What happens when you take Mad Max and A Clockwork Orange and throw them into one of those large 1980s Oster blenders? Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Entertainment present Surf Nazis Must Die. Director/writer Peter George dives right into the high tide with water wings a-flapping as he takes an artsy, genre-blending approach to this work that would become his Z-movie masterpiece. It has most definitely become a fan favorite and a midnight-movie cult classic. Something that not many people expected when it was released in 1987.
Buy Surf Nazis Must Die Blu-rayA catastrophic earthquake (which really seems like an afterthought as it’s soon forgotten) rocks California, leaving thousands dead. Now ruthless gangs (mostly consisting of three members) roam the coast selling narcotics and making people miserable. There are the Pipeliners, the Samurai Surfers and the Designer Waves but only one gang will be strong enough to rule them all and that’s the Surf Nazis. A small band of six neo-Nazis, led by “Adolf,” intend to rule with an iron claw and corrupt the local youth with their silly, racist beliefs and hatred for the goofy footed. One day the S.N. kill a young man named Leroy Washington and they quickly learn that he was the wrong person to un-alive as they now have to deal with the fury of Leroy’s mother, Mama Washington (Gail Neely, who totally stole the show). She ain’t messing around with these “honkies” as she buys a gun and sets off on a motorcycle to avenge the (off screen) death of her son. Make sure to stick around for the end credits where you can learn the gang names and read the silly nicknames of their members highlighted by the Designer Waves crew of Curl, Blow and Dry.
Filmed on the Southern California beaches of Huntington, Long, and Sunset, Surf Nazis Must Die is fun to watch for its goofball aspects. Especially intriguing if one knows those beaches and/or doesn’t expect too much at all while watching. I myself hadn’t seen it since the 1980s VHS days and only recall it being legendarily bad. It didn’t disappoint. Knowing now what I do about Troma movies, I totally expected the low-grade, tongue-in-cheek, goofball humor and gore more than any real horror elements.
Clearly inspired by movies such as The Warriors, A Clockwork Orange, and Mad Max, Surf Nazis is definitely more art house than house of horror and the 1980s nudity and gore are at an absolute minimum aside from its infamous decapitation scene. The lack of boobs and gore isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it could have helped this little magnum opus along as it tends to drag a bit and this is the fully restored 83 minute version. There are some really artsy long shots of the big Hawaiian waves and legit surfers (in mismatched costumes that don’t quite match those worn in the movie) used to ride them.
The “Gnarly Special Features” for this edition of Surf Nazis Must Die are numerous. Some are goofy good while others are out of place and seem thrown in because they are part of the Troma catalog and need a place to be shown. There are also some very short interviews with George and producer Robin Tinell. The thrown-in bits include “public service announcement” segments form the short lived Troma’s Edge TV show and are really just strippers doing their things against a wacky background of some news/current event spoof from 20 years ago. Perhaps those segments were added because the movie itself lacked naked women gyrating around?
Serving as audio commentary is an episode of the podcast The Projection Booth hosted by Mike White that features an interview with George. The podcast does indeed provide some entertaining insight into the making of the movie including how George got the idea as well as revealing how goofy George himself is. The audio commentary also has some fun facts about the career of Gail Neely and the TV commercials she went on to star in and the minor roles she played in major movies like The Naked Gun 2 ½ .
Surf Nazis Must Die is super silly fun for what it is, a Z-grade low-budget movie. It was nowhere near as gory as I recall (that end scene is just funny) but then again I mostly remember the VHS artwork which is different from this Blu-ray issue. What this Blu-ray release from Team Troma does have is the cleanest presentation of the film as we’re likely to ever get of this cult classic.
