Beach Fever has Kato Kaelin as a beach bum who meets Sake, a Japanese immigrant who is as many bad Asian stereotype jokes as you can imagine. He and Kato team up to find out definitively how to hook up with women, and in the process Kato meets a nice girl, Sandy, and Sandy has a younger brother who likes to run experiments. One of his inventions is a cologne that makes women unable to control their lust for the wearer. When a pimp and a muscle head get wind of this, they capture the brother, make him whip up some of the formula, and the pimp uses it to make women work the street for him. Can Kato and Sake find them and stop them in time?
Seldom are things worth the wait, and this was one of those ones that wasn't, but just the same, it was so all over the place that it was at least enjoyable as a bad movie to some extent. The dialog was a mess the place, sometimes people talked over each other; we'd have musical interludes when you least expect them, with women singing on the beach; and sometimes the film just didn't make any sense. It was like someone asked ChatGPT to make an 80s Beach Romp with Kato Kaelin in it, plus bad Asian stereotypes, and the Spanish Fly trope, and this is what we got. The other issue of course is how gross and outdated the Spanish Fly thing is--it's essentially normalizing and making light of removing consent, kind of the way Romantic Comedies often normalize and make light of stalking. There isn't a gun or another form of force, nor is there anything slipped into a drink, but the Spanish Fly is coercion nonetheless, as the women don't have any say in who they're hooking up with. By the same token, as problematic as that part of the film is, the Kato Kaelin element combined with how low quality this is does make it an odd entry in any beach romp marathon you might have.
Here is the story around this film for me, and it may be one you've heard me tell before. In the late-90s I was looking through the TV Guide for what films were going to be on Up All Night that weekend, and I saw this listed, along with Kato Kaelin's name, in the 3am block. Watching it might have been enough, but I need to have it, the only problem was, we had a really cheap VCR that only went up to like 13 channels, so to record anything on cable, like on the USA Network that was in the 30s, we'd need to hook the cable box up to the VCR, and turn the VCR to channel 3 to run the cable box through it. What this meant was we couldn't program it, or if we did, the cable box needed to stay on the channel we wanted to record. I figured, 3am, I was fine, no one in my family would be watching TV at that time. On the contrary, I got up at 4:30 to see how it was doing, and found my dad watching Headline News. That was back when Headline News was just a 30-minute version of CNN that ran on a loop, and he would watch the same news stories over and over. I was heartbroken, but there was no way to tell teenage Matt that 25 years later there'd be this thing called YouTube where people would upload movies like this, or that the myriad ones he did tape would either be taking up space in a landfill, or taking up space in bins in his parents' basement. So here I am at 44 making good on the disappointment that teenage Matt endured.
You may notice that the Kato Kaelin tag has more than just this film. That's because when I looked at his IMDb bio, I discovered he'd been in two films we've reviewed, Cyborg 3 and Revamped. Not only that, but he did extras casting for Bad Blood aka Viper and Red Sun Rising. The Kato Kaelin aspect of the OJ trial was one of the more fascinating of the whole thing. Professional House Guest, trips to McDonald's in the Bentley, this mop of Gen X hair combined with the Gen X blank look on his face while on the stand--though I discovered on IMDb that he was born in '59, so he was the one teaching Gen Xers to look like that! The idea that that guy was in a movie that was on Up All Night was too fantastic for words at that time, but now, almost 30 years from the Bronco Chase, it all existed in a different time, a time where we put tapes in big box-like devices and recorded things off of TV on them, a time when USA showed things other than Law and Order reruns and Fast and Furious movies. A time where a guy like Kato Kaelin can be a star just by being a professional house guest to the right famous double-murderer. He was viral before we had the term, no vocal fry or up-talk, no unboxing videos or selfies, just him on the stand looking like someone off the cast of Singles. It's kind of American Dream-ish, right down to the double homicide.
The 3am block of USA Up All Night was a bastion of fascinating cinema, and even without Kato Kaelin, this was exactly the kind of film you'd see there. Another one I remember was Kill, Kill, Overkill, aka Twisted Fate, a schlock fest directed by the late Donald G. Jackson, who was best known for Hell Comes to Frogtown. We also had Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. In middle school and early in high school, before I discovered alcohol, it was usually sleepovers or a Saturday night by myself, and I'd usually be fading during the 1am block, and may wake up in the middle of the 3am film. Later when I'd drink on the weekends, it was making sense of what I was seeing on the screen while the room was spinning. If it was anything good, I'd need to track down the TV Guide to see what it was, and that was if the TV Guide had the correct listing. But then, how would you find that movie again to watch the whole thing? Video stores often didn't have these, they were too obscure even for them. And even if they did, how would you ask for Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death? Bikini Carwash or Vice Academy made sense, they littered the comedy sections, and the guy with the ponytail behind the counter would wink at you when you rented them; but "hey, do you have this beach movie that has Kato Kaelin in it?" would get you first a "do you mean the OJ guy?" and then a shake of the head with a dismissive laugh followed by a "no way man." But it was something we had, whether it was Up All Night, or the 3am movies on Comedy Central--where I saw another Bill Maher classic, Pizza Man, which I found in a bin at my parents' with the label "Matt's stupid Pizza Guy movie" on it, written by one of my siblings who at one time had been going through all the tapes we had to see what was on them--or the 2am block on TBS, after Road House was done, which was usually a nice Andy Sidaris flick. Now we have all of these films at our finger tips to watch whenever we want, which is nice, but it was also fun back then not knowing what we would get if we were up that late.
Finally, what milestone post would be complete without me making a McDonald's reference, but look at what the kid is making: it's a Shamrock Shake! I just happened to be up in New England for St. Patrick's Day this year, and made sure I got one. I remember during the Pandemic, St. Patrick's Day 2020 was right when things were the worst, we had lockdowns, people cheered for nurses instead of attacking them and shouting inane conspiracy theories at them, and we sprayed our packages with Lysol--not those packages, the ones from Amazon--anyway, at that time, going to McDonald's was out of the question, so I got the stuff to make my own Shamrock Shakes, and they were actually better. The thing is though, while they take more work to make on my own, we're also in a bit of a McDonald's desert post-Pandemic, with all of the Center City, Philadelphia McDonald's closed, and us without a car I'd have to take a bus or walk ten blocks to get to one--and that's not the most fun 10-block walk either. All that to say, if they don't open any new McDonald's between now and next St. Patrick's Day, I'll be like this young man here, mixing my own Shamrock Shake.
And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can either watch this on YouTube, or you may be able to find the DVD version that has a picture from Kaelin testifying at the OJ trial on it. I'm not kidding, it exists, there's a picture on IMDb, it's pretty fantastic. And with this being a milestone post, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank all of you for your support. We started this thing back in 2007, and I had no idea what it would be, but now, despite a four-year hiatus, we're still going strong, so here's to 1200 more!
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092624
And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
No comments:
Post a Comment