The raunchy teen sex comedy set on a beach is one of my favorite things in the world. I even like the bad ones. The camera leers at an endless parade of pretty girls in bikinis, the acting is less-than-polished and the scripts are brain-dead to the max–and the whole affair is 100% unapologetic about all of that. The audience for these movies are kids and creepy old men. Back when I was a kid, I used to try to watch this stuff on cable TV late at night and hope that my mom didn’t catch me. Now, as a creepy old man, I watch these films with impunity. I can rot my brain as much as I want. No one’s paying attention to what I’m doing. No one cares about what I’m doing. I’m irrelevant and it feels fine to me.
Let’s celebrate with some 70s and 80s naked girl beach movies, I say. It’s a summer tradition around here.
And if you’re somehow only going to watch ONE of these films, you may as well go with the craziest of the batch.
You may as well go with the movie that brings it all, from the breasts to the gross-out gags to the elementary school-level jokes. You may as well go with the one that has the most Oingo Boingo songs on the soundtrack. You may as well go with one that has teenage mutant zombies in it. You may as well go with the one that both started and ended its director’s career. You may as well go with the one that has both Linda Kerridge and Corinne Bohrer in it. You may as well go with the movie so nuts that it gives the lead role to Eddie Deezen.
You may as well go with Surf II.
The first joke is the title. There is no original Surf except for the one that lives in all of our hearts. In fact, I like the idea of just considering Surf II to be the weird sequel to ANY beach comedy. Take your pick.
What passes for a plot: Eddie Deezen (at his most Eddie Deezen-y) is a mad scientist who hates surfers because some of them used to pick on him when he was a kid. This means revenge. It also means a plot to sell them cola drinks (Buzzz Cola) that he’s chemically screwed with so that anyone who takes even a single sip instantly turns into a mindless zombie. What a dastardly deed! Will the community rally behind the high school science teacher who figures it out and wants to stop him?
The suspense must be killing you.
Meanwhile, writer/director Randall M. Badat knows that we’re all here for the jokes and the girls and the gratuitous nudity so most of the movie bounces between gags and checks in on the plot just every once in awhile. Just when we’ve had enough of Eric Stoltz as a goofball cut-up, Badat is there with a strong Deezen injection