I Scream On The Beach! is the most recent feature from Alexander Churchyard and Michael Holiday. It, like many films, attempts to set itself up as a horror movie from the VHS era. However, this one seemed like it had potential to be different right from the beginning. Out of the three trailers showcased at the very beginning, only one of them is fake. The other two are real films and are titled Dead Celebrities and The Mask Of Thorn. This is a nice touch and more indie filmmakers should do this.
Emily Tresscott (Hannah Paterson) and her mother (Tess Gustard) were left behind by the father who left her when she was a very young girl. She does not believe that. As a child, she watched a man in a gas masquerade kill her father and his body get washed away into the sea. Nobody believes her and she is ridiculed by her boss Paula (Dani Thompson, Cute Little Buggers, Pumpkins).
Yet, she knows this is not random; the wave of deaths that have recently hit Mellow Coast does suggest that there is a link somewhere. What does Sister Abigail (Andrea Sandell, Acid Pit Stop, Patient Zero) know? And what does Dr. Lloyd (Lloyd Kaufman, The Litch, One Must Fall) have to do with all of this, if anything?
I Scream On The Beach! is what I would have rented from the corner video store back in the day, with its simulated wear and tear and occasional audio dropout. It feels like what might have happened if Norman J. Warren (Satan’s Slave, Insemnoid) was allowed to do one more film after Bloody New Year. And I mean that in a very positive way.
Some of that is offset by cast members who are a bit to inked/pierced for the time, but I Scream On The Beach! does manage to stay convincing for the most part. There are some nice touches such as the mention of bootleg copies of banned “video nasties” to help with the period detail.
With ‘I Scream On The Beach’ its film credits as a horror comedy and an homage to retro features, and never forgets to stay entertaining as a film first and be an homage second. Many movies focus too much on the nostalgia theming and forget that a movie has to be coherent and interesting. The issue here is that the plot is engaging and culminates into the warped final act of my dreams. One can even forgive it ending on a note so many low budget films before it have ended on. It’s extremely important that a sequel sees this movie and starts right from where this one ended.
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