Rogue Cinema - Bikini Bloodbath (2007)

Bikini Bloodbath (2007) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Tuesday, January 01 @ Mountain Standard Time by Duane

Whereas the film Hatchet billed itself as old school American horror, the makers of Bikini Bloodbath have stated that they're trying to bring the fun and feel of 80's slasher flicks to their series of films. The question is, did they do that?

First, let's cover what the movie's about. Basically, it's about two groups of high school seniors having parties right before graduation. One group, the girls, is full of bisexual volleyball girls who have about two braincells that they keep passing around the group to each other when one of them needs to tie their shoes. They have a lesbian coach played by Debbie Rochon, who doesn't actually make it to the girls party since she ends up dead early on in the film. Then we have a group of football players all but two of which are bisexual, but are more likely about 90% gay and seem to be equally as brainless as the girls. Their coach, who plays for the same team as them, if you get my meaning, does make it to their party. The two players who aren't so gay, or are in any case in some sort of denial about it, leave the boys party and end up over at the girls party, which of course is also where another uninvited guest shows up. The killer. Add into this mix a nerdy girl, who aside from being the least popular girl in the film and someone who wasn't invited to either party, which is pointed out to her repeatedly when she shows up at the girls party trying to escape from the killer. Fortunately for her, despite them making her up as the nerdy girl, she also happens to be the hottest girl in the film and the only one with any brains.

I'm not going to lie here. This film had a LOT of problems. Despite those problems though, it had a lot of great things about it. Rather than go into some long winded review, I think in this case I'll just make two lists, one each of the film's successes and failures. The list of failures is going to look a lot longer because I'm going to be a lot more detailed about the failures so that hopefully they can be avoided in future films. Please don't assume that I was more detailed on those for any reason other than that.

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Where this film succeeded:

This film was a lot of fun. It really did capture the fun of the 80's horror flicks, just as the film makers had intended.

The film was full of hot, brainless girls, just as any slasher flick worth it's salt should be.

The characters were for the most part people you wanted to see die. The only exception to this was the hot nerdy girl, but she ended up dead anyway unfortunately.

The killer was a rather amusing French chef, complete with the outfit and chef's hat. It was a fun choice of character to have as the killer.

The humor worked. The film is rather amusing throughout, with some particularly funny moments.

Technically, the film had the general look and feel of a cheap 80's slasher flick.

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Where this film failed:

The music. This film suffered from the same problem as Blood Feast 2. Completely obnoxious overuse of heavy and inappropriate rock music throughout the film. The mood of the film and any tension it could have had was completely ruined by the insanely overused and obnoxious rock music that seemed to be permeating about 90% of the scenes in this film. It also walked on the dialogue a lot, which is a cardinal sin in my book. If I had wanted to watch music videos, I'd watch music videos. I wanted to watch a slasher flick. Hopefully in their future films they'll severely limit the use of the loud rock music and use themed, film style, tension building and more appropriate music, and only to the point that it's needed. Not every second of screen time needs to be filled with music.

The killer. While the character was cool, all we were treated to was him running around chopping people up. It never explained who he was or why he was doing it or what he was doing with the body parts that he was cutting off of people. There was a LOT that could have been added to the story had they just focused more on the characterization of the killer.

Way too much time wasted on the parties. The scenes of both the boy's and the girl's parties were just interminably long and pointless. Naturally there has to be some scenes of the parties in there to build the body of the film. Not only were those scenes excessive and pointless, but at times I almost forgot I was watching a slasher flick. That's how long things went in between bits of action because of the excessive party scenes.

The whole thing with the boys party, while amusing, was completely unnecessary because nothing at all happened at their party with regards to the actual story of the killer running around killing people. Two guys actually had to leave the party to get involved in the storyline with the killer. That's how pointless it was, and yet the film kept going back to it.

Debbie Rochon was under utilized as the lesbian volleyball coach. She was killed early on and rather easily by the killer and didn't even put up a fight. She could have been a really cool part of this film had they taken more advantage of her character's potential.

The only person in the film that you could actually like and care about, Suzy the nerd girl, ends up dead in a really stupid way. Come on guys, she was hot and likeable. at least you could have let her go out with a good fight.

Lastly, there could have been a lot more gore. I realize that making a throat slashing look good takes some work with prosthetics and what not, but even if there had just been a lot more blood it would have looked a lot cooler. It seemed like the blood and gore effects were skimped on a lot in this film.

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Now, with that all said, where does the movie stand? Did they succeed in what they were trying to do? I can safely say yes to that question, but while I do believe they succeeded in their efforts, there were a lot of problems with this film as mentioned above that I hope they'll take to heart and consider when they're making their future films.

They did manage to give their film the feel and the fun of the old 80's slasher flicks, which is a great thing. So many times nowadays films try to be all hard and or gory and forget the fun. How many times can you watch a film like Hostel or Saw? Don't they get old after a while? Where's the fun? This film has the fun, and I have confidence that with each successive film in this series, that fun will grow and lessons will be learned and every film will be better than the one before it. This film, despite its problems, was a great start. If you're looking for a film full of stupid fun and you enjoy those old 80's slasher flicks, you'll definitely want to check this one out.

If you'd like to find out more about this film, you can check out the Blood Bath Pictures website at http://www.bloodbathpictures.com.