If Alfred Hitchcock got together with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, the result would be Psycho Beach Party. A huge hit off-Broadway, the film version contains all the murder and mayhem, plus plenty of beach bunnies, just like the original. Of course, you can’t go into this flick expecting a typical movie. This isn’t high art, pops, it’s high camp. Fifties kitsch, you dig daddy-o? So, go in to have fun and forgive a few awkward transitions and staged feeling scenes. Melodrama gets that way and this is melodrama big time.

The go-go dancing opening sets the tone for this B-movie romp. Things get rolling with a murder at the drive-in and the entrance of police Captain Monica Stark, played with cross-dressing aplomb by writer Charles Busch. Stark wants to get to the bottom of the mayhem and she (he?) suspects none other than perky Florence Forest (Lauren Ambrose), flat-chested and eager to be a woman who instead settles for being “one of the guys.” She gets the Great Kanaka (Thomas Gibson), who only talks in rhyme, to teach her to surf, hoping she’ll win the heart of fellow surf dude and college drop-out Star Cat (Nicholas Brendon).

What no one knows is that Florence has a dark secret. See, she has these awful black-outs when she doesn’t remember where she’s been. Every time she winks out, another murder is committed. Golly gee, could it be? Sorry, you’ll have to watch the film to find out. Along the way, there are twists and turns galore, including a Vertigo-esque finale that adds some real zing.

Director Robert Lee King has captured all the wackiness of the stage play, thanks to Busch’s excellent adaptation of his own work. The script is filled with goofy one-liners like “Some people are born to die” and “You could make a tasty morsel to some wolf.” Through it all, nothing is sacred. There’s a girl in a wheelchair who loves to insult people; I like to call her “the critical cripple”. There’s a Marilyn Monroe-type movie star who thinks she’s “an artiste”, a couple of closet-homosexual surfers and a killer who only picks on people with deformities. So much for political correctness.

It’s the tongue-in-cheek silliness that keeps the ball rolling, plus the fact that these actors are having so much fun. They tear up their roles with such zest that you can’t help but have fun. So, as they say at Disneyland, hold onto your hats and glasses, this here is the wildest ride in the west. Or at least at Sundance. Surf’s up. Dive in.