Mini Review
Day 09: Monsters!
Space Amoeba (1970)
Monster movie time for Junesploitation, with Day 9’s prompt of ‘Monsters!’ and the film I’ve chosen goes with some giant monsters with one from Toho with Space Amoeba (1970). The title of the film may be a tad misleading as this is not a film set in space (except the opening few minutes), it actually mostly takes place on an island and aliens are involved with this one.
A group of people travel to an isolated island to examine the place as their boss wants to build a resort there. There have been rumours of giant monsters around the island and a photographer also believes a space probe crash landed near the area. Once the crew arrives it becomes apparent that the rumours of giant monsters might just be real and the space probe may have something to do with the giant monsters that include a giant cuttlefish, a giant crab and a giant turtle. The plot is fairly basic and a little reminiscent of something like King Kong (1933) and also far different than that film as these giant monsters have alien infiltration.
Sure, this is a rather ridiculously silly film, the giant cuttlefish some how walks on land, it’s a very stunning visual even if you can tell it is a person in a costume. The other two monsters may perhaps be even more visually cool and a little harder to tell it’s people in costumes. A great part of the film is to see the smaller models of places on the island that get destroyed by the monsters, they look great and those scenes are a lot of fun. The alien plot of world take over is actually a pretty good one, it gives the film a more unique edge. Space Amoeba is quite the fun film, once again another film that doesn’t take itself seriously and is a fun giant monster adventure goodness.
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Mini Review
Day 10: Sex Comedy!
The Beach Girls (1982)
The sex comedy is a sub-genre that is very hit and miss, having it’s peak in the 80’s and a resurgence during the late 90’s and early 00’s, there isn’t a lack of films to choose from for Day 10. I decided to go with The Beach Girls (1982), a film I had not even heard of before and take the risk that perhaps this sex comedy would be decent. From the get go the film feels different from most others by having three female leads and having things seen mostly from their eyes as well as having some coming of age elements in there. That said it certainly has a fill of the usual tropes and yes it has some problematic bits as well.
Sarah (Debra Blee) is on summer vacation and her Uncle Carl (Adam Roarke) has given her his beach house to stay at, naturally her two party friends Ginger (Val Kline) and Ducky (Jeana Keough) come along and straight away pick up a young handsome hitchhiker Scott (James Daughton) and plan a wild party. Sarah is not much of a party girl and doesn’t quite see eye to eye with her friends, things change as Sarah wants to unleash her inner wild child but there is a lot of mischief a foot as the neighbours aren’t happy, Uncle Carl comes back, drug smugglers drop bags of marijuana that wash up on shore and so much more.
The Beach Girls does have a little bit of a plot, Sarah is a likeable character and her two wild friends are as well, most everyone else doesn’t really get to do much and at times it does come off as creepy with much older men hooking up with High School girls, looking at you Uncle Carl. The intention of the film really is to just have some fun, embracing hippy culture, giving the angry grown ups some weed and showing as many breasts as possible. It is a wild party of a film, it has really silly eye rolling moments, some charm (it breaks the forth wall a few times) and it works for what it set out to do. This is one of the better films I’ve seen of the genre from the 80’s, if you’re a fan of these types of films and haven’t seen this one, I recommend it.
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Reviews written by Marcella Papandrea
Please check out FThisMovie.net, with many thanks to the crew for the concept of Junesploitation and some excellent prompts for 2022!
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