"Cannibal Ferox" writer & director Umberto Lenzi appropriated the spring break beach movies, the slasher movie, and the murderous animal movie and came up with the imaginative but ghoulish Welcome to Spring Break. Students arrive in Manatee Beach by the hundreds to party hardy, and a collegiate footballer Skip (Nicolas De Toth of "The Stuff") and his best friend Ronnie (Rawley Valverde of "Made in America") are among those who have come in search of booze and babes. At the beginning of the movie, the local authorities electrocute an unsavory biker for the murder of a teenager. As it turns out, the notorious biker did not kill the girl. Sleazy Police Chief Strycher framed the biker for the murder at the insistence of the paranoid mayor who did not want the town to acquire a bad reputation that might dissuade spring break students from populating their sunny beaches. Although they fried him in the electric chair, Diablo (Tony Bolano of "Invasion U.S.A.") appears to return in a snazzy leather outfit with a special motorcycle decked out with equipment that enables the driver to electrocute his passenger. The mayor wonders if the spirit of Diablo is not wrecking revenge on the town for his death. It seems that the body was stolen from the cemetery. Indeed, this string of unsolved murders is just what the local authorities do not want in the headlines because it will do for their tourist industry what the shark in Jaws did to that resort community. The hero is a brooding football quarterback who botched a championship game so his brain is not entirely into beer and babes. Later, after Chief Strycher (John Saxon of "Enter the Dragon") has run him out of town, Skip teams up with Gail (Sarah Buxton of "Today You Die") to learn who really committed all the murders. Gail earns her living as a bartender at a local bar. She is not the typical bimbo type. Initially, Skip suspects that a biker gang called the Demons may have been responsible for the murder of Ronnie. One of the biker chicks wears a medallion around her neck that belonged to Ronnie. Eventually, Skip discovers the body of his best friend hidden and the Strycher surprises him and orders him to get out of town.
Lenzi does not spare anything on the murders. The killings are particularly gruesome. One girl has her head burned off, while other is electrocuted while riding on a motorcycle. The biggest stars appear in the supporting cast (though their names are billed above the title. Umberto Lenzi adopts the pseudonym of Harry Kilpatrick, but he need not have concealed his identity because Welcome to Spring Break qualifies as an above-average whodunit. John Saxon delivers the best performance, while A-Team co-star Lance Le Gault will surprise everybody with his man-of-the-cloth performance. Michael Parks plays an alcoholic coroner, but he gets lost in all the mayhem. There are moments when Lenzi develops what could be called a Robert Altman ensemble. Principally, we have a kid who stages death scenes, another kid who snatches purses, and an appealing hooker who claims to be earning money to pay for her college tuition. Lenzi scatters this characters throughout the narrative for maximum impact. Clocking in at 90 minutes, Welcome to Spring Break is not the best Lenzi movie, but it boasts a mystery, a genuine surprise, red herrings galore and several interesting characters.
Lenzi does not spare anything on the murders. The killings are particularly gruesome. One girl has her head burned off, while other is electrocuted while riding on a motorcycle. The biggest stars appear in the supporting cast (though their names are billed above the title. Umberto Lenzi adopts the pseudonym of Harry Kilpatrick, but he need not have concealed his identity because Welcome to Spring Break qualifies as an above-average whodunit. John Saxon delivers the best performance, while A-Team co-star Lance Le Gault will surprise everybody with his man-of-the-cloth performance. Michael Parks plays an alcoholic coroner, but he gets lost in all the mayhem. There are moments when Lenzi develops what could be called a Robert Altman ensemble. Principally, we have a kid who stages death scenes, another kid who snatches purses, and an appealing hooker who claims to be earning money to pay for her college tuition. Lenzi scatters this characters throughout the narrative for maximum impact. Clocking in at 90 minutes, Welcome to Spring Break is not the best Lenzi movie, but it boasts a mystery, a genuine surprise, red herrings galore and several interesting characters.