even though he is clearly Rob Morrow in a dress. Things get kinda crazy from there, prompting a line that has to be a high water mark in Elizondo's career: "You moron, that's a faggot barber and he's got my diamond in his tits!"

It should come as no surprise that the chase/fight continues in the women's locker room and culminates in a crowded restaurant with a machine gun that doesn't hit anything and a goddamn pie in the face and more old lady Kung fu and a dick joke. The end. 

Every 80’s sight gag you can think of is in here. Every one. Stoned surfer dude who pops in every once in a while to remark on the action? Check. Old lady doing things young people usually do? Check. Fat girl overeating gag? Check. Bumbling authority figures bested by wiseass kids? Check. Etc. I don’t think there’s one original scene in the whole goddamn movie. But it hardly matters – there are half or nearly naked blondes in almost every scene, and Depp and Morrow have great chemistry together. Its’ clear from even this that they both had potential to be stars. Bower keeps things moving at a furious pace, and there’s plenty of moments when the laughs and the cringes collide in perfect syncopation – it’s like the Lucy Show with silicone. Goodtimes, no hassles. I approve. 

- Ken 

Stacey says: This movie is cuckoo-cuckoo bananas!  Classic 80's fare. Loose plot, bikini babes, and every sight gag under the sun...you can see them coming before they even happen. Depp and Morrow make a great team. I'm not sure the film would be watchable without them. I actually favor Morrow over Depp in this one, probably because Depp's character is a douche, while Morrow's is actually sweet and grounded (as grounded as one could be in the midst of all the 80's antics.) Totally awesome 80's, Rumspringa-woo!

Boarding House (1982)

Directed by John Wintergate
Starring Kalassu, Lindsay Freeman, Selma Kora, John Wintergate
Rated R 
USA

"Last week the Hoffman house was open for boarders. Along with the residents...something else moved in!"

For most of the 20th century making a feature film was an enormous and prohibitively expensive pain-in-the-ass. Trucks full of lighting equipment, giant expensive cameras with a range of specific lenses, reel to reel recorders and boom mikes, and the lab processing of miles of fragile film were all required to make even the cheapest low-budget quickie. The trashiest ultra-cheapo roughie would still cost you more than 5 or 10 brand new Jeep Cherokees.

And then came Videotape. The consumer grade video camera made it possible for any jerk with $700 and a pair of VCRs to shoot, edit, and foist upon the world, a craptacular feature film. And, if two-hours of internet research is to be trusted, the first shot on home video feature to receive a North American Theatrical release was 1982's BOARDINGHOUSE.

It is easy enough to give the plot of the film in a nutshell, because there is not really a nutshell's worth of plot to begin with. A crappy house in the San Fernando Valley has been the scene of a series of unexplained "telekinetic" deaths and has been bequeathed to an amoral young (if 45 is young) swinger named Jim. He runs and classified ad for roomies that begins with the phrase "Girls Girls Girls!" and encourages attractive and unattached party  (age 18 to 25 - No Fatties!) to move into his pad for dirt cheap rent and some good times.

Apparently back in 1982 women in Los Angeles were more concerned with inexpensive rent than with their own personal safety, so in the wink of an eye, a bevy of busty beauties move in with Jim a settle into a life of constant sexual harassment and telekinetic hi-jinx.  As the girls are getting settled a latecomer named Debbie shows up and, in a super-fake English accent, begs to get in on the action.  The girls are skeptical, but after Jim gives her a sleazy once-over, she is welcomed aboard.

A note about Jim. Director John Wintergate realized that the character of Jim, a middle-aged scum ball who the script requires to make out with a bunch of topless 20 year old starlets and have off-putting mechanical shower sex in a 46 second scene that is 45 seconds too long, was too complex a figure to place in the hands of just any actor. So, despite looking like a cross between Marty Feldman and Mike Reno from the band Loverboy, Wintergate cast himself in the demanding role. He must have also worried that the role of the alcoholic gardener would prove too nuanced as well, so he donned a leather jacket and a mothy wig and grunt/mumbled a spellbinding performance.

It's all laughter and topless splash fights in the pool until strange telekinetic horrors begin visiting the fun-loving girls. Bloody hallucinations in the shower, refrigerators that spew yogurt at your face, bars of soap that spin with unearthly fury, and flying eggs are just the beginning of the nightmare. Things get worse for the girls (and the audience) when we begin seeing an amorphous evil blob with 8-bit computer sounds right before something gory is about to happen.

Things come to a head when the girls throw a pool party/orgy and host an impromptu concert for the band 33 and a Third (Apparently a real band featuring Wintergate's wife, Kalassu). The fuzzy blob gets busy and has girls gouging out their own eyes and veteran cops turning their weapons on themselves. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will say that Jim spends a few minutes screaming, "No Debbie! No!"

With it's total lack of production value, it's flimsy plotting and dialog, and it's profoundly bad editing, BOARDINGHOUSE is pretty thin soup, even for fans of laughable crap. Maybe the ample supply of buxom 80's boobies is enough for some fans to give it a look. The film is available on DVD from Code Red and would probably be a much more satisfying experience for fans of nudity than the third generation VHS transfer that I watched. But in truth, no format is going to make this shot-on-video disaster look good.

- Kent "Woodshed" Shelton

Sticky Fingers (1988)

Directed by Catlin Adams
Staring Helen Slater, Melanie Mayron, Eileen Brennan, Carol Kane
Rated PG-13
USA 

"Do you have any donuts?"
"Tofu donuts."

Written, produced and directed by women - a rarity even now, never mind the 80's - Sticky Fingers is a quirky girl-buddy comedy/crime caper set in New York, filled with eccentric characters and shot with manic, screwball verve. Hattie (Helen Slater) and Lolly (Melanie Mayron) are a couple of down-on-their-luck classical music buskers with big piles of 80's hair that live in a run-down apartment building run by cranky landlady Stella (Eileen Brennan) and her sister, lady-super Kitty (Carol Kane). One fateful afternoon they get a visit from their weed dealer, Diane (Loretta Devine), who stashes a bag full of cash in their closet. When they discover it, they freak out and try to return it. Unfortunately, they can't find her. Also unfortunately, Stella just slapped them with an eviction notice. So they dip into the cash. And then they get robbed. The dirty robbers steal their instruments, but not the money. So they dip into the cash again, and buy a new cello and violin for $90,000. Since they're on a roll, they decide to pick up some other essentials, too: high end stereo and TV equipment, expensive  perfume, and designer clothes. They quickly burn through $200,000 before Diane calls, telling the girls she'll be home by the weekend and she'll pick up her bag when she gets there.

Well, only one thing to do: go to Chinatown and try and gamble the money back. Amazingly enough, they win all their money back. Not so amazingly, they get robbed five minutes later. Luckily for them, Diane gets arrested. Not so luckily, they lose the rest of the money when Lottie leaves it on the hood of a cab. That's around the time the gangsters show up to retrieve their dough. And when the cops show up to retrieve the gangsters. Things get pretty nuts from there.

Sticky Fingers boasts lots of fun cringe-com moments, great chemistry between the leads, a sweet romantic sub-sub plot for Carol Kane (adorkable as always - she's the proto-Zooey!), and frequently jaw-dropping fashions. Sadly forgotten and relegated to a patchy VHS release in the late 80's, the film is nonetheless a quirky delight. Fans of similar urban 80's romps like Desperately Seeking Susan, Something Wild and After Hours, should seek it out. Hint: try Netflix.


- Ken McIntyre 

House on Sorority Row (1983)

Directed by Mark Rosman
Starring Kate McNeil, Eileen Davidson, Harley Jane Kozak, Jodie Draigie
Rated R
USA

"I'm a sea pig!" 

The 80's didn't really start until 1984. I think Billy Idol really invented the 80's. Before that, it was still the 70's, as evidenced by the clothes and the woeful Cars rip-off band prominently featured in 1983's (relatively) bloodless slasher, House on Sorority Row. The nonsensical premise is, at least, uncomplicated: sorority girls accidentally kill their wicked house mother, then dump her in the pool so they can throw an end-of-semester blow-out party. Things go awry when her body keeps popping up in different spots around the house, and the girls involved in the accidental murder/purposeful cover-up start showing up dead, slashed, seemingly, by the deceased house mother's own metal-tipped cane.

And that's pretty much all there is to it. Of course, there's no reason to just dump the old bitch. It was an accident, a prank-gone-bad, and a call to the local yokel cops would have cleared it all up in an afternoon. Some folks (like Stacey, my wife) could not get past this leap in logic, but hey, who knows what we'd do in similar circumstances? Pools are very convenient places to dump stuff, after all.

Katie (Kate McNeil, one of the several young actresses here who managed to bridge the gap between b-queen and soap star pretty effortlessly) is the token "Final Girl". She's the only one who thinks they ought to call a cop. Sadly, she caves into peer pressure and goes along with the cover-up instead. That's not very plucky. Also, she doesn't have a gender-neutral name. She's pretty much the worst Final Girl ever. At least she wears unflattering work clothes to a drunken blow-out and spurns the advances of her dorky date.

Vicky (future soap star #2, Eileen Davidson) is the ring leader. She's the one that causes the accident in the first place and spends the rest of the movie barking orders to the rest of the girls. Kind of a one-note performance, but effective enough. Also, excellent eyebrows.

Diane (Harley Jane Kozak, soap star #3, third from the left above) is...well, another one of the girls. There's not a lot of characterization at work here. I thought she looked a lot like Marcia Stassman, AKA Mrs. Kotter on Welcome Back Kotter.

Interestingly, Stacey thought Kate was a deadringer from Mrs. Kotter. We were probably just wishing we were watching Welcome Back Kotter instead. Anyway, Harley-Jane is in it, too.

So is Jodi Draigie, who steals the show as the dim-witted blonde-bombshell Morgan. First of all, she has a tremendous look. Her facial features look like somebody was trying to construct the perfect, Dorothy Stratten-esque 80's platinum-blonde glamour queen, but gave up halfway through. For most of the film, she's wearing a crazy "sexy" dress that Melanie Griffith or somebody would have worn to the Oscars in 1982, but no college girl would ever wear, especially to a beer-bash. At one point, after getting smacked in the noggin by the attic stairs, she decides the best course of action (this is is during a raging house party, mind you) is to slip into some flimsy lingerie and take a nap. As a character, she's a completely blank slate (I think she's supposed to be the stupid one?), which is perfect, because Draigie's clearly a non-actor. She only has about three lines, but every one is spat out with an energetic awkwardness that suggests Draigie knew she was over her head, but what the fuck, she's there already, might as well make the most of it.. Draigie/Morgan is the best part of the movie. Too bad she's only in it for about five minutes total.

Oh, can't forget the band, 4 Out of 5 Doctors. Virginia power-poppers with mullets. If you're young and thinking that maybe this band just seems spectacularly lame because they're from the early 80's, I am here to tell you that, even for the early 80's, 4 out of 5 Doctors are off-the-charts, kill-the-hostages, woefully LAME.

Oh, and the killer? Well, at the beginning of the movie, there's a prologue  that takes place 20 years prior. In it, the house mother is extremely pregnant and being cared for by a kooky, sinister "doctor". Clearly, something terrible and gooey is about to happen and there's some yapping about an experiment gone wrong. Very soon after, Katie ends up in the attic of the sorority house, where the house mother has been keeping some unseen kid all these years. This might seem like a spoiler, but it's not, really, because there aren't any other suspects. Not one. No red herrings in sight. So, you know, who else could it possibly be?

In summation: There's a good head-in-the-toilet gag, a flash or two of nubile 80's nudity, and gratuitous Jodi Draigie. Otherwise, House of Sorority Row is mostly tedious, with no mystery, gore, or surprises to recommend it. I actually liked the 2009 PG-rated remake better. And that had nepotism's number one poster girl/block-o-wood Rumer Willis in it, for crying out loud. When Rumer trumps the 80's, you know things are bad.

- Ken McIntyre