Vinegar Syndrome Cuts Marathon #7

Surf II (1983)

(6/10): Surf II is a parody of many of the teen sports/sex comedies that were popular at the time of its release but it didn't really hit its mark too well and has since been dubbed a cult classic.

It follows a group of teenagers who are big on surfing and how this new "Buzz Cola" is affecting the youth as it leads up to the local surfing competition. We find that this cola is causing the teens to become more aggressive,primal & overall stupid and it's being sold by our two lead characters fathers but really is being supplied to them by a vengeful nerd who had his cola laced with something that ruined his future goals.

It's a comedy straight up but I do really wish I found it more funny as it's clear that they put a lot of effort into it in every other aspect.

First, the soundtrack is great, lots of tunes to bop along to that fit the theme of the movie perfectly and it has a lot of Beach Boys.

The sets are great, specifically the lab where the nerd works as it's filled with tons of crazy, colourful and wacky contraptions that fit the over exaggerated tone very well and provides a good contrast to the more ordinary look of everything outside of the lab.

Finally the costumes are pretty damn good, again I point out in specific but this time with the surfer punks as they look like they came out of a Misfits concert all in black leather with facepaint and big hair with tears in their clothes, it looks great.

I also noticed something that a lot of 2000s kids would notice if they ever watch this, the vengeful nerd or Menlo Schwartzer as he is called is played by the same guy who voiced the Know-It-All in The Polar Express, yeah that surprised me.

However, again the biggest fault is that for a comedy, I just didn't find it all too funny, there's some moments that get me even one laugh out loud moment but it mostly just didn't work for me. I do gotta give it credit for the rest of the attributes that went into it as I was very impressed with those.

Take this with a grain of salt because I heard that this one is a divisive entry into the VS catalog as some love it and some find it boring.

1 part zombie punk movie, one part spoof, one part surf b roll footage. Despite a few inspired scenes, overall it's not great and doesn't really add up to much. Borderline Airplane-ish but in the end, it's trying too hard with lame jokes. Chief Boyardee... ugh.

Here's a list of hideously dreadful celluloid boo-boos which act as dead giveaways that spell out the painfully obvious fact that this stinkweed picture reeks more intensely than a damp ten pound bag full of week old horse manure. Let's call this depressingly dismal list "How Not To Make A Tongue-in-Cheek Parody."

1) Let the no-brainer plot -- vengeful nerdy brainiac Menlo Schwartzer (arch geek actor Eddie Deezen at his most intolerably spastic) transforms the local chowderhead surfer dudes into white-faced, spiky-haired, black leather-clad garbage-devouring punk zombies by making them drink a dangerously noxious soda -- mindlessly meander all over the place without ever acquiring any focus or momentum.

2) Make sure nothing remotely clever, inspired or interesting is done with the would-be spoofy premise, a dumb, lumbering attempt at sending up both dippy 60's "Beach Party" features and cheesy 70's drive-in horror schlock which suffers from a terminal case of the major league stupids.

3) Pepper the numbskull dialogue with horribly dated "hip" slang ("I was totally tubed") and rusty-eared groan-inducing profanity ("You guys are so full of s**t that your eyes are all brown").

4) Shamefully waste a stellar cast by saddling them not only with shoddy, sub-par material to fight a hopelessly uphill battle with, but also with obnoxious characters to annoyingly overplay: the gorgeous Linda Kerridge as Deezen's hot honey girlfriend, Lyle Waggoner as the blundering killjoy police chief, Ruth Buzzi and Carol Wayne as ditsy moms, Terry Kiser and Biff Manard as comparably fatuous fathers, Cleavon Little as a doltish high school principal, Eric Stoltz and Tom Villard as vapid surfers, and the luscious Corinne Bohrer and the adorable Lucinda Dooling as airhead valley chicks.

5) Similarly squander a first-rate soundtrack loaded with both top-drawer 80's New Wave bands (Oingo Boingo, Wall of Voodoo, the Circle Jerks) and awesome 60's surf-rock nuggets (the Beach Boys, the Ventures, the Chantays, even the great Dick Dale).

6) Have the gratingly idiotic humor center on such dubiously "amusing" topics as eating seaweed, transvestitism, jiggling bare breasts, two fat blimps ravenously noshing on submarine sandwiches covered with seagull poop, frogs racing in slow motion to the rousing "Chariots of Fire" theme, and much, much worse.

7) Direct the film with no faint residual traces of style, wit, energy or ingenuity whatsoever, and the net result of this flagrant misuse of the camera will be a monumental cinematic stiff of unbearably epic el zilcho proportions.