By Dan Kinem
Beach comedy sex romps are a staple of VHShitfest and the format in general (see our review of The Beach Girls). We normally purchase any obscure ones we come across, because we know that, at the very least, it’ll be packed with gratuitous nudity and cheesy slapstick humor. What we were never expecting to find in a million years was a crossover film with one of our other favorite subgenres, the, as far as I know, untitled “80s-computers-are-new-and-hip/nerd-gets-the-girl” comedy! Yes, that movie is Computer Beach Party! This self-proclaimed “user friendly comedy” forced me to use every ounce of self-control I have in my body just to keep from taking a bat to the VCR.
You may be asking yourself, “How in the hell did they manage to combine the beach, a party, and huge 80s computers into one movie?” I have literally no clue. The opening credits should have been an indication on what’s to come. The credits are hilariously blurry, small, and unreadable with loud horrid 80s hair metal blaring in the background (which we later found out is by the “band” Panther who recorded the entire soundtrack). You then meet the main characters, Andy, the nerd, and some other guy. These are the least charismatic actors I’ve ever witnessed. Half the time Andy mumbles his lines inaudibly while remaining completely wall-like in his expression. He’s clearly brain-dead. At the start they are riding in their beach buggies (or as Tim calls them, sand riders!) and end up playing chicken with a jeep, also driving on the beach. It’s a confrontation that reveals the main dilemma and Andy’s soon to be love interest. Oh no, the mayor is thinking of turning the beach into a tourist attraction?! Who gives a fuck? Go to a different beach you beach bro tools.
Side note: We developed a backstory for Andy in which he is actually a middle-aged man (he certainly looks it) having his mid-life crisis trying to relive his teenage surfer years by hanging out with a bunch of beach bums. It didn’t quite pan out the way we wanted.
Andy and his crew have to decide what to do about this. “They can’t take our beach!” While deciding what to do, the girl, Allison, appears again and after one single conversation Andy is in love. “I think I like her, in fact, I think I love her.” No you nerd, you don’t love her, that’s just the first girl you’ve ever spoken to in your worthless life. Completely unrelated to the actual story is a boneheaded bumbling cop hired by the mayor to make sure nothing is going on on the beach. Every so-often they cut away to him not being able to catch couples (and once even his cousin, Bettylou) having sex and spouting some gibberish meant to be funny. Pointless and annoying to say the least.
Fast forward to reveal that Allison is connected to the mayor and might be able to help them stop this. Fast forward even further and they decide to throw a beach party. Andy uses his handy-dandy computer to invite 40 girls (20 for him and 20 for his crony) and 10 guys. Get it? Computer beach party! They also decide to “get the Panther” to play. Guess who shows up? A bunch of middle-aged rockin’ dudes who are bad enough for me to refer to them as a third-rate Dokken. The Ozzy-looking vocalist doesn’t manage to get his mouth movements synced up with the audio even a single time. It’s atrocious and painful. The fact that nearly 20 Panther songs fill the soundtrack wall-to-wall should be an indication on the amount of pain you’d have to endure just to sit through this with your eyes closed.
Somewhere in there insert all of the following events (in no particular order):
1. A 20+ minute scene where the movie completely stops and the main characters go square dancing or some bullshit. It is so boring I could die. Tim immediately fell asleep and I was on the verge of tears.
2. A scene where the two main characters bust into a trumpet and banjo song standing next to a pool full of half-naked girls.
3. An unexplained keyboard built into the glove compartment of a car that is able to control the car during a meaningless beach buggy race thing. I have no idea.
4. The classic doo-wop band, The Drifters, performing “Under the Boardwalk” out of fucking nowhere.
At one point a major story element should be happening, but what appears on the screen is this:
(Treasure? What the fuck even happened in this movie?)
My favorite part of the whole movie has to be when Allison and Andy finally kiss. He immediately starts typing on his computer and a bunch of shitty-looking hearts appear. Oh, what can’t computers do? The ending is the most abrupt nonsensical garbage I’ve ever seen. I was going to get up to rewind it to see what the hell even happened, but the terribleness of the whole ordeal put me into a stunned and frozen statue-like position.
One of the worst movies I’ve ever watched in my life. I didn’t even mention how poorly dubbed it is. The second a character is on the screen he is making random noises in some form or another. It sounds like they let Mr. Dink from Doug record a commentary track for the majority of the film. It literally makes no sense, has no point, isn’t funny in the slightest, has one of the worst soundtracks ever recorded, made me vomit on three separate occasions, and manages to butcher two of my favorite subgenres. But do I recommend it? You better fucking believe I do. For all the reasons I said made it unwatchable. It’s an obscure relic that you can impress your friends with by referencing. You obviously want to be able to drop some science on people with a quote like, “As if I were to stick my floppy disc into your terminal and we were to interface.” Can you imagine busting that one out on a female, giggling uncontrollably, and then saying it’s from the 80s sex romp, Computer Beach Party? You would be king. So go track this one down.
^Make sure to watch the video above that we filmed. One of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen.
I want to note how insanely rare this seems to be. Someone is literally selling it for over $100 on Ebay. The fact that I could possibly make a hundred dollars if I’d just sell this movie is going to drive me crazy at night, but I’m going to remain strong and hang on to it to show how much I truly love shitty cinema.
