The Beast That Killed Women (1965)** (out of 4) The setting is a nudist camp in Miami where the members have a swell time spending their days walking around naked, swimming, square dancing and playing a variety of other sports. All of this happiness quickly turns to terror when a killer gorilla shows up and starts killing people.THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN is probably one of the better known releases from Something Weird Video because it qualifies as one of the worst movies ever made but also one of the most entertaining in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. While watching this movie the first thing that came into my mind was how much it must have sucked wanting to see nudity back in the day because you would have to submit yourself to these types of movies. The next thing that came into my mind is how thin the entire plot is but this was to be expected because the only real goal here was to show nude bodies and there's no question that we get a lot of that.Again, everything in this movie is pretty awful from the acting to the directing to the plot to the horrible score but in all honesty no one is watching this for "that" stuff. The movie contains non-stop nudity and it's often done is such childish ways that you can't help but laugh. Just check out the first real bits of nudity where the camera pretty much just stays in place while naked people walk in front of it. I guess you can say the director was an equal opportunist nudist because it's woman, man, woman and then man again. There are countless scenes of people just walking in front of the camera and the most hilarious moment comes when there's a towel on top of a wall for some reason and two women must jump in order to try and get it. Oh, then let's not forget that the women sleep on bunk beds and near the end when the gorilla is running loose this gives them a reason to get into the same bed.Speaking of the gorilla, the man-in-a-gorilla suit routine is never scary here and in fact it's going to get more laughs than anything else. I'm not sure what actor was inside the suit but I'm curious as to what drugs were in his system because this is one wild and crazy gorilla. The outfit is obviously fake and they never try to hide this. As you can tell, there are a lot of bad things with this film but at just 60-minutes the film moves rather good and there's no question that there are enough laughs here to keep you entertained as long as you don't take it too serious.

A gorilla (played by some poor slob in a laughably obvious and unconvincing ape suit) goes on the rampage in a nudist camp. Boy, does this delightfully dippy and dreadful doozy possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four star stinkeroonie: Barry Mahon's flat (non)direction, the plodding pace, the lousy acting from a lame no-name cast, Clelle Mahon's wafer thin script, the cornball stock film library score, the gloriously ridiculous premise, a priceless nude square dancing sequence (!), the choice clunky dialogue (sample line: "He was hairy -- and big!"), the exceptionally poor sound quality, and the static, yet bright and colorful cinematography all ensure that this sixty minute schlocker is an absolute sidesplitting riot from start to finish. Of course, the key reason to watch this clunker is to see such sexy 60's skin-flick regulars as Gigi Darlene, Delores Carlos, Darlene Bennet, June Roberts, and Sandra Sinclair parade about in their birthday suits. A totally gut-busting kitschy hoot and a half.

Director Barry Mahon, thank you. Exploitive T & A from the mid sixties. A pretty scary time for guests at a Miami Beach nudist colony, as a gorilla runs amok killing anyone in its reach...clothed or butt naked. Bouncy, bouncy. Bouncing boobs and bouncing buns of all shapes and sizes. One complaint is that some of the better looking babes in clothes never take them off. And who really cares that some guy in a gorilla suit is chasing naked chicks around. Typical American Drive-In Theater fare that helps rev up the libido between the popcorn and big orange drink. The director himself is listed among the cast members featuring: Julie Anderson, Sandra Sinclair, Darlene Bennett, Bryon Mabe and Gigi Darlene.

The "nudie-cutie" is without a doubt one of the campiest genres in the history of American cinema. Prevented by the censors from doing anything stronger, 60's exploitation filmmakers like David Freiedman, Herschel Gordon Lewis, and Barry Mahon resorted to making "nature documentaries"--basically home movies shot at nudist camps (although the actual nudists were usually told to take a hike and attractive and voluptuous nude models were put in their place). Naturally, the acting and production values were atrocious and the films were much more silly than erotic. It is always refreshing to see naked women before the modern era of institutionalized anorexia and silicone implants, but you'd do better with the later 70's sexploitation films like the "roughies" or the "ghoulies" which often featured the same kinds of women but were far sleazier and had actual (and often mind-warping) plots. You see one nudie-cutie film on the other hand you've seen them all.If you MUST see one though of these movies though, this is a good choice. It ranks somewhere between "The House on Bare Mountain" and similar "The Monster at Camp Sunshine", but unlike both those earlier films it is in color. It really should be called "The Beast that Killed Woman" as only one woman is killed (and probably owing to censorship, she is fully clothed at the time). The beast also throws a guy in a lake and most of the movie is taken up with the police interviewing this second "victim" in his hospital bed or with various nude or semi-nude women discussing how scared they are and whether they should leave the resort. My favorite scene is where a woman is screaming for help and one of these bimbos responds by jumping out of her top bunk and hopping into the lower bunk with her friend (yeah, that makes a lot more sense than calling the police). The "beast" by the way turns out to be an escaped gorilla (or rather a man in a very unconvincing gorilla suit). What is a murderous escaped gorilla doing in a Florida nudist resort? You know, they never really do say. Oh well.