SURF NAZIS MUST DIE (1987) – The ideal companion piece to the original Point Break! Rest assured, the Surf Nazis are depicted as the scummy villains they are and that they do get their just desserts in this 83-minute bundle from So Bad It’s Good movie Heaven. Though distributed by the venerable Troma Team, Surf Nazis Must Die was actually produced by the Institute. The film was directed by Peter George and written by George with Jon Ayre.
This post-apocalypse flick is not the typically self-conscious, over-the-top Troma madness that we all love. Its more subdued but still energetically bizarre tone often provokes complaints from hardcore Troma fans who expected something like The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ‘Em High or Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD.
Surf Nazis Must Die is refreshingly played mostly straight – but still howlingly bad – and the actors performers don’t spend their time practically winking at the audience over how absurd the whole thing is. That’s a nice change of pace in this age when there are way too many “look how bad and zany we are” low-budget flicks down on their knees begging for cult status.
Obviously, this Institute production is trying to fit into the post-apocalypse sub-genre of Mad Max imitators from the 1980s. SNMD earns its place with its originality. For one thing, rather than a global cataclysm, the movie is set in the aftermath of a very localized apocalypse – the California coastline has been ravaged by a series of monumental earthquakes. Continue reading
Balladeer's Blog 