Savage Beach

A typical entry in the Sidaris filmography, Savage Beach features the usual assortment of well-endowed women, goofy villains, and exotic locations, and is simple minded if occasionally violent fun. The highlight of this one is Michael Mikasa's appearance as a World War II Japanese soldier stranded on a remote island--in order to age him, the makeup department seems to have submerged his head in a bowl of collodion. It's not a pretty sight.

Savage Beach is hardly a great departure for director Andy Sidaris, yet another cheezy adventure featuring his stock-in-trade heavily armed, big breasted babes, heroic hunks and despicable bad guys; but although it's still a long way from a work of art, this is perhaps the most enjoyable out of the Sidaris films I've seen so far thanks to a story-line in which a more straightforward adventure takes precedence over the series' usual convoluted espionage nonsense.

The plot sees Taryn and Donna (Hope Marie Carlton and Dona Speir), Molokai's sexiest cargo pilot/drug enforcement agents, take a break from fighting desperate, evil, power-hungry villains to deliver some desperately needed medical supplies to a remote island hospital. On their way home from the drop, the girls run into a violent storm and wind up crashing on a supposedly uninhabited island where they do some naked swimming, construct a hut out of palm leaves, encounter an aged WWII Japanese soldier (sporting the world's worst old-age make-up), and somehow still wind up fighting desperate, evil, power-hungry villains who just happen to be on the island searching for a horde of gold.

In addition to endless shots of the super-buff Carlton and Speir parading around in tight white vests, oh-so-short-shorts and cowboy boots (even when engaging in bouts of unconvincing combat), Savage Beach also offers several other well-endowed babes who are equally obliging when it comes to showing us their wares, a fair few squibtastic bullet hits, some fun kung fu fight scenes, the occasional spot of nookie, plus cult actor Al Leong who, as one of the main goons, shows why he rarely gets given speaking parts.

I rate this trashy nonsense a reasonable 5.5 out of 10—my highest score yet for a Sidaris film—but it's still not good enough for me to warrant rounding it up to 6. Maybe next time, Andy... maybe next time.

I don't want to call writer/director Andy Sidaris a genius but that guy knew what he was doing and he did it well. He took dreamy gals and put them in beautiful locations and made movie magic. "Savage Beach" is another solid entry in his filmography. Of course, I would have never been able to watch Sedaris' movies with my mother. But if I'm looking for a movie with my friends, "Savage Beach" is a perfect choice. Honorable mention: all of the girls.

"Savage Beach" has the most unusual story of the Lethal Ladies series. Instead of an over-equipped investigation with a plan, this is more like an accidental adventure. No Las Vegas night clubs or expensive sports-cars - "Savage Beach" plays on a lonely island where a gold treasure was lost in WW II, yet still guarded by an isolated Japanese soldier. Not a new story (I remember "Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure", 1981), but with Sidaris' attention grabbing techniques (from explosions to boobs) it works great. Our heroines, the two pilots Donna (Dona Speir) and Taryn (H.M. Carlton), make an emergency landing on that island after a storm (another rarity: bad weather in a Sidaris movie). More and more sinister characters arrive to make the island unsafe. Al Leong (who later played the helicopter pilot in "Hard Hunted") gets a good role as a tough bad guy. A situation that stuck to my mind is when the Leatherface samurai frees Taryn and explains later: "I can't kill those eyes again" - what a moment of poetry, folks! Oh, and would you believe a bloke who calls Donna "bimbo" survives the next few seconds? This is the 4th out of 12 Sidaris movies I reviewed (in chronological order), and one should note that after 3 successful pictures which he had financed basically from his personal money, Sidaris was offered a deal about 5 more which kept the Lethal Ladies series going. "Savage Beach" surely was an impressive start for this new... uh... pentalogy!

I'm kind of on a Sidaris Marathon this evening. :)

This is the archtypical B movie with gratuitous use of scantily clad, and occasionally unclad women, but it's so typical that it could be considered maybe to define the genre.

It differs mostly in the actual quality of filming, and actual attractiveness of the women acting from the majority of other B's of its type.

It flows very well, so that you never really start to get bored or lulled. For the most part the scenes either make sense to the plot, and move it along or add a different kind of excitement.

Still, of course, only fans of typical B movies, like the kind that push the R rating a little further than mainstream tends to allow, would want to watch it. If you're into that, you'll find this film to be a bit better than average.