What could be a funny, funny, goofy, silly romp in honor to the great 60's B- flick horror beach films becomes a boring and trivial affair long on homage but short on laughs.

This seems a sad state of affairs too because the film is made by Jay Edwards, a director who has created some really funny short films that spoof old 60's pics while also catapulting to fame as a producer of the Adult Swim show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." Here, his knack for imitating the films of Ray Dennis Steckler, Arch Hall, and Ed Wood evoke a love for such movies but no comedy and certainly nothing resembling entertainment.

The film centers on a small Florida town where a creature, soon identified as a "skunk ape" has come ashore and began killing people, terrifying local residents and a traveling all-girl rock'n'roll outfit called The Violas, while perplexing the local yokel law enforcement. Of course, a young, smart, "professor" is brought in to help the police and insists on catching the creature live while the backwards sheriff of the town insists on killing it. It's all pretty familiar stuff. But Edwards, who doesn't seem interested in getting laughs here, plays things much too straight. I mean, the creature is called a skunk ape because he emits a strong odor that the characters on the screen react too. Don't you think it would have been funny to have the ape have a crudely painted giant white stripe down his back? Don't you think it would have been even funnier to spray some sort of foul odor into the theater when the skunk ape appears on screen?

With one exception, the cast is quite lackluster. Claire Bronson is the romantic interest and the lead singer of the all girl band. She looks like Debra Messing's (barely) younger sister yet seems to have far less talent. John Michael Green plays the professor well but where are his horn-rimmed glasses? Like Edwards, he plays it straight here hoping to provoke laughter from the absurdity of the story. It doesn't really work. No, the only person having any fun here and providing any sort of comic relief is Christopher Hines as Bob, the Don Knotts type deputy who is so obviously gay that you can almost here bells ringing every time he comes on screen. Hines is a real cutie and the only person in the film that makes it fun to watch. Sadly, he simply cannot save a sinking ship with only his pure talent, cuteness and the flame of his homosexuality to guide him. (I don't know if Hines is really gay or openly gay but it sure is fun to watch him work here thinking he doesn't seem to care whether we think he is or not. My Gaydar went ding, ding ding.)

"Stomp! Shout! Scream!" could have been a whole hell of a lot of goofy fun. Edwards certainly knows how to make a film and how to pay homage to those wonderful old B-movies of our past. I just wish he would have went for some more inspired goofiness and less of the serious-performance-hoping-to-seem- goofy-because-we-are-taking-it-all-so-serious. That only worked back in the day of hot rods, malt shops and drive-ins.

Notes:

The Violas songs here are performed by a group called Catfight

The opening and closing credits are animated.

The Shangri-Las are mentioned.

A flashbacks in the film appears to be shot on Super 8 while the film itself seems to have been shot on video.

An Executive Producer is Theodora Viola Stafford.

Assistant director Alex Orr plays the cop who dies at the beginning of the film.

Viewed at the Dobie theater in the Egyptian Room during AFF (where the film was having its world premiere) in October of 2005.

Report Card

Script: C

Acting: C

Cinematography\Lighting: C

Special Effects\Make Up: C

Music: B+

Final Grade: C