With the return of the Cinemasochist’s Dungeon of Horrors for the summer, I felt there was no better way to celebrate than with a computer beach party! What’s a computer beach party, you ask? According to Gary Troy & Paul Galle, it’s a party on the beach with live musical performances, kegs of beer, sandwiches, hunks, and babes. Where does the computer come in to play, you ask? The invitations were sent out via a computer, which is in the house on the beach where the party’s located. This film is that lazy.
It doesn’t take much for an eighties sex comedy to work; all that’s needed is hunks, babes, lewd humor, nudity, and, of course, sex. Most of these sex comedies aren’t great, but they have a certain energy to them that’s infectious. Energy is what’s missing most from “Computer Beach Party” and that’s why it fails miserably! All of the ingredients are there, but Troy rarely infuses any energy into the film; even when he does, it’s a fleeting effort.
The plot follows the save the rec center formula, replacing the rec center with a beach. The mayor believes there is, I kid you not, hidden treasure buried beneath the sands of the beach left there by shipwrecked pirates. The film actually opens with a shot of a pirate ship in a storm, leading me to believe I popped in the wrong film. In order to secure the land and find the treasure, he wants to purchase and annex it. Standing in his way is Andy (Hank Amico), a computer geek who owns a home on the land with his idiot friend whose name I’ve forgotten and cannot be bothered to look it up. Andy and his sidekick love to have the beach to themselves to go sail buggy-riding and that’s now being threatened, so they have to save the day by winning a sail buggy race, naturally. Along the way, Andy falls in love with the mayor’s daughter, Alison (Stacey Nemour).
The biggest issue I have with “Computer Beach Party” comes with the relationship between Andy & Alison. The two simply have no chemistry, with their flirting coming off stilted and awkward. All of their conversations are drawn out and feel like lousy set-up in a porno. It’d help if they had defining personalities, but all they’ve got going for each other is that Alison hates that she’s the mayor’s daughter and lives in his shadow and Andy is in love with Alison. I’m certain Andy’s personality is supposed to be defined by his computer geekiness, but it rarely makes an impact.
That brings me to my second biggest issue with the film: the lack of computers. If you’re going to call your film “Computer Beach Party,” you best fill your film with computers. I’m not saying I want characters out of “Revenge of the Nerds” who can’t stop fawning over their computers and have LAN-parties on the beach…actually, that would’ve made for a more intriguing film. Scratch what my original point was going to be. I’m saying I want characters out of “Revenge of the Nerds” who can’t stop fawning over their computers and have LAN-parties on the beach. What Troy & Galle deliver is the occasional mention of computers and by having Andy install a computer in his car that makes it go into hyper-speed and win races.
Which brings me to another issue with the film: Andy is a dirty cheater. I’m supposed to cheer for this underdog, but he’s blatantly cheating to win races. I don’t care if his opponents are selfish jerks, having your car (and later sail buggy) souped-up with a super computer that guarantees your victory is cheating and should be frowned upon. Had the antagonists done this, Andy would’ve made a passionate speech about how evil they were; but, since he’s the geeky hero who’s in love with the mayor’s plucky daughter, him cheating is supposed to be acceptable.
While Troy & Galle have trouble writing characters, dialogue, and an engaging story, their toughest challenge is in writing comedy. They don’t have many gags in store, opting to use cheesy sound effects to elicit laughs. For example, when Andy’s braindead friend’s one night stand resurfaces, she’s revealed to have a squeaky voice; if that wasn’t enough, a scene following her reemergence has her dialogue sped up to sound like an incoherent chipmunk. As we all know, funny sounding voices equal laughs; it’s in the adjective, after all. Another example would be the sound Andy’s souped-up car makes as it goes into hyper-speed. Since they didn’t have the budget to make the car go into hyper-speed, Troy cuts to stunned bystanders who look on in amazement as the cheesiest “whoosh” sounds play to signify that Andy’s going fast.
Troy & Galle, bless their hearts, do try their hand(s) at a running gag, albeit one that adds nothing to the plot whatsoever. It involves a local bumbling cop who continually catches couples having sex on the beach, only to be thwarted in his arrest by a speeding chicken car (you read that right). The speeding chicken car aspect is rather lame, sad to say, with it resulting in the driver being an old lady. This entire subplot doesn’t tie into the main story at all, even though they could’ve had the cop either run into trouble with Andy and/or the chicken car speedster be one of the participants in Andy’s races.
What this subplot does provide is one of the few laughs in the film, screeching and annoying cop be damned. Whenever this cop comes upon the law-breaking couples in coitus, he tries to give a big, heroic speech about decency before making his arrest; all the while, the couples annoy him and continue to fornicate like bunnies. This got a genuine laugh out of me and, had there been more humor like this in the film, it would’ve made for passable entertainment. Of course, knowing my luck, a good thing can’t go unpunished, and the cop’s final couple turns out to involve his niece, who seemingly doesn’t mind that her uncle is watching her have sex. Why did it have to get creepy, Troy & Galle? Just as I was warming up to your antics.
Speaking of not being bothered, it never feels as if Andy and the rest of his crew are too terribly concerned with their beach being purchased. They may make strides in order to prevent it (such as tearing down lifeguard posts, because that somehow prevents someone from owning the beach), but they never seem too invested in the matter. They spend the bulk of the film partying so the filmmakers have an excuse to showcase a musical performance to pad the time (there are four of them in the film). Without a sense of urgency, the story, as limp as it is, holds no weight. This would be more excusable if there was laughs to be had, but there aren’t many.
The only other laughs I can think of come from bad dialogue, questionable setups, and one outlandish gag that worked solely because Troy & Galle thought outside of the box. The best bad line of dialogue to quote would be, “There isn’t a course on how to be a mayor’s daughter!” No, but there is a course on acting, which Nemour should’ve studied. The best questionable setup would be, after their first kiss, Andy conveniently has a program set up on his computer that manipulates dancing hearts that eventually form the message “I love you.” This moment was so special they incorporated it into the montage of Andy & Alison’s love after they had a fight (which, if it were to be a true and honest montage, would’ve just been a blank screen). Finally, the outlandish gag involves a cutaway to text stating that, after finding out there’s no treasure on the beach, that they mayor beat his henchman so bad that the producers felt it too violent to show. It’s really not that funny, but I laughed at the absurdity of it. Oh, and regarding the questionable setups from earlier, I’d be remiss to end this paragraph without mentioning Andy and his annoying friend going to NASA to get a gold coin inspected; because when I want to verify the authenticity of a gold coin, I go to NASA!
While I may have made “Computer Beach Party” sound like a bizarrely entertaining viewing experience, trust me when I say it’s not. In a condensed bubble such as this long-winded review, it sounds wacky and insane. In the vast wasteland that is the film’s 100-minute runtime, it’s a slog. The moments mentioned earlier are far and few between and the weird plot(s) linger and fade into the background numerous times. Half the time I felt as if the film was simply coasting. I’m not even sure if the reason I laughed at a few of the gags was because they were funny or because I was losing my sanity. The only party worse than this “Computer Beach Party” would be a lemon party.
Final Rating: D