''Blood Beach'' is a 1981 American
horror film written and directed by
Jeffrey Bloom
Jeffrey Allen Bloom is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and photographer, currently residing in Studio City, California. His film projects include ''Flowers in the Attic'', ''Nightmares'', ''Blood Beach'' and ''Dogpound ...
and starring
David Huffman
David Oliver Huffman (May 10, 1945 – February 27, 1985) was an American actor and producer.
Personal life
Huffman was born on May 10, 1945, in Berwyn, Illinois, to Clarence and Opal Huffman (née Dippel).
Huffman married casting director P ...
,
John Saxon
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Westerns and horror films, often playing ...
, and
Burt Young
Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (born April 30, 1940), known professionally as Burt Young, is an American actor, author and painter. He played Rocky Balboa's brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino in the '' Rocky'' film series. He was nominated f ...
. The premise, conceived by Steven Nalevansky, involves a creature lurking beneath the sand of
Santa Monica Beach
Santa Monica State Beach is a California State Park operated by the city of Santa Monica.
Description
The beach is located along Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. It is long and has parks, picnic areas, playgrounds, restrooms, as well as s ...
that attacks locals and vacationers. The film's
tagline
In entertainment, a tagline (alternatively spelled tag line) is a short text which serves to clarify a thought for, or is designed with a form of, dramatic effect. Many tagline slogans are reiterated phrases associated with an individual, s ...
is: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water—you can't get to it."
Plot
In the opening scene, a woman named Ruth is walking her dog on
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
's
Venice Beach
Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California.
Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by ...
, and is suddenly pulled under the sand of the deserted beach by an unseen force. The woman's screams for help are heard by Harry Caulder, a harbor patrol officer who is swimming nearby. Harry reports Ruth's disappearance to two LAPD detectives, Royko and Piantadosi, who claim that without a body, there is little they can do. The next day, Ruth's estranged daughter, Catherine, arrives from San Francisco after Harry calls her regarding her mother's disappearance.
Meanwhile, the mysterious and crazed Mrs. Selden, who resides in an abandoned section of the
Santa Monica Pier, witnesses the attack and disappearance (and others throughout the film), but does not come forward.
That night, while staying in Ruth's house, Catherine hears Ruth's dog barking on the beach near the location where Ruth disappeared. Catherine investigates and finds the dog beheaded, near a small sinkhole. Royko and Piantadosi, as well as Harry, are called to the scene, but police pathologist Dr. Dimitrious cannot accurately determine a cause of death for the dog. Royko and Piantadosi believe it to be the work of a serial killer, due to reports of other disappearances over the past few months.
The next morning, a teenage girl is buried in the sand at the beach and begins screaming. Her friends pull her out of the sand, only to see that her legs have been injured from an attack by an unseen creature. The police, led by Captain Pearson, begin an investigation by digging up various sections of the beach at night, but find nothing. The next morning, people visit the beach, which the local media have dubbed "Blood Beach".
The following night, Harry's co-worker Hoagy is closing up the harbor patrol office for the night when his girlfriend ventures under the pier to investigate a noise and is assaulted by a man. After being knocked to the ground by the girl, the would-be-rapist is attacked by the unseen creature, which castrates him.
An evening or two later, Marie, a French airline stewardess who is living with Harry, chases after her hat when it is blown by wind onto the beach. She, too, is grabbed by the unseen creature and pulled under the sand. The next morning, Harry sees Marie's hat on the beach, along with a small sinkhole which he recognizes as similar to the hole at the scene of Ruth's disappearance and the death of the dog. Harry calls the police, who dig up the area around the sinkhole and find Marie's disembodied eyeball.
Searching for the unknown creature's home, Harry ventures to an abandoned section of the pier and finds an access tunnel leading to an underground storage facility. After finding nothing, he leaves the tunnel, not noticing a movement in a collapsed section of the wall. Harry and Catherine go out to a nightclub, where they try to rekindle their romance. Meanwhile, a man with a metal detector is walking under the pier looking for metal objects when he is attacked and pulled under the sand by the still-unseen creature. The man's wife, Mrs. Hench, reports him missing. The next day, Royko and Piantadosi find Mr. Hench emerging from a sewer manhole in a Venice street after escaping from the creature's lair, but he is in a state of shock after being horribly mangled and cannot explain what happened to him.
Hoagy is the next victim, after he visits the pier to try to persuade Mrs. Selden to leave the area. He, too, is pulled under the sand by the underground creature while she watches stoically.
Having been told by Harry about the access tunnel, Catherine visits the storage facility under the pier to look around just as Harry brings Piantadosi with him to investigate. They find all 16 of the creature's partially-eaten victims, including Ruth's severed head, parts of Marie's body and Hoagy's fresh corpse. Captain Pearson arrives with the police, who remove all of the bodies. Pearson orders the officers to use a backhoe and equipment to track the monster down. Increased attention from the local news media lead the police to attempt to kill the creature as quickly as possible and Pearson orders the installation of motion detectors, heat-sensing cameras and explosives.
That evening, the huge creature emerges from the sand and is caught on camera; it resembles a worm-like
Venus flytrap
The Venus flytrap (''Dionaea muscipula'') is a carnivorous plant native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina. It catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids—with a trapping ...
. Without hesitation, Royko activates the detonator and the creature is blown to pieces. Dr. Dimitrios points out that they still do not know anything about the monster's origins or abilities. Since it resembled a giant worm, and some worms have the capability to regenerate, Dimitrios wonders what will happen to "each piece".
The next morning, Harry leaves with Catherine to drive her home to San Francisco while the beach reopens to the public, now that the subterranean creature is dead. In the final scene over the end credits, as the beach becomes crowded again, new small sinkholes begin to appear unnoticed by most all over the sand, implying that Dr. Dimitrios was correct in his theory that the creature has the ability to regenerate from its severed pieces.
Cast (in alphabetical order)
* Laura Burkett as 1st Girl In Sand
*
Darrell Fetty as "Hoagy"
* Mickey Fox as "The Moose"
* Marleta Giles as Girlfriend
*
Stefan Gierasch
Stefan Gierasch (February 5, 1926 – September 6, 2014) was an American film and television actor.
Career
Gierasch made over 100 screen appearances, mostly in American television, beginning in 1951. In the mid-1960s, he performed with the Trin ...
as Dr. Dimitrios
*
Marianna Hill
Marianna Hill ( Schwarzkopf, February 9, 1942) is an American actress. She predominantly worked in American television and is known for her starring roles in the Western films '' El Condor'' and '' High Plains Drifter'' and the cult horror film ' ...
as Catherine Hutton
*
David Huffman
David Oliver Huffman (May 10, 1945 – February 27, 1985) was an American actor and producer.
Personal life
Huffman was born on May 10, 1945, in Berwyn, Illinois, to Clarence and Opal Huffman (née Dippel).
Huffman married casting director P ...
as Harry Caulder
* Robert Jacobs as Saxophonist
* Pamela McMyler as Mrs. Hench
*
Harriet Medin as Ruth Hutton
* Lena Pousette as Marie
* Jacqueline Randall as 2nd Girl In Sand
*
John Saxon
John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico; August 5, 1936 – July 25, 2020) was an American actor who worked on more than 200 film and television projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Westerns and horror films, often playing ...
as Captain Pearson
*
Burt Young
Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (born April 30, 1940), known professionally as Burt Young, is an American actor, author and painter. He played Rocky Balboa's brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino in the '' Rocky'' film series. He was nominated f ...
as Sergeant Royko
*
Otis Young
Otis E. Young (July 4, 1932 – October 12, 2001) was an actor and writer. He co-starred in a television Western, '' The Outcasts'' (1968–1969), with Don Murray. Young was the second African-American actor to co-star in a television Western, ...
as Lieutenant Piantadosi
* Eleanor Zee as Mrs. Selden
Release
''Blood Beach'' received trade screenings in December 1980,
after which it was given a
limited theatrical release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
twice in the United States: by the Jerry Gross Organization on January 23, 1981,
[ and by Compass International Pictures in 1982.
The film was released in the U.S. on VHS by ]Media Home Entertainment
Media Home Entertainment Inc. was a home video company headquartered in Culver City, California, originally established in 1978 by filmmaker Charles Band.
Media Home Entertainment also distributed video product under three additional labels — ...
. As of 2012, the film had only been officially released on DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
in Germany.
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, which is famous for serving dinner and drinks during the movie, as well as its strict policy of requiring its audiences to maintain proper cinema-going etiq ...
re-released the film in a limited 35mm 35 mm may refer to:
* 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film
* 35 mm movie film, a type of motion picture film stock
* 35MM 35 mm may refer to:
* 135 film, a type of still photography format ...
screening on March 14, 2015 as part of the "NY! Hudson Horror Show" event at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers
Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York (state), New York, after New York City and Buffalo, New York, Buffalo. The popul ...
, promoted by a new theatrical poster by artist Stephen Romano.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 13% based on 8 reviews, with a weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
rating of 2.6/10.
Tom Buckley's review in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' called it "a cut or two above the recent run of low-budget horror films" and praised the work of "an attractive and professional cast, a rarity in the genre", but noted that it was "undermined by plodding direction and a talky and incoherent script that is short on action, suspense and even the gore that the title promises". Buckley also criticized the cinematography, which he called "oddly blurry, as though someone had coated the lens with vaseline".
AllMovie's review noted: "The potential for campy fun in this premise is defeated by a completely straight, plodding detective story".
Scott Weinberg of ''eFilmCritic.com'' also gave the film a negative review, writing, "Gore-less and bizarre, it's a tough one to track down. If you do search this one out, you should probably be out looking for a job". ''TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news.
The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine LLC, in 2008.
Corpora ...
'' awarded the film 1 out of 4 stars, noting: "Unfortunately, the film never rises to the level of its advertising."
See also
* ''Sand Sharks
Sand sharks, also known as sand tiger sharks, gray nurse sharks or ragged tooth sharks, are mackerel sharks of the family Odontaspididae. They are found worldwide in temperate and tropical waters. The three species are in two genera.
Descripti ...
'' (2011), another horror B movie about monster sharks lurking in the sand
* '' Tremors'' (1990), American western monster film about giant worm-like creatures living underground
* '' The Sand'' (2015), a horror movie about a creature that lives under the sand of a beach
References
External links
*
*
{{Jeffrey Bloom
1981 films
1981 horror films
1981 independent films
1980s monster movies
American natural horror films
American supernatural horror films
American slasher films
American independent films
American monster movies
Supernatural slasher films
Films scored by Gil Mellé
Films set on beaches
1980s English-language films
Films directed by Jeffrey Bloom
1980s American films