Bikini Party Massacre (2002) User Reviews

"It wasn't a porno film, it was an erotic thriller." Absolutely awful no-budget slasher.

[poolandrews · 2/10 · 18 February 2007]

Bikini Party Massacre starts as six friends, Jeff (writer, producer & director Joseph D. Clark), Jake (Sean Clement), Rick (Phil Jacob who also composed the music), Sandy (Jessica Psaila), Randy (Naomi Vondell) & Mandy (Elizabeth Inns), head off in a people carrier for the isolation & tranquillity of the open country for a weekend away partying in the great outdoors. When they eventually get there they set up some tents & have a great time (even though at this point we, the audience, aren't), well that is until someone or something starts to brutally murder them one-by-one...

Written, starring, produced & directed by Joseph D. Clark & also known under the slightly less exploitative than Bikini Party Massacre title of simply Massacre this is a really bad zero budget shot on a digital camcorder Friday the 13th (1980) backwoods type slasher of which there are already loads anyway & quite frankly Bikini Party Massacre is an unwelcome addition to this popular sub-genre. I mean I love a good slasher, I can name lots of slashers which I like which usually get a really bad press including all the Friday th 13th's, The Burning (1980), Scream (1996) & it's sequels, The Dorm that Dripped Blood (1982), There Was a Little Girl (1981) & The Boogeyman (1980) to name but a few off the top of my head & I like to think I'm experienced in the genre & as far as I'm concerned Bikini Party Massacre is an abomination. For a start it's very slow going, it's over an hour before the first victim is killed. Until that that point the entire film seemed of consist of these six highly annoying teenagers driving along a road talking about nothing in particular & one of them having an encounter with a 'witch' for no apparent reason whatsoever & a couple of bizarre dreams that don't seem to have anything to do with anything else. Once the killing starts it's not much better & the entertainment value stays at roughly zero, the kills are lame & despite it's eye-catchingly exploitative title it's actually rather bloodless & far too tame for my liking. The character's are awful, the dialogue is terrible & for the most part doesn't add to or push the story forward at all. Then there's the unbelievable twist ending, now I have to give the filmmakers a bit of credit here because they try to surprise you with an almost good twist, unfortunately it's so ridiculous & so out of place & implausible that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...

Director Clark does nothing to impress, the exploitation levels are low, it looks like it was shot on a digital camcorder, there's lots of annoying film techniques including blurriness, missing frames, slow motion, colour bleed & all the usual annoying MTV stuff. There's no style, no camera tricks, the locations are bland & as a whole the film is poorly made with little regard to continuity. There's no build-up to the kills, there's no tension & no atmosphere either. The gore & violence is disappointing & is far from the 'massacre' promised in it's title, there's the usual amounts of fake blood squirted around but in terms of proper gore effects & bodily mutilation there's next to nothing. There's a fair amount of naked female breasts on show but this doesn't help much.

The budget for Bikini Party Massacre must have been low & with that comes certain expectations & I'm as prepared as anyone to cut a low budget film some slack but when it's as bad as this... The acting sucks & I hated the music.

Bikini Party Massacre actually had potential to a cool slasher if it hadn't been so boring, if it actually had some proper gore in it & a bit of that 80's slasher film atmosphere because the twist ending if done properly could have been very effective, unfortunately it's none of those things & as it stands it's a load of crap.

C'mon...it's not THAT bad

[sarahphilochick · 4/10 · 5 March 2008]

Yeah, the acting is pretty bad. Yeah, the script might need a little work. Yeah, it was low-budget. And yeah, if I had rented it from Blockbuster, I probably would have been disappointed. However, my copy happens to be in one of those "great" 50-packs, and surrounded by movies far far far worse. It's actually one of the better films. I admit that my review is probably pretty clouded by that fact, but I'd like to explain anyway.

Massacre is a slasher flick, plain and simple. You've got a standard story with 20-somethings on a camping trip. You've got your occasional nudity, your sex scenes (including a "lesbian" scene), and lots and lots of blood. They could have kept it stock and standard and had our unknown-for-most-of-the-film murderer turn out to be an escaped convict, or maybe even the weird homeless guy. But no, they added a nice little twist. And even when we thought we'd gotten our twist, there's another continuation of that twist waiting for us.

In the realm of low-budget slasher flicks? This one was actually pretty good. You just need to know what you are getting in to. And if you are the sort of person that will pick up a horror flick by an unknown director with unknown actors? Well, then my guess is you probably do have some idea what you are getting in to.

Backwoods slasher that should have been better

[milkhole213 · 4/10 · 11 October 2021]

Another movie from the Tomb of Terrors set that I picked at random to watch/review. I'd actually seen this one years ago and while watching it doesn't seem familiar at all. It's a pretty bland slasher with a supernatural slant added to it to make things confusing in addition to cheap and boring. The 73 minute runtime is about right for something like this. The music is poor and often overbearing including an attempt at adding a music video partway into the movie. The kills aren't half bad including a woman hanging from a tree with all 4 limbs being cut off the aftermath looking incredibly fake. Another person is slaughtered with a chainsaw with blood spraying everywhere.

Bikini Party Massacre (the credits bill it as Joseph Clark's Massacre) has ample scenes of people taking a leak in the woods though that one chick could have been dumping. Initially this scares off the guy she's interested but he quickly changes his mind and they hump against a tree. I hope she wiped first. For some reason the two pale chicks don't show their boobs when they are skinny-dipping but have no problem when they are duking it up in a tent. One of the guys interrupts them about to bash them thinking someone is getting killed and they of course invite him to join. Remember guys to always interrupt lesbians during sex as most of them are just secretly craving for a schlong to share. A confusing, cheap kids in the wood slasher that would have been better if it had just played it straight and focused on the gore and boobs.

What a piece of crap!

[Porkchop_Express · 31 March 2004]

First of all...whoever the user *Donald* is, get a life.

This guy must be a cast or crew member... He has posted at least 4 reviews, saying that it's great fun & just as good as "Halloween". I hope this fool is getting paid enough. I won't even go into detail about the film...it sucks!

Horrible acting... Horrible SFX... It's awful! Stay away!!!!

Not Good Bad, Just Bad

[missykat · 1/10 · 10 February 2003]

As all horror fans should, I make it a point to see the good with the bad. This makes me appreciate the good so much more. Besides, sometimes bad is good. Take the hilarious Troma camp "Redneck Zombies". A shining example of how bad can be good. Thoroughly entertaining. But this film, retitled 'Massacre' for its DVD release, is just bad.

We start our story with six twenty-somethings on a road trip. As the trip gets longer the passengers inside the travelling mini-van get sleepy. It's no wonder they're tired, this is the most painfully drawn out sequence in film history. As a matter of fact, I think they threw in the same shot two or three times, to drag it out even more. This isn't suspense people, it's crap. Any first year film student would know better.

After about 15 minutes of this, something happens (finally). A couple of interesting dream sequences with some pretty cool imagery. I thought, 'this film shows promise!' and decide to watch a little longer. I shouldn't have.

When the campers reach their destination one of the dream sequences bleeds over into the storyline a little more, and you think you know where the film is going. Sequences of the cast romping, sunbathing, and teasing go on far too long and lend nothing to the story. We even get a little girl on girl on guy tent shaking. At least the filmakers are staying true to the genre sexually! Oh yeah, and people start to die.

First of all, the packaging material on the DVD promises a gore fest with the 'goriest of all chainsaw sequences in recent history'. Honestly, I should've had a V8. Really. A Bloody Mary the morning after a long night of drinking is gorier. The packaging also compares this movie to 'The Evil Dead', I suppose because this film is also set in the woods and because we see the same shot of a pitchfork travelling at high speed through the woods over and over and over. I mean it, it's the same shot, over and over and over.

Note to director: Storyboards are good. Very good. Have a shot list, use it. Using same shots over and over to fill time? Bad, very bad.

When we finally reach the climax of this horrible little time waster, there's a twist ending that's just not to be believed. Honestly. This ending is so unsupported by the rest of the film that you will literally wince. Did the movie run overbudget? Was there a cast strike? These are the only explanations I can come up with for the insanity of this suicidal ending.

We're led to believe this is a psychologicial thriller of the mind like 'American Psycho', but the director and distributors must have been out of theirs.

Please avoid this film. (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

[m_jordan_jones · 1/10 · 18 July 2005]

There is two reasons why I comment on films. 1. To tell viewers to avoid the film. Even if I helped one person avoid this I will be happy. 2. I recommend the film to particular people. Now let's start with the awful unwatchable film. I don't know what the creators were thinking when they made this hunk of junk. This is the worst horror film I have ever seen and I've seen Terror Toons. Yeah thats right I had more trouble watching this then watching Terror Toons.

Let's start with the opening credits. The opening credits is very cheaply done I could do better my self thats how bad and cheap the credits look. Enough with the credits next I would like to point out the film quality. It was obviously filmed with a camcorder and a cheap camcorder at that. The special effects (if you can call them that) are very badly done sure there's a bunch of blood flying but that doesn't take much. The acting is absolutely terrible and there is no story there what so ever. So please, please avoid this film at all costs. If you want to rent a cheap so bad that it's good film (because this film is so bad that it's bad) then I recommend Uncle Sam or Jack frost.

BAD, BAD, BAD GARBAGE!!!!!!!

[Ophthalamia · 1/10 · 18 March 2003]

This film stinks like no other i have ever seen. This isn't low-budget...it is NO BUDGET!!! The acting is the lame beyond belief. The first half of the movie does nothing but waste time, complete boredom...nothing happens!

The rest of the movie is predictable and just plain moronic. A pre-schooler with a camcorder could make a better horror film than this. AVOID THIS ATROCITY AT ALL COSTS!!!

Low budget, low quality, low interest

[cooper417 · 1/10 · 12 December 2006]

**Contains possible spoilers**

OK I love a good B-movie, but this was awful movie all the way around. It is set in present day 3 guys & 3 girls going on a camping getaway weekend. Stupid things in the movie: None of them have cell phones, one jock guy is wearing Daisy Duke cut-offs, none of the movie takes anything they do into consideration for the next scene, i.e. they go swimming one minute then the next it shows them with dry hair, they chug tequila and beers but never seem drunk.

It starts out with hardly any dialog. The camera work was just bad from start to finish. The interaction with the 6 people on the trip was just so dumb it was kinda funny. The writing was terrible. Then then a couple of the people have some interesting & creepy dreams, that come to mean nothing. Then as they embark on their camping trip, the van runs out of gas. Then what happens?? The driver (who is also the director) doesn't pull out a cell phone, he pulls out an empty gas can from the back of the van, then instead of walking down the road... he walks through a field into the middle of the woods to find gas without saying anything to anyone in the van!!

That's what I would do if I ran out of gas, start walking through the wilderness!! The movie just keeps getting worse and worse. I can only be thankful that I only paid 84 cents to rent this movie.

DO NOT WATCH this movie, I have seen thousands of movies & this is in my TOP 3 WORST MOVIES of all time.

The worst film making and Editing I have ever seen!

[admin-148 · 10/10 · 11 August 2003]

This film is a terrible rip off of every single horror film that ever failed in the first place. God-Awful! A waste of time. An insult to primitive man! The editor must be fresh out of grade school film camp. The effects are so pathetic I honestly thought the video store was playing a joke on me. The make-up looks like ketchup, and the below standard CGI imitation digital graphics could have been done using Microsoft paint. The film is cut worse than my face after shaving with a dull blade. Other than this it is worth renting. Im a bigger loser today because I rented this garbage. If I had stayed home and watched the toilet flush I would be smarter than watching this film. What an insult!

Don't let the name fool you

[Katatonia · 15 January 2003]

Don't let the name "Bikini Party Massacre" fool you into believing this is a Bikini party movie with a horror edge. This movie has nothing to do with bikinis! This has been released as simply "Massacre" on DVD. The funny thing is that the DVD has several extras including a featurette and commentary...wow, anyone who'd waste their time going through all of that garbage must be nuts.

From the look of the box i thought it might be good for a low-budget horror flick. How very, very wrong i was. Now, i like the "so bad they're good" movies (especially horror) but this film is just terrible. I would be surprised if this movie even had a real production budget. I wouldn't even consider this as a "B" movie, more like a "Y" movie.

The film barely clocks in at over an hour and it could have been made in much less than 20 minutes as a short film and been mildly entertaining. The sound recording and mix is really pitiful, you can barely understand the dialogue throughout most of it. The picture is decent, but the lighting and camera angles are usually way off. It appears to be shot on digital video...seems like most of the really lame movies these days are no-budget and shot on the cheap format.

Very slow and boring, i nearly fell asleep. The first 20 minutes are incredibly slow-paced, so much that you may wish to fast-forward ahead. The plot simply goes nowhere and is quite moronic to begin with. We have one woman who was molested by her father and now sees his ghost, so she has sex with almost any man she sees just to make her father's ghost angry? It is incredibly easy to see what's going to happen next. There are no scares or frights to be found.

The gore? I don't know if the director was trying to be funny or what...but the blood in this movie looks like a child was spraying it through a hose onto the victims. Especially the "chainsaw sequence" which seems like pure comedy.

Nudity? There is some (both male and female), the few women in the movie aren't all that great looking. So, if you're looking for a "late-night flick" look elsewhere.

As for the "Sixth Sense-style" ending (which you have to wait over an hour for the movie to make any true sense of), completely stupid and unbelievable.

Avoid this cinematic atrocity by any means necessary!

What did I just watch? Hilarious and gory!

[admin-148 · 10/10 · 26 March 2003]

What did I just watch? This film is definately low budget. However there are some impressive dream sequences and traditional slasher gore scenes. The one liners are hilarious. I walked around campus all weekend using some of the lines to get laughs. This is not an intelligent film. The photography is brutal, but it is more like a movie than the Blair Witch Project. The girls are not that good looking but there are some nudes scenes and the one liners are great. Dont rent this if your looking to be moved. But if you want to get something that is a riot for a bunch of buds, this is great! The chainsaw murder is great. They must of used several hundred gallions of fake blood. And the guys actually get laid for a change. My God! Imagine that! RENT IT! But dont BUY IT!

The greatest horror film of all time!

[admin-148 · 10/10 · 20 May 2003]

This film is comparable to Halloween, The Exorcist and Ben Hur. Simply the finest film ever made by a carbon based lifeform on this world. The acting is particularily great. The storyline is the most original since Gone with the wind. And the effects are like the Matrix. I cant get enough of this truly incredible film. Rent it 1000 times and you still wont be bored!

Simply outrageous fun!!!

[admin-148 · 10/10 · 29 March 2003]

Finally a film which does not need thirty billion dollars to sell an audience. I watched this with a group of friends and we laughed, we screamed and we simply had fun! The technical values are like an old hammer film. There must be a rip off of every classic horror film from the 80's in this picture. If you think you are renting Terms of Endearment than you will be sadly disappointed. But as far as horror films go this was a treat. First of all. Look at the title. I mean if you read this title and than pan it like it was supposed to be a drama - go back to preschool. But if you like low budget horror films with original;ity and the odd cliche done to death (literally). Than you will love this. Some of the performances were better than others. I mean it was obviously made on a shoe string in a rush. BUT - yuo have bikini clad babes running around through the whole film. three different sub-plots, and a ton of gore effects. I was actually impressed with a few of the digital animation sequences. This film will entertain those who have a sense of humour and enjoy scary movies. It has a flair that is very John Carpenter. We have a group of gorgeous people in the New Yourk Pine Barrens partying. mean after I saw this movie, I wanted to go camping. Than you have a chick who seems to be haunted by her father. Another who will sleep with everyone, and a guy who seems to be a little psycho. Of course there are some nude scenes and hilarious jokes. The cinematography is very good. Anyone with any intelligence will realize that they were going for a real Tv look and feel. But this is not Blair Witch Project. It is not shot like a documentary. It is a real movie. I purchased the DVD and discovered it has several extra features as well. Good wholesome gory fun!!!