With a title like that, what could go wrong? As it turns out, pretty much everything. ​“The Beach Girls and the Monster”​ is a movie where the title speaks for itself. Does it even sound like it will try ​to be a good movie? ​“The Beach Girls and the Monster” is one of the movies that is a product of its time.

During the ‘60s when this movie was being made, two things that were incredible popular among the teenage film going public were horror movies and beach party movies. This caused director Jon Hall to put the two in a blender and piece together what came out in 1965. This was not the first attempt at this, as a year earlier there was the equally weird and crappy ​“Horror of Party Beach​,” so I guess great minds think alike.

The plot is pretty basic— a sea monster is going around, unconvincingly clawing people to death. There is also some crap about a son of a marine biologist wanting to be with his surfer friends against his father wishes, some more crap about the father’s new wife, and even more crap about a disables friends of the son getting cheated on.

These parts of the movie are supremely boring, only being relieved when the monster occasionally appears. You will most likely fall asleep or stop paying attention during these parts. Sadly, I had to pay attention during these to properly review the movie, and when you stop and listen to the dialogue is made up of most of the character acting like a certain five letter word that rhymes with “tick.”

Mark, the son I mentioned, is a jerk and snaps at everyone. Dr. Lindsay is a pushy and controlling freak. His wife Vicky is so condescending it actually borders on entertaining, and everyone else is as flat as a piece of paper. After a while, you will pray for the monster to appear and unconvincingly claw someone to death. I know I did. I also felt like it was a mercy for the extra to get killed off. At least they didn’t have to live through the rest of the movie.

Speaking of the monster, it fares a lot better than the characters, at least as far as entertainment is concerned. Although it is not the worst looking sea monster I have seen, I would have to give that honour to ​“The Creature from the Haunted Sea,”​ the costume is predictably laughable, but it is also fun to look at and the scenes with the monster are the highlights of the movie.

Its skills are pretty stupid too. As I mentioned, the monster and the victim flail around for a bit before the monster “claws” its prey to death. I put claws in quotations because it is obvious that it’s just the consumes flaw being dragged across the face of an action, who has ketchup on their face.

And in spite of the title, out of the monsters four people killed by the monster, only two of them are women and only one can be classified as a beach girl. So much for the title.

The worst thing about the movie is easily the relentless padding and filler. There are scenes upon scenes of nothing happening. Repetitive dialogue, side-plots that go nowhere, and easily the most notable is a beach scene where this guy talks and sing with a giant lion puppet.

None of it makes any sense, none of it adds to anything, and all of it is board and baffling as hell. These scenes are easily the worst part of the movie. The most excruciating part about them is that they are plentiful.

The movie is only seventy minutes long, but hardly any of it contains the title monster. The rest is boring dialogue, weird segments, and endless scenes of surfing and go-go dancing. Those last ones would be expected given the movie and time period, but it is at the cost of seeing the monster.

This movie overall suffers from the same problem as ​“It Came from Beneath the Sea​.” When the monster is on screen, it’s great! When the focus is on the humans, it’s boring. Unlike ​“It Came from Beneath the Sea,” h​owever, the monster is in it for far less, looks way worse, and the things the monster does do are nothing to write home about.

This movie is, technicheally, cheaper than ​“It Came from Beneath the Sea,” however, and I don’t just mean the effects. You can find this movie on YouTube, albeit in poor quality. If you want home release, you can find a VHS tape of it for around twenty dollars, or get a DVD for around ​$100 on Amazon.

I own the DVD, which, no, I did not pay $100. For what it’s worth is, it’s pretty good. It includes the trailer, productions stills, and even a segment of the script, and the movie itself is in better quality. But unless you are desperately planning on using this movie as filler in and of itself, as in a movie to play while you are doing something else, then I can’t recommend it.