And what a duo......with a combined budget probably less than the Evian water bill for Tom Cruise while he made "The Mummy". Unlike some double features where the two movies shared equal weight and billing, this one was more of a Main Event & Sideshow pairing, with "Horror Of Party Beach" as the topliner and "Curse Of The Living Corpse" the added attraction bringing up the rear.......
Del Tenney took something of a daring creative risk with 'Horror Of Party Beach" and put two disparate genres in a blender......the monster movie and teen beach romp. Why didn't anyone think of this sooner..........cute bikini babes dancing on the beach......just before rubber-suited monsters come waddling up from the surf to rip them apart....
We're not sure exactly what impulses drive these creatures.......certainly not food, since their mouths appear jammed to capacity with appendages resembling hot dogs........they decimate a slumber party, carrying off a few of the girls for who-knows-what....(for further details on who-knows-what, you'd have to watch Roger Corman's "Humanoids From The Deep") :
Though unashamedly awful and amateurish, Tenney's monster mash features a still topical origin sequence: radioactive waste from leaking barrels tossed into the sea settle over the skeletons of shipwreck victims....voila....instant mutants with a hunger for young girls and no patience to attend college mixers to find them........
Oddly enough, for the bottom half of this double bill, Tenney wildly overreaches way past his limited abilities, attempting a period piece in "Curse Of The Living Corpse"....
Yes, he actually sets this in 1962 New England, with his actors all gussied up in those clothes they give you to wear at the 'Old Timey' photo booths at the State Fair.......the cast plays a collection of greedy, obnoxious relatives waiting to pounce on the fortune of a recently deceased, really rich dead guy.
Really Rich Recently Deceased Dead Guy has other ideas, rising from his coffin and lurking around the sumptuous estate, bumping off the relatives in all the ways they feared the most. At almost an hour and a half, it plays like an endless live-action 19th century version of the 'Clue' board game...as written and performed by elementary school students.
But there is a wonderful bonus in the middle of this mess......oh my God,,,is it? Isn't that? Doesn't he look like....? Playing the snarky, booze guzzling wastrel of the bunch.....yes, Chief Brody himself, Roy Scheider, showing us how even the greatest of actors had to start somewhere......and he acquits himself far better here than....say, George Clooney in "Return Of The Killer Tomatoes"
If you do ever have an unnatural urge to recreate a hot summer night at the Drive In (and we sometimes do).....nothing could fill that need more than Del Tenney's demented double feature....deranged artifacts of a long gone moviegoing era. We salute you, Del.....for the experience of watching the two movies together, we'll puncture 2 & 1/2 barrels of nuclear waste(** 1/2).....(that rating applies strictly for hardcore horror buffs......everyone else, proceed only if you dare.....)
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