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For me, what mainly constitutes a “bad” film is intention. Some cynically contrived mega blockbuster without a spark of creativity will sit with me far worse than 12 people with a camera and a story, no matter how insane (or inane) that story may be. For example, The Horror of Party Beach (1964) is both, and so much more; it’s an energetic monster romp filled with killer music, bikini dancing, gougin’ gore, and boppin’ bikers. And while the kitchen sink is sadly not included, Severin Films’ new Blu has plenty of groovy extras to lure unsuspecting bathers down to the sunny shores of *checks notes* Connecticut. It’s a gas and a half, you dig?

Okay, so it’s overcast the entire 78 minute runtime, but that’s part of its charm; low budget needs ingenious marketing, and director Del Tenney (I Eat Your Skin) decided to ride the rising tide of...

Favorite camp hilarity — a drive-in kick when new, Del Tenney’s gloppy monsters ‘n’ bikinis epic has persevered as a nutty exemplar of ‘sixties escapist fun. Mutated aquatic zombies with goo-goo-googly eyes ravage teen girls for their blood — in between sets by the swingin’ Del-Aires. And don’t forget the soulful housemaid, Eulabelle!

The Horror of Party Beach

Blu-ray

Severin Films

1963 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 78 min. / Street Date August 28, 2018 / 29.98

Starring: John Scott, Alice Lyon, Allen Laurel, Eulabelle Moore, Marilyn Clark, Augustin Mayer.

Cinematography: Richard Hilliard

Film Editors: Leonard De Munde, Richard L. Hilliard, David Simpson

Original Music: The Del Aires: Bob Osborne, John Becker, Gary Robert Jones, Ronnie Linares

Written by Richard L. Hilliard

Produced by Alan V. Iselin

Directed by Del Tenney

1964 was the breakout year for teen monster fandom, when Forrest J. Ackerman and his monster fad was featured in major magazines. It was also the big year for A.

Severin Films Presents The Horror Of Party Beach – The Original Horror-Monster Musical Uncut on Blu-ray For the First Time Ever! In 1964, 20th Century Fox released an independent shocker – shot in two weeks for $50,000 outside Stamford, Connecticut by local producer/director Del Tenney – advertised as “The First Horror-Monster Musical.” More than 50 …

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"The Original Horror-Monster Musical Uncut On Blu-Ray For The First Time Ever!" Severin Films will bring The Horror of Party Beach to Blu-ray on August 28th and, like usual, their release comes packed with special features and some fun extras:

"On August 28th, Severin Films invites you to the bloodiest beach bash of the year. The Horror Of Party Beach is ready to rock viewer’s eyeballs in sparkling HD, leaving no grain of sand unstained by the gory aftermath of it’s shock-and-roll shenanigans!

In 1964, 20th Century Fox released an independent shocker – shot in two weeks for $50,000 outside Stamford, Connecticut by local producer/director Del Tenney – advertised as ‘The First Horror-Monster Musical’. More than 50 years later, this “absolute classic of exploitation cinema” (Legends Magazine) returns like you’ve never seen or heard it before: When nuclear waste dumped into the ocean mutates a shipwreck full of corpses, it will...

Here’s another installment featuring Joe Dante’s reviews from his stint as a critic for Film Bulletin circa 1969-1974. Our thanks to Video Watchdog and Tim Lucas for his editorial embellishments!

Zombies menace islanders in dull, inept black-and-white mini-budgeter. Properly duelled, it will get by in lower class ballyhoo markets and drive-ins. Rating: Gp.

It’s hard to tell the zombies without a scorecard in I Eat Your Skin, a black-and-white voodoo horror cheapie out of the bottom of the formula programmer barrel. Between endless bouts of tribal dancing, some crusty-looking native monsters stalk around the Florida locations looking believably dead, but the humans in the cast are so wooden there’s not much contrast. None of the gore promised in the title ever materializes, and no skin gets eaten, either. Where doubled with I Drink Your Blood, this vapid Cinemation Industries release should perform satisfactorily in lower class...

Jim Knipfel Oct 10, 2019

Stop calling Ed Wood "The Worst Director in History." His films have a unique energy and charm that should be appreciated.

Ed Wood is an easy target, a no-brainer cultural reference for people who’ve likely seen, at most, one or two of his films. Beginning with the 1980 publication of Michael Medved’s The Golden Turkey Awards, Wood was unquestionably and for time immemorial declared "The Worst Director of All Time," and his 1959 picture Plan 9 From Outer Space the Worst Film Ever Made. People have been parroting the party line ever since.

Everybody says it, so it must be true. There’s no reason to even bother with watching the films anymore so long as we’ve been given the answer. You could stick Wood’s name on the credits for, say, Touch of Evil or Rashomon and people would still laugh at the films, because they...

Jim Knipfel Oct 10, 2018

Stop calling Ed Wood "The Worst Director in History." His films have a unique energy and charm that should be appreciated.

This article first ran in 2013, but it's Ed Wood's birthday, so we need to pay tribute to him again.

Ed Wood is an easy target, a no-brainer cultural reference for people who’ve likely seen, at most, one or two of his films. Beginning with the 1980 publication of that asshole Michael Medved’s The Golden Turkey Awards, Wood was unquestionably and for time immemorial declared The Worst Director of All Time, and his 1959 picture Plan 9 From Outer Space the Worst Film Ever Made. People have been parroting the party line ever since.

Everybody says it, so it must be true. There’s no reason to even bother with watching the films anymore so long as we’ve been given the answer. You could stick Wood’s name on the credits for,...

“I'm very comfortable with the nature of life and death, and that we come to an end. What's most difficult to imagine is that those dreams and early yearnings and desires of childhood and adolescence will also disappear. But who knows? Maybe you become part of the eternal whatever.”

—Hugh Hefner

There are films that bear in their frames the traces of an epoch, evoking the mythical dimension of collective memories, of mass-consumed rituals. Since its social origins as a marketable target group, adolescence, from the early 50s onwards, has been a repository for branded adventures, fabled romances and (un)forgettable first-times. Thanks to the hypnotic wealth a fattened middle class started to enjoy in the aftermath of a very profitable Second World War, for the first time in human history, a considerable slice of American youth had substantial spending power at its disposal. Family life and a steady, respectable...

We’re leaping into the Wayback Machine for this week’s B-Sides, way back to the surf rock days of 1964 when the beach party and horror genre collided head on in a creature feature called The Horror of Party Beach and a groovy garage band called The Del-Aires wanted us all to do the “Zombie Stomp”.

Nobody will ever confuse Del Tenney’s The Horror of Party Beach for a good movie but it is certainly one of your quintessential so-bad-it’s-good movies.

As swinging teens beach party up a storm and face the pickle-mouthed terror of zombie gillmen spawned from toxic waste, a happening New Jersey surf band named The Del-Aires serenade them with a half dozen rockin’ ditties, the most famous of which, and arguably the film’s catchiest number, being a kitschy tune called “Zombie Stomp”.

Perfect for those of you heading out to the beach on...

On Fangoria, Willaim Katt (Greatest American Hero) stated this about his upcoming directorial stab at the remake of 1964′s The Horror of Party Beach (aka Invasion of the Zombies): “One of the things we’re doing here to pay homage to the original is, these kids are throwing a ’60s-themed party on the beach, and everybody is dressed in that style. They’re modern kids who are fans of that era, and having fun with it, but they’re getting killed at the same time.”

The original was directed by Del Tenney, who wanted to spoof the beach film craze of the late 1950s. The film was wildly forgotten until it gained a cult status from being ripped apart by Mystery Science Theater 3000. Here’s the goofball plot of the 1964 original: “[from Wiki] A small U.S. East Coast beach town experiences a wave of attacks from water plants and...

What's that shambling over the curb toward the local theater? No, behind the vampires. Could it be a stampede of the undead about to take over Hollywood?

AMC's new drama series "The Walking Dead" debuts on Halloween, and more than a half-dozen zombie-related feature projects are on their way to theaters -- including Friday's "Resident Evil: Afterlife" -- or in development at the studios. With this many flesh-rotting grave-jumpers on tap, could zombies be making a run -- or, perhaps, a very slow, clumsy walk -- at the pop culture crown?

"Zombie movies, much like zombies, could become this horde that just marches across the world," said Rhett Reese, who co-wrote last year's breakout hit "Zombieland" with Paul Wernick.

The movie, TV and publishing industries have been feasting on vampires for material the past few years. But like every profitable trend, the obsession with bloodsuckers must eventually head back into...

A cult classic that I haven’t seen, and was only just reminded of after I read the obituary of its filmmaker, David E. Durston, who recently passed away (on May 6). The film was released in 1971, becoming a staple of drive-ins, and was the first film ever to be rated X by the MPAA based on violence alone.

Synopsis: A group of satanist hippies descend on a town and terrorize the locals. They rape a local girl and her grandfather goes after them. He fails. To get back at the satanist hippies, his grandson feeds them meat pies he infected with blood from a rabid dog; but the plan backfires, and instead turns them into zombies, who then begin killing and/or infecting everything in their path!

The film is on DVD – a director’s cut. I’m sure some of you have seen it. It’s said to have...