Customer Reviews

The Beast That Killed Women/ The Monster of Camp Sunshine

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Something Weird's Drive-in Double Feature series just keeps growing and continues with this ridiculous double feature. Back in the days when the laws were creatively skirted to bring us "adult" entertainment the nudie was born. As nudity in an of itself was not considered obscene, from the late 50's until the birth and acceptance of hardcore, if one wanted to see an adult film one had to see a nudie. For the most part these were films set in a nudist camp where we could watch for a long boring hour or so people playing volleyball, swimming, dancing etc. in the nude. As this got boring very quickly some enterprising film makers tried to add some sort of a storyline to the scenes of volleyball. Thus among other sub-genres the monster nudie was born.

This disc features two films, 6 (!) shorts, 5 trailers for other nudies (plus one hidden trailer for "Girls Come Too" which is a real classic; just click around in the various menus, you'll find it.), the gallery of drive-in exploitation art, drive-in intermission bits and the option of watching any of these separately or all together as a part of the "let's go to the drive-in" feature. This disc is crammed with stuff.

The films themselves are wonderfully awful. The Beast that Killed Women is about a gorilla loose in a nudist camp that, you guessed it, kidnaps and kills a few women. The gorilla is the fakest looking suit I've yet seen.

The Monster at Camp Sunshine is a gem. It begins with an animation sequence that makes no sense and is reminiscent of the animation in Monty Python's Flying Circus. It has intentional humor that actually works and a story line that is bizarre to say the least. It is about a chemical that unleashes the killer instinct getting into the water at a nudist camp. The gardener, who is supposed to be retarded, drinks some water and turns into a monster that looks like Moe Howard from the Three Stooges. Although he's not very threatening it takes the army to kill him, peace is restored and nudism is affirmed as a healthy way of life. Classic.

Overall a good set. I'd recommend it.

Actually, looking at this DVD can be a lot of fun. The acting is low budget, but all the extras on this DVD make for a fun afternoon or evening when the weather is bad. There is a lot of nudity, but this is the nudity of the mid 60's, so expect lots of breasts and tushes, but no frontal nudity. In fact, some of the men are wearing swimming trunks. The Beast is in color and is set in a Florida nudist club (or so they say), and most of the actors sport a full tan, contrasted to a lot of 'whitetails' in the Monster of Camp Sunshine, which is in B&W. When the final assault on the monster is shown for the Camp Sunshine film, it is a mismash of civil war, Korean War, WWI and WII stock footages, and perhaps even some western calvary charges. It was as if every stock fighting footage the producers could get were thrown in, and is quite hilarious. The extras on this DVD are quite interesting, including a 1920's nudist serial which is actually quite fascinating and perhaps the best of the extras. Obviously, getting the DVD is preferred to the video version, due to all the extras which can provide an interesting insight to how nudity was depicted under the new relaxation of censorship that took place in the early 1960's. Considering how old the source material is, the quality of the DVD is actually quite good. This DVD can provide a lot of fun and laughs.

First off, I apologize for the pun in my title, but it is unfortunately descriptive. As a disclaimer, I generally like Something Weird DVDs, but this one is terrible. The biggest sin of both these films is that they are stunningly boring. I was looking forward to the dreadful, nonsensical plots, bad acting, and silly extras, but in this case the entire DVD was so boring as to be virtually unwatchable.

Some of the Drive-In advertisements were modestly entertaining (I am still grossed out by the ad for "Toddy" a delicious chocolate drink in a can that is great hot or cold, or so they say...) but the two features were uninteresting in the extreme. There are only two positive things I can say about these features: first, the gorilla in "The Beast That Killed Women" is the worst man in a gorilla suit that I have ever seen (possibly exclusive of "Queen Kong"); and second, the credit sequence for "The Monster Of Camp Sunshine" is a hilarious piece of animated lunacy.

Of the two I liked "The Monster Of Camp Sunshine" better, as it was the cleverer of the two, although the monster is extremely lame. I particularly enjoyed the scene in which Marta (the only not unattractive cast member) gets pushed out of a New York high rise window by some sadistic laboratory mice. I found the conclusion of the film which involved a paratrooper in pajamas and an ascot, as well as stock footage from the Normandy invasion, and (apparently) a re-enactment of the battle of Gettysburg, to be a mite confusing. The best idea was the last minute of the film which featured a one minute (or so) recap of the feature. You can feel free to watch that and not feel like you missed anything. (You didn't.)

The short titled "Beauty and the Beast" is a truly stunning piece of musical mayhem. It is the only portion of this DVD I can really recommend.

Where to begin?? "The Beast that Killed Women"is about an ape that has escaped and terrorizes(?)a nudist camp..Well actually he only kills one girl that I remember,but anyway...It's a fun movie.Look for the bonfire go from high to low and back and forth..some continuity problems?? As far as "The Monster of Camp Sunshine" goes it has to be seen to be believed.Why?Well,there is more music,less dialogue,too much padding and the so-called "monster" doesn't really do anything,except run around with an ax and only hurt 1 victim..The ending is laughable....It's not bad for what it is though..A movie that doesn't take itself seriously....The rest of the DVD has some pretty neat extras...

This double feature from SWV is one of my favorites. The specials on this are funny as hell and The Beast that Killed women is a great cheasy flick. There's tons of funny 60's nudity of women with thick brooklyn accents and it's only 60 minutes long which is a great length for a cheasy movie. The Monster of Camp Sunshine is funny but incomprihensible and takes away from the chease but is almost redeemed by the last 5 minutes of WW2 stock fotage (if you can get there without falling asleep). All and all a must see for SWV fans.

Of the two movies, The Beast is better than The Monster. No full frontal nudity in the movies (there is in ONE one trailer), but loaded with T&A. DVD package well designed with tons of extras: trailers and vintage short nudie movies from the early century (the 20th that is...) Warning: no story and no acting !

This movie is so unique, or should I say movies? They both take place in nudist camps, the Monster From Camp Sunshine is just some retarted fat man in an old creepy house, the ending is so funny you need to see it to belive it, they take war footage from military movies and insert it into the movie to makw itr look like they are actually all attacking the man, but it's just one fat man, and they need the entire US army to take him down? Yea I guess that was the plan! The Beast That Killed Women is more of a gorilla creature, both movies contain alot of nudity but no sexuality, there are tons of trailers for other "nudie cutie" films. So many trailers it's worth the buy, the movies are so strange they are really fun to watch.

The common denominator for this week's double-bill from Something Weird is that they both take place at nudist camps. However, you want to have the complete Something Weird experience with this week's DVD. Remember all the stuff they used to show in between movies at the drive-in? Well those are more than covered if you push the right button to start the festivities with this DVD. There are ads for goodies from the snack bar and trailers for the first feature, "The Beast That Killed Women" and other films set in nudist camps including "Goldilocks and the Three Bares," the first nudist musical in "Seymourscope" (think about it).

"The Beast That Killed Women," directed by Barry Mahon in 1965, takes us to a nudist camp where people are forever walking away from the camera thereby providing an endless supply of naked bottoms. The camp members are playing volleyball or jumping up and down trying to get a sundress at the top of a stone wall while pleasant music plays before it is time to go to bed, at which point the ladies get semi-dressed. What a shame a beast is going to interrupt the fun. Then everybody who is still awake gathers in front of a fire on the beach. They are all dressed and are watching a young woman dressed in short blue skirt and top dance to the beat of the drums in what would be the most sensual moment of the film, when suddenly a gorilla with a dark blue face appears in the bushes. Once everybody is in bed (with the lights on) the beast goes on the attack. Expect lots of screaming and the beast carrying and dragging struggling (dressed) women around and not much else. Also expect to have a hard time understanding what people are saying at times in this movie (then you do and they are talking about "an ambulance coming downstairs"). The framing device is the police questioning a survivor of the slaughter, so he gets to provide narrative details that allows us to skip what must have been the really boring parts.

Not really, because when the ambulance comes downstairs to get the first dead body we follow the entire procedure like we have nothing better to do (or look at) for several minutes. My favorite part is when someone assures the police it really was a gorilla and not somebody dressed in a gorilla outfit. The most important thing is that despite the attacks that most of these people stay at their nudist camp (which, I must point out, is integrated). The trailer fooled me into thinking that the beast was going to kill a lot of women, but that is not really the case. But maybe that is the point as we celebrate the return to order as the police leave the camp and return to the real world of inhibitions and confining social mores. To be fair, this does make nudists look like ordinary people and the guys wear swim trunks when they dive into the pool to keep the film clean

Then we get to the Intermission. "Nude Ranch" involves badminton played by women in cowboy hats, bandanas, and half skirts (just in front). Then we get suckered by "The Great Train Robbery" into a series of ads for food that moves tantalizingly slow across the screen for minutes without end. Nostalgia has nudity beat on this DVD, even if it is the 1961 trailer for "Nudist Life" and the short "Bring 'em Back Nude" which is way older and in which sis makes herself at home in her brother's apartment while he is away and reads in his diary about an encounter with a couple of white goddesses in Africa. I think they spliced footage from Tarzan movies or National Geographic into this along with another guy in an ape suit. As soon as we get to the naked goddesses we are told to "Drop another dime for the next attractive subject," which tells us something about how you got to see this silent bit of cinema (you needed 50 cents for the complete narrative experience). Not surprisingly, the "Beauty and the Beast" short that I had seen on a previous DVD pops up here: it involves a dancing girl (i.e., stripper) who eventually gets attacked by (you guessed it) a guy in an ape suit. Then there is the trailer for "Eves on Skis," which involves natural girls basking in Alpine splendor, "Nudes on Tiger Reef" is the playground of the stars apparently, and "The Expose of the Nudist Racket" which puts nudism in the same class with Darwinism, Buddhism, Baptism, Natziism (sic), Journalism and dozen more -isms. By the time you get to "Back to Nature," which is in color, you just want to get to the second feature film. Then you can come back and check out the "Gallery of Drive-In Exploitation Art with Trash-O-Rama Radio-Spot Rarities."

It is hard to have expectation for "The Monster of Camp Sunshine, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nature," directed by Ferenc Leroget in 1964, especially when we are told this motion picture is a "fable" because there are many nudists and only one monster (whereas life is generally the other way around). But the title credits look they were done by Terry Gilliam of Monty Python's Flying Circus, which is a pleasant surprise. A young woman heads away from New York City to Camp Sunshine where she enjoys the simple pleasures of her new found life. The problem is that a scientist dumps some toxic stuff into the river. Hugo, the rather simple fellow who is the gardener at the nudist camp, drinks the water and turns into a monster. This is similar to the first film in that we have mostly shots of the nudists sitting in the sun or having fun flying a kite and then suddenly there is a monster.

You can really make an argument that this would be a better film without the monster. Watching a woman in a revealing bathing suit pose in front of the Empire State Building is more memorable then anything at the camp until the laughingly over the top conclusion. Hugo has his share of problems as a monster but that is what provides the narrative arc for this film because otherwise these people go Camp Sunshine and do the same thing week after week during from Memorial Day to Labor Day. This also allows for increasingly tacky title cards to help make up for the lack of a compelling narrative until the situation is resolved by a guy in his underwear who has not only a gun but dynamite and a Tommy gun, a helpful skydiver, and a captain who shows up with the U.S. army (along with the U.S. cavalry, a large amphibious force, and long range cannons from both World War II and the Civil War) to save the day and make Camp Sunshine safe once more for Americans to take off their clothes and embrace nature. Then there is a brief summary of the supposedly good parts in case you missed them. Really.

"The Beast That Killed Women" (a.k.a. "The Beast That Molested Women" and "The Beast That Ruined Women") gets rated two stars but "The Monster of Camp Sunshine" (a.k.a. "Monster at Camp Sunshine") gets rated three just so you know which one is better. The extras, as is usually the case with these Something Weird DVDs, are the best part of your three-and-a-half hour late night experience and would be four stars (talking strictly entertainment value). Do the math and then divide by three because dividing by two would be just too darn cheeky after watching all these nudists. Be sure to join us next Saturday gang, when we try for a different genre of exploitation cinema with "Just for the Hell Of It" and "Blast-off Girls."