This Coleslaw Archives: The Beach Girls (1982)

The following review is from Tucker's old blog This Coleslaw Makes Me Sick. In an attempt to simplify their web presence, Tucker, Jeff and other contributor's writings will be periodically transferred to the If We Made It Podcast blog. Of course the old blog still exists, but Tucker never looks at it and neither does anyone else.

Movie Review: The Beach Girls (1982)

By Tucker Battrell

Perhaps it was my early exposure to the late Bob Clark's classic Porky'sthanks to a rebellious teenage babysitter, or maybe it's just nostalgia for the era in which I grew up, but whatever the reason the fact remains that I am hopelessly infatuated with trash from the eighties. Now, I love trash of any and all decades, but there is something special about Reagan-era garbage, especially when it comes to that staple of late-night HBO programming: The Sex Comedy. The Beach Girls is an overlooked (perhaps rightly so) film that doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is.
The film gets off to a great start with a slow-motion credit sequence featuring girls running, jumping, playing Frisbee, and just generally flopping about on the beach. After this glorious opening we meet Sarah who is on her way to her Uncle Carl's beach house for the summer. And we're soon making the acquaintance of Sarah's friends Ginger and Duckiewho are meeting her there for what's sure to be the greatest summer ever. What ensues upon their arrival is simply a party; a party populated by horny guys and topless girls. Now, that's story enough for several movies, but The Beach Girls is not skimping on the extras. We've got the girls finding six trash bags of pot on the beach dumped by drug dealers with eye patches they don't need evading a boat filled with nearly retarded Coast guardsmen. If that wasn't drama enough, Uncle Carl comes home and wants Ginger and Duckie to leave, so they must "convince" him to let them stay. All this and a racist fight scene between the Mexican gardener and an Asian chauffeur make for ninety-some minutes of good, wholesome family fun.
This movie is light, superfluous and is trying to say absolutely nothing. Well, maybe it's pro-breast, pro-pot and anti-Coast Guard, but that's as deep as it gets, and I for one say bully! It's good to see something sounselfconscious and not politically correct in any way, shape or form, yet not malicious in the least. This is the remedy to Paul Haggis. It seems when I was growing up the adults were always talking about "simpler times", but from an entertainment standpoint it didn't get any simpler than this. There's boobs, bad jokes, boobs, a silly campfire song used in this film and in director Bud Townsend's other film Coach, and lots of boobs. This movie delivers on the boobs. There's even some brief full frontal. In short, this is a movie with nudity in it.

Grade: F
Entertainment Value: B

See this review in its natural habitat: Beach Girls