Welcome to a new review here at B-Movie Enema.

You know… It’s 2025. That means we’re soon a full 80 years since Nazi Germany was bumped off in the incredibly high-stakes game of Real Life Risk. We should feel really good about the concept of a pretty shit ideology like fascism or Nazism is long gone, right? I mean, I’m glad I can lay my head down on my pillow each and every night knowing that, as an American, I will never have to worry about some sort of terrible natural disaster hitting California and leaving it open to still operating Neo Nazi and far-right agitators to run amok. It sure is great to be 80 years removed from those possibilities, right?

What’s this I see in the news and on social media sites everywhere? California is consistently on fire and always open for a possible cataclysmic earthquake… The government is being run by people with fewer scruples than brain cells… The richest man in the world sure looks like he gave a Nazi salute behind a podium featuring the Presidential Seal of the United States of America… There seems to be no real response or much resistance from a pretty damn weak and limp-wristed Democratic Party in the face of this rising tide of extremist policy and pretty bad actors now running the government…

Well, FUCK. Anyway, here’s a review for 1987’s Surf Nazis Must Die.

Surf Nazis Must Die comes from director Peter George and writer Jon Ayre. This was one of only two films George directed, and I’m pretty sure Jon Ayre has to be a fake name playing off of Jane Eyre. There’s not a whole lot of behind the scenes information I have for you here, but I will say this comes to us from Lloyd Kaufman’s beloved Troma Entertainment. Much like most of Troma’s films, this one featured a title that would most definitely stand out on a video store shelf or tickle the fancy of people with a fairly twisted sense of humor.

I mean, let’s be for real here… It’s a Friday night in, I dunno, 1988. You’re cruising the town with your best gal, Susie, and your silly pals who probably have names like Froggy, Jasper, Loretta Lee, and the Fart Master. You’ve had your fun at the local Dairy Queen and now you want to just go back to the Fart Master’s house, go into the basement, take fat rips off Jasper’s bong, and just watch some flick. So, you go to the video store, and you’ve got the entirety of what Hollywood has to offer you available right before your Mister Misty-filled eyes. What are you going to choose? Are you going to choose the 1987 period piece from James Ivory, Maurice, or are you going to pick Surf Nazis Must Die?

Those fat rips aren’t going to get you through Maurice, I’ll tell you that much.

But yeah. This film was really produced by the production company The Institute which was a company co-created by director Peter George. What’s interesting is one of the other co-founders of The Institute is one Robert Tinnell whose credits are fairly interesting. Outside of Surf Nazis Must Die, which he served as producer, he also directed a bit of a cult classic in the form of 1996’s Frankenstein and Me starring Burt Reynolds and Louise Fletcher. That’s beloved by lots of classic movie monster fans because of his meticulous care in recreating some scenes and settings from other beloved horror films. Tinnell also won an MTV Video Music Award for producing Paula Abdul’s breakout video for “Straight Up” which was directed by David Fincher, of all people. For the most part, though, Robert Tinnell is known more recently for being a horror graphic novelist. His brother, Jeffrey, created Allegheny Image Factory which specializes in creating ads for major companies, producing films for both the screen and TV, and publishing graphic novels, which is the publisher for Robert’s horror books.

So, yeah, while Robert Tinnell has always gravitated toward horror, let’s see how he does producing a bad taste comedy featuring Surf Elons… er… I mean Surf NAZIS.

After we get that oh-so-warm-and-fuzzy Troma Team Release screen with Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s names over the city skyline, we get into the serious business. And that serious business is someone talking to some kids about catching waves. One of those kids has clearly spent too much time on X, the Everything App, because he has some very unfortunate war paint on his cheek. I dunno. Maybe he’s just autistic and overly charged up to get lessons on surfing.

I’m sorry for another Elon joke, but come on… fuck that guy and fuck Nazis?

It’s a whole Nazi Youth meeting. The guy giving them lessons asks about where the best waves are found. Some of the kids respond with good surfing locations. Then that guy asks who rules the waves and they first say “Surfers” before changing it up to “Surf Nazis” while thrusting their fists out as if they are speaking at an official White House event.

Goddammit. I’m so way over my quota for talking about the state of affairs in this country and those ruling it.

I should also mention this movie’s credits kick in with the title appearing after the Surf Nazi Youth chant that Surf Nazis rule the beaches. As the credits continue, we see some significant players and hear significant names. The guy speaking to the Surf Nazi Youth is named Adolf becauseofcourseheis. His girlfriend is Eva becauseofcoursesheis. At one point, Eva mentions Mengele… sigh… becauseofcoursethereisaguynamedthat. We also meet Eleanor “Mama” Washington and her son Leroy. Leroy is a cop and she lost her home in the devastating earthquake that led to the situation California is in now with the Surf Nazis.

Now, I love Mama Washington. For one, she’s about over everything. She’s sad and pissed off about losing her house. She’s none too pleased about moving into a retirement home where the nurse speaks overly loud to her as if she’s hard of hearing when she is not. So, she sasses the nurse because, for real, you best respect Mama Washington because she is going to be our great American hero soon.

We also hear news reports about how bad the earthquake was and how the disarray and devastation from the catastrophe have given rise to gang activity and anarchy on the beaches. While Leroy is checking in on a lone oil rig as a security guard during his downtime, he’s told that there’s been trouble. What kind of trouble? Nazi trouble.

This is a really good setup as a whole. While the homebrew Troma films, usually referred to under a banner called “Tromaville”, will tend to be a little lighter in tone and have more gross-out and toilet humor, this movie takes itself pretty seriously as a whole. Set aside the idea of the title referring to Surf Nazis. Set aside the all-too-easy vilification of youth. What this movie does very well is give us exactly what we need to know in an economical way. We have a gang of youths run by a guy named Adolf who is charismatic and is able to recruit younger kids to always have a refreshed group of soldiers. We understand this is not our present as we see a title card stating this is in our near future. We understand that a terrible earthquake has completely destroyed infrastructure in California, especially along the coast. We’re introduced to our future heroine who is just angry, and I think it’s not an accident this hero is an older black lady who has likely seen some shit in her life.

It’s a great setup and I’m ready for Surf Nazi chaos and comeuppance.

At the retirement home, Mama Washington is making friends. She starts a gambling circle through games of 5-Card Stud. When she lights up a cigar, one of the women asks for fresh air to which Mama says she needs to loosen these bitches up. I love Mama Washington. We learn that one of the old ladies had her bag stolen at the beach. That just so happens to be the same beach where Adolf and his Surf Nazis hang out. On that very beach, Adolf proclaims himself the “Führer of the new beach” and they plan a dastardly plot. This is also the same beach where Mama’s son, Leroy, works as a security guard for the oil rig while he’s off duty as a cop.

Adolf calls together all the beach gangs. He says that soon, his Nazi warships will be patrolling the waters off the coast. He wants everyone to come together regardless of their creeds and colors. They need to unite under the swastika to consolidate power so they can do more together than they ever could have separated. At first, one of the other gangs’ leaders says he won’t go along with this and that Adolf will not be able to properly handle the power. He falls in line quickly when one of the Surf Nazis threatens him with a harpoon. Soon after, everyone falls into line.

Aside from Mama Washington, played by Gail Neely, I do want to call out the other main lady in the cast because she had a hell of a career in the types of movies we like around here. Eva is played by Dawn Wildsmith. Not only is she extremely pretty (and in a very dangerous sort of way in this movie in particular), she shot out of a cannon at the start of her career. By 1987, she had already appeared in The Tomb as Anna Conda, Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (in an uncredited role), her husband Fred Olen Ray’s Commando Squad and Cyclone, and this film. After this movie, she then continued working for several more years by appearing in B-Movie Enema alumni Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and Jack-O, as well as Future Force, Alienator, and Empire of the Dark. She had an extensive career in B movies. What makes her so damn good in this isn’t just her obvious physical sexiness, it’s her absolute dedication to reveling in this bonkers role as a cruel mistress within the Surf Nazi gang. I love it and I love her. It’s what makes a movie like this so much fun.

There is something very familiar about this movie within the characters and themes. In some ways, I have to think about the post-apocalyptic types of movies like Mad Max. where the worst of the worst are running wild across this new landscape after this traumatic event. But then we also see groups of gangs like we see in The Warriors. There’s one goon of Adolf’s who is missing a hand and Mengele created this hooked blade for him to wear. In a way, he’s like a Bond goon. In other ways, he reminds me of the droogs from A Clockwork Orange. He wears a white jacket and a bowler hat.

But what I find most interesting is something I’m definitely reminded of that didn’t exist before this film’s release – Point Break. For real… Did Point Break get any inspiration from this movie? When Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Utah is investigating the bank robbery crew that has been discovered to likely be surfers, he first follows a much wilder gang of bad guys who surf. They had lots of Nazi paraphernalia in tattoos and other indications that they were malcontents in society. I suppose it’s possible that there was a certain subset of people in the surfer community who were fans of far-right ideology or anarchy or whatever. It’s certainly possible that the same group would rather turn to crime to get money instead of work because that would take them off the beaches, right? Anyway, it’s also 100% true that if this movie was conceived in the 70s, these gangs would be bikers and not surfers. They are surfers because this is the 80s and surfing was much more popular in terms of American pop culture.

Anyway… Those are just some musings while I watched this movie. Let’s get back to it. Things are about to really pick up now that we’re into the second act.

After visiting his Mama, Leroy says he plans to hit the beach. He is jogging by just when one of the Surf Nazi Youth steals a woman’s purse. Leroy stops the kid and returns the purse, but not before Adolf approaches to try to make excuses for the kid. This is a good scene. Adolf shakes Leroy’s hand but after doing so, he wipes his hand off since Leroy’s a black man and all. After Adolf says some other racist stuff like how Leroy reminds him of a white man he knew but it looked like he fell down the chimney, Leroy throws Adolf to the ground, but Adolf’s guys are there to kill Leroy.

This is a really well-edited scene. Leroy is looking up at the Surf Nazis, realizing he’s fucked, but what we see is the silhouette of Mama arriving to identify his body. Then we get quick cuts of him being slashed by the hook-handed guy. We then go back to Mama over Leroy’s casket in the church, begging Jesus to tell her who did this to him. It’s a really cool sequence that really sets up where we’re headed for the rest of the movie.

What happens that night with the Surf Nazis is also kind of interesting. The gang doesn’t seem all that jazzed about killing a guy. Adolf tries to ease the tension by saying no one is going to miss one black guy (totally didn’t say “black guy”), but everyone seems apprehensive. It’s like they love talking a big game and threatening, but when they actually make good on the threat or go a step further, no one feels good about it. Members of the group are even beginning to show aggression toward each other from within.

The biggest crack within the Surf Nazis comes between Adolf and Mengele, the two closest members at one point. You see, Mengele makes all of the Surf Nazi’s weapons. He made Hook’s, well, hook for his hand. He made a surfboard that had a blade in it. Eva referred to him as an asshole to another member. It’s also quite obvious that Mengele is the actual true believer and the most dangerous person in the group. Adolf and Eva like to threaten and intimidate, but Mengele might actually be capable of doing pretty bad things. If anything else, Adolf is more of a cult leader who likes the attention. Mengele might really like the power.

Speaking of cult charisma, one of the younger members of the Surf Nazis, named Smeg by the group, has been shown making his way into the group more and more throughout the first half of the movie. He’s a little older than the youngest of the Surf Nazi Youth, but he’s not as long in the gang or as old as Adolf, Mengele, and Eva. He’s from a fairly normal middle-class family.

This scene with Smeg (real name Gregory) and his mother is also really smart. It shows how things can kind of spin out of control when it comes to a youth starting to fall down a certain pipeline and the parents refusing to do what needs to be done to snuff it out. Smeg’s mom knows that Adolf is just some other kid from the neighborhood. She knows that Smeg is into this Neo-Nazi bullshit. Instead of shutting it down, she backs off. I don’t know if she’s fearful of him attacking her physically or if she’s just unwilling to be a hard ass when it comes to his wanting to hang out with these losers. She even sends him off with some money when he asks to bum a few bucks and just tells him to be home by dinner. She then ponders the situation after he leaves rather than trying to suss it out directly with him. I imagine this happens A LOT to this day across the country. Parents don’t realize what kids are consuming on YouTube or on various social media sites. Then, by the time the kids’ brains are fully cooked with incredibly anti-social, misogynistic, or possibly even incredibly bigoted opinions, they are way behind and aren’t sure how to fix the issue because they are effectively powerless.

I’m starting to think that Surf Nazis Must Die is way ahead of its time and quite the film.

Speaking of Smeg being an absolute dumbfuck, he tries to impress some girls at the beach by talking about how much power the Nazis have on the surf. He starts telling the story about Leroy being fucked up by them (except he refers to him in a derogatory way). Well, it just so happens that Mama was right there at the beach checking out the coast that Leroy liked to jog along. She overhears him saying this, and she gives him what for.

Next, she sets fire to a bunch of the Surf Nazis’ boards. It’s not just any of their boards. It’s the extra special ones that Mengele built.

In retaliation, the Surf Nazis start taking it out on anyone and everyone at the beach. They start by putting a fisherman upside down under a boardwalk and letting the waves crash over him until his friends cut him down. They start attacking other surfers, even killing several of them. They set fire to buildings. They are now fully on the offensive. In particular, Mengele, Eva, and Hook take quite a bit of pleasure in policing the beach with deadly force. The rest of the gangs on the beach decide they should get together and fight back.

While the Nazis threaten, beat, and kill anyone who goes onto their territory and the other gangs plot their next plans to rid themselves of these goddamn Nazis (something, I might add, we should ALL plan to do too because no one likes the goddamn Nazis), Mama goes to the local pawn shop to buy a gun so she can make good on her own plans. When the shop owner tries offering her a teeny tiny “ladies'” gun, she tells him in no uncertain terms that she wants “a gun that can take the head off a honky at twenty paces.” So, he comes back with a Walther, maybe the perfect gun for her to use against these dumb Nazis.

He also interests Mama in something else he can sell her – hand grenades.

To follow up on the whole Smeg thing from earlier with his mom, after he got fucked up by Mama, he’s more or less removed himself from the Surf Nazi gang. He does know some gnarly shit is headed Adolf’s way. He tries to sneak out after being tucked in by his mom to deliver a warning message to Adolf, but she’s grown a massive pair and intercepts him. Seeing the note he wrote for Adolf, she tears it up saying she thought he was done with all this Adolf shit. So, yeah, see, parents? If you reassert yourselves into your kids’ lives after they’ve started falling down an alt-right rabbit hole, you can whip their little skank asses back into shape!

So, basically, here we are… the climax. All the gangs start mobilizing against the Surf Nazis. Mama has armed herself. Shit’s about to hit all the fans. Or, I suppose, shit’s about to crash all the waves? Meh.

The first casualties in the war against the Surf Nazis are the Japanese Samurai Surfers. They tried to sneak up on Adolf and Eva, but the couple kill two of the guys while Hook killed the third. The Nazis go on the offensive and seek out one of the other groups, the Designer Waves (a group of preppy-looking surfers). At first, it looks like the Designer Waves are going to be a tougher match, but the Nazis wipe them out too.

The primary group that is organizing everyone against the Surf Nazis, the Pipeliners, well, they try to ambush the Surf Nazis at their base, but, yeah, Hook and Mengele like killing and are pretty good at it, and they wipe the Pipeliners out. Mengele even likes the taste of their blood.

Let’s talk about Mengele for a second here because he’s also a highlight of this movie. He’s credited as Michael Sonye, but he’s best known to underground punk rock fans as Dukey Flyswatter from the horror punk band Haunted Garage. Flyswatter would appear in a lot of the same movies I listed off for the lovely Dawn Wildsmith. If he wasn’t IN the films, he did something WITH the films. He also wrote screenplays and composed scores for films around this time. Basically, this film featured a lot of people who would have a major presence in and around Southern California B movies and various underground scenes.

He’s fantastic in this. He plays Mengele with a few different flavors. First, he’s very clearly psychotic. Second, he is just weird and licks blood off his knife or reacts to things going on around him in peculiar ways. Third, he also kind of plays the role slightly gay-coded. He speaks with a slight effeminate tone. He seems mostly uninterested in any women around him in any scene and almost comes off foppish when he polices the beach in that previous segment when the Nazis start to assert themselves more along the coast. It’s a fascinating character and a very good performance.

After a hard-fought day of killing their enemies, what do the Nazis do? Oh, they just build a little bonfire and sit around it quietly sipping Miller High Lifes. The Champagne of Beers!

Just when we’re left to think that these goddamn Nazis have won the turf war, and we watch them sleeping snugly in their little hangout all happy and shit, well, that’s when we see a grenade rolling into their hideout. That grenade stops right next to Hook’s head and explodes. That explosion also kills Mengele. Adolf and Eva escape to chase after who they think is behind this, the biker gang that doesn’t do the surfing, but they are around as one of the many gangs who have taken over after the earthquake.

Eva is right about one thing. She was right that what she heard cruising away from their hideout was indeed a motorcycle. However, she is wrong about who attacked them. Oh yeah, it’s time for Mama to get her revenge!

Mama gets back to the retirement home in time to get her gun before Adolf and Eva arrive to get back at her for blowing up half their remaining gang. The chase away from the retirement home switches vehicles, with Adolf and Eva now on the motorcycle and Mama chasing them in their Nazi-decorated van. The chase leads them to a construction site with pipes and cylinders and shit all over the place.

While Adolf and Eva hide, Mama taunts them by saying she’s his worst fuckin’ nightmare. She says that she helped make all the shitty things that have happened to them happen. She helped get the other gangs to attack and she drove Smeg away. Adolf and Eva eventually try to escape by stealing a couple of surfers’ boards and getting out into the water, but Mama finds a fisherman with a boat she can use to chase after the Surf Nazis. The boat runs into and decapitates Eva. They circle back around to get Adolf but the Nazi throws a dagger killing the fisherman. Mama takes control of the boat and shoots Adolf, injuring him. When she stops to try to find Adolf, he climbs aboard the boat, but she’s ready for him, telling him to “taste some of Mama’s home cookin’!”

This movie rules. It just does. I’m sure it was mostly dismissed in 1987 for its garish title and subject matter and title. Not only that, but most film critics back then were still pretty stuffy and uppity. Also, the taste for these B movies and definite indie/underground/counterculture stuff was just not there at that time. However, I cannot stress enough that this movie rules.

It’s kooky in the right ways, but not over the top. While it is kooky, it’s not exactly a comedy. It takes itself seriously while winking at the audience that it isn’t taking itself too seriously. It has this neat idea of how to present rebellious youth threats in a completely new way. It also touches upon how parents can lose control of kids when they fall in with bad crowds, or, more accurately, bad ideologies.

There are some very fun scenes that fall right in with the Troma stuff of the era while also feeling better crafted than what Troma was made in-house at the time. I think a lot of that is due to more than just the ideas or the way this movie looks and revels in its crazy scenes. It’s all about the compelling performances and characters like Neely’s Mama Washington, Wildsmith’s Eva, and Sonye’s Mengele. These actors are incredibly watchable. What real comedy is in the movie comes from Neely and her vengeful Mama. Whenever any of those three actors were on screen and chewing the scenery with their performances, my eyes were glued to the screen.

I really thought this movie would be relatively low-grade comedy silliness. I really didn’t expect to find this so good. And, yes, I agree with the title. Surf Nazis really MUST die. As for more Troma fun on B-Movie Enema, hang tight for a few weeks because I have a plan for April to be all Troma, and, more specifically, all in-house Tromaville flicks. So, yeah, stay tuned there.

Well, we struck gold this week with this movie. Can we possibly do it again next week? Eh… I dunno. You’ll find out what I was really thinking when I picked next week’s movie, Black Belt Angels, so come back and check it out.

Until then, maybe don’t fall into any surfing Nazi gangs, cool? I don’t want to have to ask Mama Washington to come after you.