Former lovers and old friends Harry and Catherine are reunited by the search for Catherine's missing mother. Soon more people are attacked or disappear, apparently having been sucked into the sand without a trace. It's all taking place along a strip of shore line which comes to be known as Blood Beach.
Local police are baffled. Who, or what, could be committing these crimes? What has happened to the disappeared victims? Convinced that the creature must be under ground, the search moves to the underground basement of a demolished building where Harry and Catherine used to play as kids. Soon they discover the creature that is responsible, but it is not so easily disposed of.
Blood Beach is not a badly done movie, but it does have some shortfalls. At about an hour into the film, police captain Pearson states that there have been over 60 reported sightings of the monster. Must be nice, the viewer hasn't seen it yet.
At an hour and eighteen minutes in to the film, a new reporter concludes his report with "Still we watch, and wait". True, still the viewer is watching... and waiting... to actually see this alleged monster.
Well, we do eventually get to see it. For about one minute. For a monster movie, it is a little short on monsters. One could argue that it is focused on the mystery aspect of the story. But let's face it, everyone knows right from the start that we are dealing with a monster that lives underground. So it isn't as much a mystery as a waiting game. Count how many times one of the characters expresses their frustration that they don't know who or what could be committing these murders. It's a lot.
On the other hand, I thought the movie was well written. The dialogue is entertaining and the characters are enjoyable. Personal favourite? Definitely the Chicago cop played by Burt Young. He tells pretty much everyone to fuck off in one way or another at least once, suggests that a street vendor start up a greasy spoon union, and over-zealously blows the monster to smithereens with a big shit eating grin on his face. He and Pearson (John Saxon) also tell off a right wing city councillor for her funding cut proposals at one point as well. But I digress.
Ten years later another film was released with a similar premise; Tremors. The difference was that in that movie the monsters were not confined to one little area, they were visible and active many times throughout the film, and there was a lot more action, gore, scares, and a lot less waiting for stuff to happen. It's possible that Tremors borrowed some ideas from this film, but it was a lot more successful and two sequels followed it. In 2010 another film, Mongolian Death Worms, took a similar approach again. Still, this earlier film is worth a look.
3 good reasons not to go nude at the beach out of 5
Rated R: contains violence, sexual content, language.
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