Stomp! Shout! Scream! (2006)--***1/2

What a joy it is to watch Stomp! Shout! Scream! Or better yet, what a joy it is to listen to Stomp! Shout! Scream! The film has a rock & roll soundtrack that captures more perfectly than even the filmmaking a period in B-movie history that director Jay Edwards undoubtedly enjoys.

Stomp! Shout! Scream! is a genuine homage to the American International Pictures films of the 1960s right down to the low-budget filmmaking (which I imagine helps considerably if you are an indie filmmaker). The film, often with its songs, also serves as a pitch perfect send up of the sexual innuendo laced beach party films. It’s not surprising that Edwards’ urge to pay tribute to those films makes the parody seemed toned down. But when you have an all-girl garage band singing a song about STDs, who really cares?

The Violas don’t always sing about what they caught on their summer vacation. Most of the time, the rockers are telling girls to Back Off My Baby. That’s the single that needs to get airplay in order to get the group out of the beach party tour that they were doing when they got stuck in Merriville Island.

But the girls weren’t the only people, or um, things, to made an unexpected stop on the island. A hurricane washes a skunk ape nest up on the Merriville beach, which forces the local officials to call in biologist John Patterson (Jonathan Michael Green). John’s charge is to find the skunk ape (Florida’s Bigfoot) before it attacks any more islanders, while at the same time trying to win over Violas lead singer Jody (Cynthia Evans). The problem with that is Jody has already fallen for the Merriville mechanic Hector (Travis Young).

I think it’s that last part I like best. While searching for a Bigfoot and trying to save the island, a PhD loses the girl to a mechanic. Low culture wins out (mostly). There’s no denying that people would qualify AIP movies as low art, so it’s important that Jay Edwards embraces that ideal.

From the retro-credit sequence to the cheeky rock songs, Stomp is something delicious on a purely first look basis. It’s successful in making someone with limited experience with beach party films seek out more films in the genre.

With the exception of a few actors who miss their marks as period performers, Edwards film is a Down with Love style throwback that unlike Down with Love hits the right notes. There is more of a fondness for and an understanding of the genre and not just a meticulous research of it.

Of course Stomp! Shout! Scream! may just feel less meticulous because it was newer to me than a sex comedy send up. Down with Love felt like it was trying to be high art, which the sex comedies could never claim to be. Edwards is making a B-movie here and he succeeds where even B-movie makers like Tim Burton have failed. It’s not an A-list B-movie wannabe or a big budget B-movie. It’s a B-movie without the bells and whistles of a Tarantino film. What’s not to love about that?

Stomp! Shout! Scream! will screen as part of the Eerie Horror Film Festival on Friday, October 6, 2006 at 4 p.m. in the Erie Playhouse.