So we're talking about a movie where Dana Plato and Ron Jeremy are the best-known actors, which says more than I possibly can about what you are getting into, should you choose to torture yourself with this movie. This "comedy" is so painfully not funny it's actually kind of depressing, but I get a certain sick pleasure from watching really bad movies like this. That said, if you enjoy subjecting yourself to the likes of "Deathrow Gameshow" or "Cool As Ice", then this movie will fill that masochistic void and then some. There isn't a laugh to be had in this thing and, while Dana Plato looks cute, she was clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel by appearing in it. Her male protagonist, on the other hand, looks like a cross between Mark Mothersbaugh and Robert Ginty and is unwatchable, along with his second-generation Urkel wanabe and fifth generation Belushi wanabe cohorts. The T&A is even substandard but kind of fun because they clearly just recruited non-actors from the local community, so you get the nostalgia of looking at non-GMO, prime chest and rump meat without any crap tattoos or piercings like you get now. The overall cheapness of the film provides a nice window in time for the early 90's, which is something I like to see in a cheapo flick, although I'd be willing to bet I won't be saying the same about cheap movies being made right now in 30 years. Watch this thing if you are into self-abuse or need a cheap home lobotomy. If you are looking for laughs and a story line that won't insult the intelligence of an 11-year-old, look elsewhere.
6 Reviews
Even Dana Plato + T&A Can't Save This Movie
andrewobriandunlap27 November 2022
I do actually enjoy movies that are so bad that they're actually good, but this isn't one of them.
None of the scenes are funny, not even the unintentional humor sometimes found in B movies. The acting is bad and the script is much worse. The attempts at witty one liners are embarrassing. The protagonist and his friends are all very obnoxious and uninteresting. The plot is absurd and the story is boring.
The only reasons to consider watching this are the novelty of seeing Dana Plato in a movie, the extremely good looking girls, and perhaps the 1990s nostalgia. Even with those points of interest it's still hard to watch. The acting and storyline in that silly Night Trap video game (also starring Dana Plato) were actually far more entertaining than this.
None of the scenes are funny, not even the unintentional humor sometimes found in B movies. The acting is bad and the script is much worse. The attempts at witty one liners are embarrassing. The protagonist and his friends are all very obnoxious and uninteresting. The plot is absurd and the story is boring.
The only reasons to consider watching this are the novelty of seeing Dana Plato in a movie, the extremely good looking girls, and perhaps the 1990s nostalgia. Even with those points of interest it's still hard to watch. The acting and storyline in that silly Night Trap video game (also starring Dana Plato) were actually far more entertaining than this.
AKA The Sex Puppets
BandSAboutMovies15 September 2023
Warning: Spoilers
According to Dave Wain, on his amazing The Schlock Pit, other than the director, Ron Jeremy and Dana Plato, this movie is totally a University of Miami film school movie.
It's about a bed race - yes, a race with kid race car beds - that Milo (Xavier Barquet), Jaime (Nick Santa Maria), Byrdie (Waverly Hill) and Cheese (Mathew Mark) are trying to win. Luckily, they have a boat pilot by the name of J. D (Plato) who is their ringer.
Speaking of Plato, she was struggling to get her career back on track. She'd appeared in the January 1989 issue of Playboy and this same year she would be in the controversial Sega CD game Night Trap. A year before, she had gone to a Las Vegas video store, pulled out a pellet gun and asked for all the money in the cash register. The clerk called 911 and said, I've just been robbed by the girl who played Kimberly on Diff'rent Strokes." She came back to the scene of the crime - she took $134 - and was arrested. Wayne Newton paid her $13,000 bail, half of which she was able to give back to him with her salary from this movie. Sadly, she would die in her sleep on May 18, 1998. It was thought to be an accidental overdose but later ruled a suicide. The day before, she had a Howard Stern Show appearance where she was lambasted by his callers. Around a decade later, her son would also kill himself.
I won't even talk about Ron Jeremy and his sex pest arrest because this whole thing has been dark enough for a USA Up All Night beach sex movie. Actually, it's all kind of dark, because writer Xavier Barquet - who was also the actor who played Milo - died at 46, way too young, of respiratory failure.
Director Eric Louzil also made Fortress of AmeriKKKa, Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown and Class of Nuke 'Em High 3: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid.
It's about a bed race - yes, a race with kid race car beds - that Milo (Xavier Barquet), Jaime (Nick Santa Maria), Byrdie (Waverly Hill) and Cheese (Mathew Mark) are trying to win. Luckily, they have a boat pilot by the name of J. D (Plato) who is their ringer.
Speaking of Plato, she was struggling to get her career back on track. She'd appeared in the January 1989 issue of Playboy and this same year she would be in the controversial Sega CD game Night Trap. A year before, she had gone to a Las Vegas video store, pulled out a pellet gun and asked for all the money in the cash register. The clerk called 911 and said, I've just been robbed by the girl who played Kimberly on Diff'rent Strokes." She came back to the scene of the crime - she took $134 - and was arrested. Wayne Newton paid her $13,000 bail, half of which she was able to give back to him with her salary from this movie. Sadly, she would die in her sleep on May 18, 1998. It was thought to be an accidental overdose but later ruled a suicide. The day before, she had a Howard Stern Show appearance where she was lambasted by his callers. Around a decade later, her son would also kill himself.
I won't even talk about Ron Jeremy and his sex pest arrest because this whole thing has been dark enough for a USA Up All Night beach sex movie. Actually, it's all kind of dark, because writer Xavier Barquet - who was also the actor who played Milo - died at 46, way too young, of respiratory failure.
Director Eric Louzil also made Fortress of AmeriKKKa, Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown and Class of Nuke 'Em High 3: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid.
Strangely Watchable ... and Starring Dana Plato
Steve_Nyland9 August 2006
Yes, Dana Plato. One of my cohorts unfairly described her as "the white trash Princess Diana of washed up misfit has-been child stars", and believe it or not this video -- awful, insipid, forgettable and utterly obscure -- kind of proves that she actually did have some talent. There are some who might find comedy in stating "Dana Plato is the best thing about BIKINI BEACH RACE" since that would presumably imply that the film has nothing going for it other than the schlock, expoitational effect of her presence in the cast. There is some truth to that sentiment but it is ultimately an unfair conclusion. The film is populated primarily by non-actors who went on and did nothing after wards, and Ms. Plato had already committed her notorious hold-up of a video store before this epic document of humanity would have been there for her to purloin. Too bad: A good copy of these these days would run you about $60 or so, and the only reason of course is that she is in it, and has since died of a tragic drug overdose.
This was about the bottoming out of her career. A step up from armed robbery but still about as far from serious work as you can get next to doing porn, and as a sort of ironic counterpoint to that statement the film's other big name is Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy cast as the sort of bad guy boat racing king of a beach side Malibu community where three schnooks who watched REVENGE OF THE NERDS for inspiration decide to take their big spring break to ogle the babes, drunk lots of beer, and spill things on themselves. There's the geeky black Urkle type guy, the fat party animal lovable slob (who hooks up with a gorgeous blond in the film's funniest scene by jumping into a pool with her while holding a six pack and a sandwich), their pothead former college buddy (living in a gated beach front condo that probably rents for about $20,000/month: yeah, right?) and the likable harmless white suburbanite half nerd hero, who ends up catching Ms. Plato's eye by being super nice, even when covered with motor oil, spilt mayonnaise and pizza toppings.
Ms. Plato plays "J.D.", a poor little rich girl driving a sexy red mustang GT who also happens to be the hottest boat racer on the circuit, who after a couple of Meet Cutes agrees to help the four wieners front for a race of -- get this -- prototype hospital beds down the main strip along the beach. This of course requires Ms. Plato to doff her trendy beachwear shorts & halter tops for a red teddy with matching stockings, which for anyone else who had a serious crush on her when they were 12 & watching "Diff'rent Strokes" will probably consider to be the high point of the film. SHE DOES NOT DO A NUDE SCENE, GUYS, but there is some T&A as the wacky friends stage various pranks, scams and shenanigans like rolling a camera into the girl's locker room to observe the school soccer team showering up.
So it's PORKY'S meets REVENGE OF THE NERDS meets ANIMAL HOUSE meets CADDYSHACK, with a local goon squad of toughs who strangely parade around in pink shirts. The movie has dildo jokes, blow up sex doll jokes, plenty of fat guy jokes, and then a non-stop parade of big haired bikini festooned harlots who obviously missed the feminist Decoding Images of Representation class I took in art school at about the same time the film was made that taught us how to look at art & popular culture and see how it objectifies women into sex objects. All of the women in the film are full-breasted suntanned sex bunnies to be lusted after by the male characters. The only one who doesn't overact is Ron Jeremy, and the only person in the film who displays any kind of genuine talent is Ms. Plato.
In other words here is a cult curios waiting for re-discovery by those of us who were conned into turning our backs on patriarchal male power structures during the 1990s to give women a chance at being equals. It may have worked, but for some reason it looks like the morons in this film are having one heck of a good time. It's also proof of what I like to call the Edward D. Wood Factor of Film-making: This movie may suck the dimpled skin off a golf ball, but it got made. The people behind it actually made a movie and according to the IMDb's own user submitted ratings it came off rather well. My rating is neutral (5/10) since I find it to be more of an exercise in poor taste, right down to the casting of a former child star turned armed felon as the lead role based only on her notoriety. It is exploitation on a different sort of plane, kind of slack-jawed idiocy rather than lurid sleaze, energetic enough to never be genuinely boring and over quickly enough to be easily forgotten. It is disposable entertainment for an era that lived for the moment & discarded it's pop culture stars without thinking twice about it. That the film is actually kind of fun is what surprised me about it, and that Ms. Plato is actually rather good reminded me of what a shame her all too young death was, and what a huge crush I had on her 27 years ago.
5/10: Here's to you, Dana.
This was about the bottoming out of her career. A step up from armed robbery but still about as far from serious work as you can get next to doing porn, and as a sort of ironic counterpoint to that statement the film's other big name is Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy cast as the sort of bad guy boat racing king of a beach side Malibu community where three schnooks who watched REVENGE OF THE NERDS for inspiration decide to take their big spring break to ogle the babes, drunk lots of beer, and spill things on themselves. There's the geeky black Urkle type guy, the fat party animal lovable slob (who hooks up with a gorgeous blond in the film's funniest scene by jumping into a pool with her while holding a six pack and a sandwich), their pothead former college buddy (living in a gated beach front condo that probably rents for about $20,000/month: yeah, right?) and the likable harmless white suburbanite half nerd hero, who ends up catching Ms. Plato's eye by being super nice, even when covered with motor oil, spilt mayonnaise and pizza toppings.
Ms. Plato plays "J.D.", a poor little rich girl driving a sexy red mustang GT who also happens to be the hottest boat racer on the circuit, who after a couple of Meet Cutes agrees to help the four wieners front for a race of -- get this -- prototype hospital beds down the main strip along the beach. This of course requires Ms. Plato to doff her trendy beachwear shorts & halter tops for a red teddy with matching stockings, which for anyone else who had a serious crush on her when they were 12 & watching "Diff'rent Strokes" will probably consider to be the high point of the film. SHE DOES NOT DO A NUDE SCENE, GUYS, but there is some T&A as the wacky friends stage various pranks, scams and shenanigans like rolling a camera into the girl's locker room to observe the school soccer team showering up.
So it's PORKY'S meets REVENGE OF THE NERDS meets ANIMAL HOUSE meets CADDYSHACK, with a local goon squad of toughs who strangely parade around in pink shirts. The movie has dildo jokes, blow up sex doll jokes, plenty of fat guy jokes, and then a non-stop parade of big haired bikini festooned harlots who obviously missed the feminist Decoding Images of Representation class I took in art school at about the same time the film was made that taught us how to look at art & popular culture and see how it objectifies women into sex objects. All of the women in the film are full-breasted suntanned sex bunnies to be lusted after by the male characters. The only one who doesn't overact is Ron Jeremy, and the only person in the film who displays any kind of genuine talent is Ms. Plato.
In other words here is a cult curios waiting for re-discovery by those of us who were conned into turning our backs on patriarchal male power structures during the 1990s to give women a chance at being equals. It may have worked, but for some reason it looks like the morons in this film are having one heck of a good time. It's also proof of what I like to call the Edward D. Wood Factor of Film-making: This movie may suck the dimpled skin off a golf ball, but it got made. The people behind it actually made a movie and according to the IMDb's own user submitted ratings it came off rather well. My rating is neutral (5/10) since I find it to be more of an exercise in poor taste, right down to the casting of a former child star turned armed felon as the lead role based only on her notoriety. It is exploitation on a different sort of plane, kind of slack-jawed idiocy rather than lurid sleaze, energetic enough to never be genuinely boring and over quickly enough to be easily forgotten. It is disposable entertainment for an era that lived for the moment & discarded it's pop culture stars without thinking twice about it. That the film is actually kind of fun is what surprised me about it, and that Ms. Plato is actually rather good reminded me of what a shame her all too young death was, and what a huge crush I had on her 27 years ago.
5/10: Here's to you, Dana.
Bikini Beach Race aka The Sex Puppets
shiny_ny_pvc20 September 2014
This movie aired on USA Network's "Up All Night" hosted by Rhonda Sheer in Sept. 1993, only the title was "The Sex Puppets", not "Bikini Beach Race". On Fri and Sat nights I used to put in a VHS tape, record and watch later and came across this one (actually watching it now 21 years later..I knew I'd eventually find time to watch it...lol). Gotta love those 80s/90s cheesy T&A movies! Since it was released in 1992, they sure didn't waste any time getting it to late night cable television in 1993. I'm curious why it aired under the title "The Sex Puppets" and not "Bikini Beach Race". Why the name change and which is the original title?
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
