Campy playwright Charles Busch’s screenwriting debut is – surprise – great campy, B-movie fun.  Psycho Beach Party is a funny murder mystery decorated with surf music, cars with fins, poodle skirts, drive-ins, luaus and split personality disorder.  The film’s eclectic cast literally has something for everyone.

The cherubic Lauren Ambrose (Can’t Hardly Wait) stars as Florence Forrest, an underdeveloped teenage girl from Malibu who is worried that something is wrong with her because she doesn’t like boys.  Despite all of the reassurances from her family’s Swedish exchange student Lars (Matt Keeslar, Scream 3), Florence is perpetually down in the dumps.

One day at the beach, Florence notices some buff whitecap riders and develops an interest in surfing.  But her wide-eyed eagerness is met with resistance from the boys, who point out that “girls can’t surf.”  Luckily, Florence befriends the Great Kanaka (Thomas Gibson, Dharma & Greg) the local surf guru (who talks in rhyme) and, before long, she’s hanging ten with the best of them.  She even begins to get close with a surfer named Starcat (Nicholas Brendon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

On a more disturbing note, Florence has a bit of an alter ego problem.  It seems that whenever she sees something circular, her personality changes from squaresville into an acid-tongued sexpot.  And to make matters worse, every time Florence becomes Ann, a grisly murder occurs.  Throw in a haunted beach house, guys rolling around in the sand and a butch police captain (played by Busch), and you’ve got a pretty smart whodunit.

Directed by Robert Lee King (Boys Life), Party is entertaining, tongue-in-cheek fun that’s real cool, daddy-o.  Dig?  Good.

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