Shocktober 2024: Nightmare Beach (Umberto Lenzi, Harry Kirkpatrick, 1989)

What if a demented killer is sent to the chair for his crimes but vows to return from the dead to wreak havoc on the world — and that world happens to be a beach community in Florida during spring break? That’s the #nutshelled premise of Nightmare Beach, a fun and dumb slasher in which a mysterious biker starts to kill a bunch of annoying youngsters for no other apparent reason than that they’re young and annoying. Preferred method: electrocution.

This movie is very of its time, in many ways a typical 80’s slasher — frolicking teens jolted into the afterlife, bikini babes scorched to smithereens, that sort of thing. There’s a wet t-shirt contest. Tons of terrible hair metal on the soundtrack. Of course John Saxon and Michael Parks show up.

Veteran Italian schlock meister Umberto Lenzi was supposed to direct, but was fired early on. The new director, Harry Kirkpatrick (also co-screenwriter), kept him around, though, and b-movie aficionados have spent years debating whether Lenzi secretly directed the movie anyway. At the end of the day: who cares. Dr. Runtime approved (91 mins).