Muerte en la Playa (Spanish) [Death On The Beach]

This is a film from the early 90s and that context really does matter when you sit down to watch it. For its time, it was probably pretty talked about. It's a murder mystery erotic thriller that manages to be dramatic and completely ridiculous at the same time, and the absurdity of it genuinely made me laugh a few times before I had to remind myself that logic wasn't exactly a priority for filmmakers back then. The main character David is seriously messed up and genuinely mean, but you still end up feeling sorry for him because he's clearly a victim of sexual abuse who never dealt with any of it and just takes all that pain out on everyone around him in the worst ways imaginable.

The film opens with a naked man being murdered in pretty brutal fashion. Then we meet David, a young guy who's just left boarding school following a teacher's death, which is almost certainly the killing we just watched. He shows up at his wealthy mother's gorgeous oceanfront house to spend time with her and her boyfriend Paul. Both of them keep pushing David to socialize with girls and make friends, but he wants nothing to do with any of it. Paul figures out pretty quickly that David is gay, while the mother just refuses to see it. David starts hanging around a couple of hippie guys, which already makes his mother and Paul uncomfortable, and when those guys start demanding money from him and mock him for being in denial about his sexuality, he shoves them to their deaths. Paul becomes convinced David is behind those deaths but the mother stays completely oblivious. David then gets friendly with Tony and his girlfriend, who are visiting for a vacation. There's an obvious chemistry between David and Tony, and David even manages to get Tony alone for a bit. Paul takes the opportunity to film them together as evidence to show the mother. When David finds out Tony was part of the setup, he kills him too and frames the family's deaf and mute servant for it. The mother comes back and simply cannot bring herself to believe that David has been behind all of it, just to keep his sexuality buried. The servant eventually escapes from jail, comes back to the house, and kills David, leaving his mother completely alone.

The film takes place almost entirely either in a swimming pool or at the ocean, and I think this might genuinely have the highest concentration of men in tiny speedos I have ever seen in any film. David is basically in a bikini swimsuit for the whole runtime and so is every other guy on screen, and it is relentlessly homoerotic throughout. If this had been made five to ten years later in the US, it would have been filed straight under gay sleaze or slasher territory, with full nudity, shower scenes and a camera that clearly can't stop staring. You're really not supposed to engage your brain here. David would genuinely rather kill people than admit who he is. The mother keeps talking about money and work but is never actually doing either, just drinking and swimming. Paul is interesting in a weird way because he does seem to genuinely want the mother to see David clearly, but everything he does about it is questionable at best. The film is probably a little less trashy and a little less thrilling than I might be making it sound, but it's got that full 90s charm going for it, sun drenched beaches packed with speedos, some decent kills, a bit of full frontal male nudity and enough sleaze to keep things entertaining. I went in with zero expectations and it never once bored me. Worth watching for the silliness and the erotic weirdness of it all. (5.5/10)