The Horror of Party Beach is a 1964 American horror film in the beach party genre, directed and co-produced by Del Tenney. The film, described as "a take-off on beach parties and musicals," is considered to be one of the worst films of all time.
Plot[]
Near a small East Coast beach town, a boat dumps a 55-gallon metal drum labeled "Danger Radioactive Waste" into the ocean. The drum opens upon reaching the bottom, releasing its contents upon a sunken ship and a nearby human skeleton. The skeleton is transformed into an aquatic, humanoid monster. The monster immediately ambulates toward the beach, where a dance party featuring The Del-Aires musical group is in progress.
Hank Green, an employee of local scientist Dr. Gavin, attends the beach party with Tina, his girlfriend. They quarrel and Tina leaves him and begins flirting with Mike, the leader of a motorcycle gang, as Hank talks with Dr. Gavin's daughter Elaine. Hank starts a fight with Mike, but ignores Tina afterwards. After also being spurned by Mike, Tina swims to a rock jetty where she is attacked and killed by the monster. Tina's body washes ashore, still covered in blood.
The police enlist Dr. Gavin to help with the investigation and he proposes Carbon-14 tests as a means to investigate the genetic structure of a tissue sample. Elaine confesses to her father her romantic feelings toward Hank. Eulabelle, Dr. Gavin's housekeeper, then suggests that "voodoo" is responsible. Elaine later decides to skip a slumber party. The monster, now joined by additional monsters, subsequently attacks the slumber party, killing over twenty of the attendees.
Later, three female travelers stop to change a flat tire and are attacked and killed by monsters. As Hank and Elaine attend an evening dance party at the beach, one of the monsters stalks two young women who are walking through town. Frustrated when the women are picked up by a passing automobile, the monster attacks female mannequins on display in a storefront window, in the process severing its arm. Dr. Gavin and Hank study the still-living severed arm. Dr. Gavin characterizes the muscle tissue as "a sea anemone, a species of protozoa." Although they cannot devise a way to kill it, Eulabelle accidentally spills a container of metallic sodium on the arm, which kills it. Dr. Gavin thus realizes a chemical method for destroying the monsters: the application of "plain old sodium."
Two drunken men stumbling through town encounter a dead, mutilated man inside a parked truck. Shocked by what they see, one of the drunks is shortly thereafter attacked and killed by the monsters. Following a montage of additional women being attacked and killed, the police initiate unsuccessful searches for the monsters by tracking the latter's trail of radioactive water. As Hank drives to New York City to obtain a supply of metallic sodium, Elaine performs her own search for the monsters at a local quarry, near where the female travelers were killed. Upon learning this, Dr. Gavin rushes off to assist Elaine, bringing a small amount of sodium with him. As Elaine is testing the quarry water, which registers as highly radioactive, she notices the emergence of a monster. She manages to avoid an attack by walking away, but she falls and becomes incapacitated by a bloody leg injury. Dr. Gavin arrives at her side and, by tossing sodium, kills an approaching monster in a fiery explosion. As additional monsters approach, Dr. Gavin engages one of them in extended hand-to-hand combat. Hank then arrives with a large supply of sodium, kills the monster that is attacking Dr. Gavin (in the process badly burning Gavin), and with the assistance of police, destroys the remaining monsters.