Tuesday 26 May 2009

No. 140 : Welcome To Spring Break (1989)


Welcome to Spring Break at the IMDb

This film is also known as ‘Nightmare Beach’ but that’s a rubbish title seeing as hardly any of the action takes place at the beach and of course because it doesn’t start with a ‘W’.

The film is one of a raft of teen slasher films that were rushed out to cash in on the home video boom. It is terrible, and to be honest it’s hard to find many positives in the mess but let's have a look anyway. Someone may not have to suffer because I did.

We open with a pre-credits sequence of a man being executed by electric chair. A gang of bikers pays silent vigil outside and apart from a promise to seek revenge from beyond the grave things go to plan. After the credits we meet the motley cast. Skip and his buddy are in town to get over Skip’s disastrous performance in a football match. They drink at a bar tended by the sister of the girl that the executed biker murdered and run into the ‘Demons’ biker gang too.

We also meet the corrupt police chief played by the usually reliable but not here John Saxon and the mayor, who wants nothing to upset his lucrative spring break trade. Filling out the roster we get a party girl and her priest father who warns of doom for all sinners and a man who shouts ‘Go Gators’ in almost ever scene. The party is going well with wet t-shirt parties all the rage until a hitchhiker foolishly accepts a lift from a mysterious biker who has his own rock sound track. His bike is modified to electrocute any passengers to the extent that the girl ends up looking Kentucky fried.

Further murders follow including a hooker and a peeping tom before Skip’s pal gets set alight by the baddie after a kicking from the bikers. Amazingly the police chief and coroner agree to dump the body in a mine rather than suffer some bad publicity. Skip enlists the help of the bar girl and soon they are unravelling the web of conspiracy. With the body count rising so is our list of suspects - could the electrocuted biker be making good on his deathly promise or is it the police chief or the priest?

The best thing about this film is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously and rightly so. The guy playing Skip has to be the worst actor I’ve ever seen and it’s no surprise that this film killed his career stone dead. His eulogy over his dead, but salt covered, friend was indescribably bad with Saxon arriving just in time to save us all more misery.

The deaths come at a steady rate and some are quite imaginative although not too realistic - who’d of thought that a small electrical cable would have enough juice to cook your head and make your eye pop out? The budget is clearly miniscule with gaggles of real spring breakers roped in as extras and to take their tops off.

The ‘mystery’ killer was so obvious from the start I’m surprised that he bothered to wear a helmet. If you confess to not getting it straight away you should say your prayers and hope he gets collared soon. It was the priest. Although how he got away with those tight leathers and a big souped up and modified motorbike I can only imagine. Oh wait, a catholic priest - standard dress and behaviour then!

This is by no means the worst teen slasher flick you’ll ever see but it’s awful acting and non existent plot means that you’ll just have to make the best of the bikini girls and wet t-shirts, which is fine.

Best Bit : Peep show gets closed
‘W’ Rating : 11/23

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