I haven't seen Blood Beach since I was a kid- or at the very least, a teenager. I feel like I must have rented it back in the VHS days, as I distinctly remembered the eye-catching cover, and the Jaws-biting tag-line: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water- you can't get to it!" (See the poster below.)
About the only other thing I remembered was that it had perennial cop-playing actor John Saxon in it and Burt Young, from the Rocky movies. Well, that and it was a sort of proto-Tremors, only instead of a creature lurking underneath the desert, this one was prowling the beaches of California. But how would it hold up now that I was an adult?
However, it is a lot of fun, and while relatively gore-free (though dog lovers- and would-be rapists- might want to watch themselves), it's still an amusing enough time-waster that's way better than it probably should be, or even needed to be.
The plot is simplicity itself: a beach in Santa Monica finds itself under siege by a mysterious creature that sucks its prey right off the beach, dragging it underground and back to its lair to feed upon. Can the local law enforcement stop it before it completely ruins tourist season? That's about it. What more do you need, really?
Post-Jaws, everybody and their mother were scrambling to come up with the latest underwater beastie to grab a hold of unsuspecting swimmers- and viewers. Blood Beach cleverly decided to think outside the box- or rather, the ocean- setting all of its action outside the water, attempting to do for sand what Jaws did for the sea.
While I don't necessarily recall being afraid of either one because of a movie, Blood Beach is nonetheless an entertaining little horror flick that essentially delivers the goods, even if it is a bit land-locked, by which I mean, a bit hemmed in by the nature of its premise.
David Huffman (Ice Castles, Firefox) plays a harbor patrol officer named Harry Caulder, who gets a shock of a lifetime when, out for his daily morning swim, he overhears his neighbor Ruth screaming for her life. Ruth is played by Harriet Medin, of Death Race 2000, as well as a slew of Italian horror movies, notably Blood and Black Lace and Black Sabbath.
When he makes his way back to shore, Ruth is nowhere to be found, leaving behind only an endlessly barking dog, clawing at the sand where she was last. An investigation begins, but doesn't take off in earnest until more people start to disappear under mysterious circumstances.
Eyewitnesses report people being drug under the sand, with one girl making it out alive, thanks to the quick actions of her friends. She claims that someone- or something- tried to drag her underneath the beach. More such attacks occur, with alarming regularity, as the locals demand justice.
John Saxon plays the police captain assigned to the case, Pearson. Horror fans should know Saxon right away, for his myriad appearances in everything from the legendary Mario Bava's Evil Eye to the sci-fi horror hybrid Blood Beast from Outer Space to most everyone's favorite Xmas slasher, Black Christmas.
He's also in the notorious Cannibal Apocalypse, the buzzkill-inducing The Bees, and Dario Argento's Tenebre, among many other genre flicks. But perhaps his most famous role is as Nancy's father in the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street series. Well, that or his turn in the Bruce Lee action-fest Enter the Dragon, depending on what you're into.
Saxon is a hoot-and-a-half in this flick, given to amusingly overwrought speeches and verbose put-downs, including one to the Mayor that would send Donald Trump running for his dictionary to figure out whether it was an insult or not. I kid. Like Trump has a dictionary!
The Mayor here is played by respected comedic actress Mary Jo Catlett, best-known for her turns in several Burt Reynolds flicks, including Semi-Tough, as well as being the voice of Mrs. Puff on Spongebob Squarepants.
She was all over TV in the 70's and 80's (notably in Different Strokes) before slowing things down a bit in the 90's, only to have a resurgence in the 2000's, particularly on family-friendly programming as a voice-over actor.
Helping out, or should I say, "helping" out, is Sgt. Royko, played by the irascible Burt Young, who can't stop comparing his current job to the good old days when he worked in Chicago- when he isn't funneling some food in his mouth, that is.
He's also quick with a wisecrack, particularly of the "gallows humor" variety, such as his colorful commentary about the dog's death, which probably won't win him any fans amongst the animal lovers out there. But then again, neither will Pearson's rabble-rousing, epic put-down of the ASPCA.
Rounding out the police force is Lt. Piantadosi, played by Otis Young, of The Last Detail, The Capture of Bigfoot and The Clones semi-fame. Young has an easy-going coolness to him that makes you wonder why he wasn't a bigger star. Or at least why he didn't land a host of Blaxploitation-era credits. (Save maybe Murder in Mississippi and an episode of TV's Get Christie Love, that is.)
There's also Caulder's right-hand man, Hoagy, played by Darrell Fetty, primarily a TV-based actor, who also appeared in the interesting Stunts and Endangered Species. Caulder went onto to become a respected producer, notably on the TV miniseries Texas Rising and Hatfields & McCoys.
Hoagy moonlights as a singer in a bar band with his girlfriend, who, in arguably the film's best scene, dubiously goes to investigate a strange noise under a pier, thinking it's a wounded animal, when she's attacked and nearly raped by some random guy.
Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, in the most impressive instance of instant karma rape-and-revenge ever committed to celluloid, when the guy crawls after her when she kicks him in the you-know-where, his still-exposed junk is ripped off and presumably eaten by the monster! You gotta love it. #TimesUp
Alas, Hoagy, much like his name, ends up creature food later on, going down on the beach, as the weird old bag lady type (Elanor Zee, who went on to play a judge in Breakin'!) watches, without lifting a finger to help. She does a lot of that throughout the movie, leaving one to wonder if she and the creature have some, I don't know, blood pact, shall we say, in which she is spared if she leads people to their doom.
Faring no better is Caulder's girlfriend Marie, played by Lena Pousette, who was in no less than Xanadu the same year. She went on to appear in the Steve Martin vehicle The Lonely Guy before settling into a host of TV guest appearances throughout the 80's. Marie bites it when a wayward wind launches her hat onto the beach and she goes to fetch it, never to return.
On the plus side, this clears the way for Caulder to reunite with his ex, Catherine, who comes into town after her mother goes missing in the opening scene. Cat is played by Marianne Hill, another TV regular best-known for turns on Batman as "Cleo Patrick" (see what they did there?) and Star Trek as one of Kirk's many love interests.
However, my regular readers might remember her better for her turn in the nutty Messiah of Evil, as well as roles in the cult flicks Black Zoo and The Baby, the political thriller Medium Cool, the slasher flick Schzoid and her most prominent role, as Deana Corleone in The Godfather II. Blood Beach would prove to be her final leading role, before largely retiring, though she would later resurface in 2016's Chief Zabu.
Catherine fares better than Marie, but she does get the requisite "stumbling across the corpses of all the missing people" scene towards the end, a la Jamie Lee Curtis in the original Halloween, one of which is the severed head of her mother!
As with films like Jaws and Alien, we don't get to see much of the creature throughout the film, though we get an extensive- perhaps TOO extensive- look at it in the final scenes of the movie, just before Burt Young's character blows it to smithereens. It looks a bit like an overgrown Venus Fly Trap, TBH. Or a mutant satellite dish.
This might have actually been a case where less is more, as I watched the uncut version of the film, so it's hard to say what was present in the original version I saw as a kid and this one, which was slightly gorier than I remember, notably in the rape/revenge scene. It's possible they might have added slightly more footage of the beastie for the release.
Sadly, the film has never been given a proper Blu-Ray release, or even a DVD one, at least in the US. Part of this is due to the rights being tangled up in various capacities. It was once owned and put out by the notorious Jerry Gross, before making the jump to VHS via Media Home Entertainment.
I'm not sure who owns the rights now, but word on the street is that Code Red is looking to get a hold of the title and release it with all the expected bells-and-whistles. I'll grant you calling Blood Beach a cult classic might be a stretch, but they've put out elaborate DVD/Blu-Ray versions of more than a few dubiously selected films, and, at the very least, this is a cut above the norm, even if the cinematography is a bit on the murky side- and I don't think it was just the print I watched.
Be that as it may, it's got a solid group of scenery-chewing (and occasionally burger-chewing and cigar-chomping: looking at you, Burt Young!) actors, an amusingly-written script, courtesy of writer/director Jeffrey Bloom (who went onto adapt the even more florid Flowers in the Attic movie), and a fun little concept.
Granted, it can get a little poky, pacing-wise, at least by today's standards, but overall, it keeps things moving with a steady stream of victims, even if it's relatively gore-free, even in its uncut form. (You can watch that print here, on YouTube.) Still, it's got some memorable moments, and it is a lot of fun when it's in the zone, which is more often than not.
Saxon and Young are worth their weight in character actor gold, and Huffman and Hill make for a decently charismatic couple- and they don't attempt to sing, at least, which is more than I can say for Hoagy and his lady. Yikes!
Factor in the wacky vagrant spouting nonsense, plus a wily scientist in the mold of Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws (Stefan Gierasch, who previously co-starred with Hill in Clint Eastwood's classic Western High Plains Drifter, as well as plenty of other genre efforts, such as Carrie and the 90's revival of Dark Shadows), who warns of the danger of blowing up the creature- which proves to be on the money, as the epilogue seems to promise a host of new beasties on the prowl to come- and you've got a fun little movie, silly though it may be.
While I hate that there isn't a better copy of this out there, maybe renewed interest in releasing obscure flicks will help rectify that. Until then, check it out online, and thank me later. You might just think twice the next time you set foot on that beach this summer... 😎👾💀
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