Lousy horror movie about a sea monster attacking and killing 20-somethings at a beach in California. Most of the adults hate the kids because they dance to bad music and go surfing. You also see a killing within the first few minutes. A guy in a stupid suit covered with seaweed, a fish head and claws kills a girl. He just strangles her and casually walks away! The suit is stupid looking and most likely will have viewers laughing! The acting is lousy, the dramatics terrible and the killings just involve the victims being dead with some blood on their face or necks. Some of the kids are good-looking and have nice bodies but that's about it. Skip it.

The title tells you what to expect, just not how to expect it.Made in 1965, one expects the upside to be the characters, camaraderie, maturity of emotions, and logical directing. One would expect the downside to be a poorly explained monster with poorly explained motivation.Later monster movies would have little upside, and keep the same downside.What we get here is little downside. The only downside is the way the movie tries to make a few characters seem like the only ones in what appears to be a fairly metropolitan area. We get a sheriff and a few lawmen, for instance, which looks very "small town" in scope, but at times they seem to be in a larger area. The disparity here is the downside.The cheesy scenes on the beach work well, because they're directed well. This film is unjustly maligned by a certain rich brat breed of modern reviewers. By that, I mean the reviewers who simply decide ahead of time to malign a movie. You've probably taken a seat next to such people before. Before three lines are ever spoken, before three actions take place, these people have already panned the entire movie, and you know they decided to do it before the opening credits.This film flows very well, and has all the atmosphere it promises. This is a good monster film, with lots of surprises.

What "The Night of the Hunter" was for Charles Laughton--the sole directorial effort from a great film star--"The Beach Girls and the Monster" was for '40s matinée idol Jon Hall. But whereas Laughton's film is one of the eternal glories of the cinema, Hall's picture is...well, let's just say not nearly as glorious. In his film, Hall stars (at this point in his career, looking like Ernest Borgnine's older brother) as Dr. Otto Lindsay, an oceanographer whose troublesome son, rather than follow in his Pops' footsteps, prefers to go surfing with his pals and play his guitar at beach parties. This domestic friction is made even more problematic when a seaweed-draped, lumbering, rather ridiculous-looking monster starts to attack kids on the beach.... Anyway, Hall's film is silly in parts but not nearly as goofy as you might be expecting; certainly more serious than a Frankie & Annette movie! It has been well shot in B&W (although utilizes egregious rear projection for all driving sequences), showcases an annoyingly catchy theme song by Frank Sinatra, Jr., is decently acted, and features a twist ending of sorts that goes far in mitigating much of the silliness that has come before. Almost stealing the show is Sue Casey, playing Hall's trampy wife; my buddy Rob is quite right in pointing out that her sharp-tongued, shrewish vixen of a character would have been right at home in a '60s Russ Meyer flick. "Beach Girls," with a running time of only 66 minutes, still feels padded, with surfing stock footage, rock 'n' roll numbers accompanied by boogying bikini babes (played by the Watusi Dancing Girls from the Whiskey-A-Go-Go!), and assorted hijinks. Still, I can think of much less entertaining ways to spend an hour. As Michael Weldon succinctly puts it, in his spoiler review in "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film": "A cheap laugh riot with lots of bongos, murders, and girls in bikinis."

Beach Girls and the Monster, The (1965) * (out of 4) A bunch of teens just wanna dance to some good music and surf but a sea monster shows up to ruin their day. This is a rather infamous film that tries to mix with horror genre with any of the Beach Party movies but the film is a flat out disaster but I must admit that it kept me entertained throughout its 65-minute running time. If you can't stand bad movies then there's no need for you to see this one but if you believe that some bad movies can be entertaining then this here is a must see. The performances are all incredibly bad but this does lead to some nice laughs as does the really bad direction. The monster has a cute rubber face and I admit that I enjoyed the few scenes that it's in but the twist in the plot can easily be spotted. The film is best remembered today for its Frank Sinatra, Jr. soundtrack and it's actually pretty good even though it's third-rate Beach Boys stuff.