Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare Beach is the movie I wish Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers had been: one that did away with all the annoying narcissists posing as characters. Also known by the uninspired, T&A-leering title of Welcome to Spring Break, Lenzi’s Beach depicts what would happen if, during that week of collegiate revelry and bacchanalia, a freshly charred Death Row inmate appeared to come back to life to get the ol’ from-the-grave revenge — and did so while clad in motorcycle gear. You may laugh, readers, but it could happen to you!
In scene one, greasy biker gang leader Diablo (Tony Bolano, Band of the Hand) is executed for the murdering a young woman, but vows from the electric chair that he was framed and he’ll return to make ’em all pay — you know, the usual garbage threats. Yet shortly thereafter, as beer-guzzling, sex-hungry breakers descend upon Fort Lauderdale, a helmeted mystery man in black rides into town. He’s kind of like Grease 2’s Cool Rider, but with a crotch rocket whose backseat is jerry-rigged to give his passengers an ass-frying, heart-stopping mass of high voltage.
A cop named Strycher (John Saxon, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) investigates, as does fallen football hero Skip (Nicolas De Toth, The Invisible Kid) when his walking STD of a best bud (Rawley Valverde, Made in America) vanishes while on the prowl for a quick birth-canal rental. Helping Skip out in the hunt — and his potential love life — is a bartender named Gail (Primal Rage’s Sarah Buxton, she of the bee-stung lips), who happens to be the sister of Diablo’s victim.
As the man behind the infamous Cannibal Ferox, Lenzi unsurprisingly shoots this film’s “shocking” death scenes with glee, almost as if he can’t wait to harm the worst of his story’s worst as quickly as we’d like to see them go. Bolstering my theory: The most obnoxious character of all takes a savage beating, courtesy of Diablo’s biker buddies … and then gets killed by the moto-villain. I’m also guessing Lenzi knew the movie’s big “mystery” was as solvable as a Highlights for Children puzzle page, because he attempts to distract with subplots that have nothing to do with anything, from multiple wet T-shirt contests and a serial pickpocket to Nightmare Beach’s idea of running joke: an enterprising young woman (Christina Kier, in her only role ever) separating old, fat guys from their cash by turning tricks in her hotel room. —Rod Lott