On some level, I like pretty much every 1970s and 80s teen sex comedy set on the beach. I think it’s because I never had wacky summers like this (who does, really?). When I was 16 and 17, I pretty much spent summer at home watching old movies. I didn’t skinny-dip. Didn’t share a joint with a pretty girl by the ocean. Didn’t get hassled by the police even once for being at a loud party. The nearest beach to me was about three hundred miles away.
In short, I had the kind of summers back then that no one would ever make a movie about.
But, hey, I can watch old teen exploitation flicks and I am now at the party. From a safe distance. And it’s all over in ninety minutes or so, which is about all that I can take.
I even kinda like these movies when they’re bad—and Malibu Beach is very, very bad. Ho-lee shit, does it suck. Every time I started to enjoy it, another letdown was just around the corner.
First, the good stuff. The girls are cute, especially Tara Strohmeier, who comes off like Jessica Harper’s naughty sister. She tools around in a car with a “Cure Virginity” bumper sticker and isn’t one to be pushed around.
And, uh, that’s about it.
The bad stuff are that, while this is a plotless “hangout” movie about teens who work to get laid and get high on the first day of summer vacation (and that’s fine), there’s hardly one character here that you want to hang out with. The ONLY memorable one is Dugan (Steve Oliver, who was pushing 40 at the time). He’s the speedo-sporting beach weight-lifter with a beer gut and who’s too old to have anything to do with this teen scene, but he’s there anyway. He hits on women and sometimes coaxes one to his budget bachelor pad where he inevitably strikes out.
So, yeah, no likable characters in a movie like this is a problem, but there is yet an even bigger problem.
This movie thinks that it’s cute. It’s not mean, it’s not clever and it’s mildly raunchy at best. Instead, they went for cuteness.
How do most of the girls in this film lose their tops? There’s a sweet little dog that runs around the beach and, for some reason, is collecting bikini tops pulled directly off of sunbathers. Awww, you might think while you’re not laughing.
Cute is a major comedy killer. Never think that you’re cute if you’re trying to be funny. The two elements don’t mix.
That said though, there were still moments where I enjoyed being at the party. I can’t help it. I blame society.
The first-time director is Robert J. Rosenthal, who was one of the writers on the 1976 drive-in classic The Pom Pom Girls, a much better, and equally lowbrow, teen raunch-a-thon with zero plot. He’d only helm one more film, the 1982 Scott Baio comedy Zapped! before his directing career got zapped.