Stacy (Taya Parker) brings her gals pals up to her beach house for a girls’ weekend. They are surprised to find her sister is already there shooting a horror movie. While they make the best of the situation, her psycho ex-husband (Ryan Izay) gets released from prison and comes looking for her.
The best thing I can say about Beach Massacre at Kill Devil Hills is that it features a good amount of mid-tier low budget Scream Queens doing their thing. Elissa Dowling, Sarah French, Dawna Lee Heising, and Diana Prince (AKA: Darcy the Mail Girl from Joe Bob Briggs) are all present and accounted for. Unfortunately, the movie never takes full advantage of their talents. The only one who comes close to being utilized properly is Prince, whose nude scenes are either obscured by a stupid shower door or cut to ribbons by the editor. I’m not saying more nudity could’ve saved this shit show, but it could’ve made it go down a little smoother.
At ninety-nine minutes, it’s also way too long. The film suffers from long driving scenes, black and white domestic violence flashbacks, and Lifetime Movie of the Week scenes of women talking about abusive relationships. What’s worse is that no one gets killed until the hour mark. Until then, it’s like being stuck at a beach house with people you can’t stand.
Beach Massacre at Kill Devil Hills is also hampered by some wonky editing too. There are jump cuts here that are so severe I momentarily thought the internet was cutting out on my smart TV. We also have to suffer through inexplicable slow-motion scenes, dramatic scenes where the music drowns out the dialogue (which might not be a problem, depending on how you look at it), and scenes that are repeated. I swear, the editor must’ve had narcolepsy or something. In fact, it often feels like you’re watching an assembly cut of all the footage that was shot as some scenes run on forever, while others are filled with more random jump cuts than your average influencer video on Instagram.
Also, at the risk of spoiling things, it almost seemed like overkill having two separate sets of killers. “Overkill” is usually a good thing in a movie with the word “Massacre” in the title, but that’s unfortunately not the case here. One duo or the other would’ve sufficed. Either that or have one pair of killers go after the characters and send the other duo after the editor.
AKA: You Found Me.
I thought this one was OK.
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