Film Review

Psycho Beach Party

todayOctober 10, 2024 43

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By – Gareth Jones

For fans of campy humor, Charles Busch, satires of Hollywood

When I saw that Birmingham Festival Theatre was doing a stage production of Charles Busch’s play “Psycho Beach Party” it immediately took me back to the year 2000 when the filmed adaptation of that play premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It was my introduction to the world of playwright, and drag icon Charles Busch.  A few years after that I saw the second film adaptation of his play, Die Mommie Die! In both films, you can see the incredible love that Busch has for Hollywood films of the 50’s and 60’s whilst simultaneously skewering and critiquing, in a delightfully campy way, the limitations of society at that time and in the current era.

Psycho Beach Party tells the story of 16 year old Florence “Chicklet” Forrest (portrayed by Lauren Ambrose right before she broke out with Six Feet Under), a vivacious teen who wants to join the local boys only surf club.  Similar to the Gidget movies that inspired it, the world of surfing is colorful and over top.  At the same time as this is happening, a series of grisly murders are happening to teens and being investigated by Captain Monica Stark, played by Charles Busch.  In the original play when it premiered in the 80’s, Busch played Chicklet. Here, he is cast in a more “mature” role, but he still in many ways is the glue for the film in spite of his character not having as much screen time.  The way that he uses his voice is unique, channeling the femme fatales and dialogue of the world of noir.The plot has all the required elements of the B-Horror movies from the 50’s, from the multiple personalities to the increasingly gruesome deaths of characters, rewarding fans of that era’s films.  At the same time, all the coding of that era is laid out in hilarious fashion for today’s audiences.  Quite a bit of severed tongue in cheek, so to speak.

Beyond Ambrose and Busch, the cast is filled with stars of television and film.  Most notable is a very young Amy Adams as Marvel Ann, who based her performance on Ann-Margaret.  Thomas Gibson plays Kanaka, the great surfing legend.  Nicholas Brendan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer plays possible love interest Starcat, and Matt Keslar as Swedish exchange student Lars also play significant roles.  The whole cast does a great job of overplaying whilst winking metaphorically with the audience that they are in on the jokes.Unlike the camp of John Waters, Busch does not disturb or revel in filth. His humor is that balance of as he says “elegance and vulgarity.”  Yet, for me it still lands in the spectrum of camp. Susan Sontag stated in her famous “Notes on Camp” that “Camp is its love of the unnatural; of artifice and exaggeration.”  Busch is a master of that and this adaptation maintains that in cinematic form.  He was able to add a few more items not found in the play, such as the tropes of the surf movie, a crazed dancer at the beginning, and the backscreen surfing scenes that bring laughs immediately.

The music could also be expanded considerably to include some amazing surf music including songs by Los Straightjackets and Alabama’s own Man or Astro-Man?.  It is a wonderful collection of perfectly matched tunes that made those films so ridiculously fun.

Psycho Beach Party is a lovely time capsule of the 50’s, 80’s, and early 2000’s.  The majority of the humor still works and it is a fantastic introduction to the world of Charles Busch. Give it a watch and then go see the play at Birmingham Festival Theatre.

Available to stream for free on TUBI

Written by: jamric

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