I watched Stomp! Shout! Scream!. Twice. The first time I watched it in a movie theater with brew in hand. The second time I watched it at home on DVD. I recommend the former over the latter. That right there should tell you a lot about this movie.

Grab some brews, some friends, and pop this movie into your DVD player. Better yet, get wasted with your friends and watch it outside, projected onto a sheet. But for optimum viewing pleasure, watch it during the summer, wasted, with friends, at the beach, and projected onto a sheet, at night! Oh no. Now you've done it. You set up the perfect Stomp! Shout! Scream! viewing experience, and you've become a part of it's B-movie, kitschy as hell, beach party/rock n' roll/monster world.

I've never written a movie review. Ehem.

This quirky independent flick is the brainchild of Jay Wade Edwards, who achieved worldwide fame and fortune as the editor of Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The movie looks beautiful, with colors virtually popping off the screen thanks to cinematographer Evan Lieberman. The catchy tunes from little-known modern Garage bands help give the movie an original 60s feel. Of special note is the Atlanta/Athens based all-girl band Catfight!, who wrote original songs for the movie's fictional band, The Violas. The acting is right on, with the two standouts being Jonathan Michael Green as know-it-all scientist John Patterson, and Christopher Hines as the very funny Deputy Bob.

For those of us that weren't around during the beach party rock n roll movie craze, Stomp! Shout! Scream! can best be described as a Scooby Doo episode sans Scooby but avec beacoup Doo, 60s hair doo, that is. It has the required small town, group of young kids, and a crime to be solved. I almost expected the villain to pull off a mask at the end and curse the darn kids.

So what the jizz is it all about? An all girl rock band, The Violas, are on tour when their van breaks down in a small southern beach town that is being terrorized by the Skunk Ape, Florida's version of Bigfoot. The 1960s town is complete with death, corky romance, rock n roll, and of course the local police force, with their very own disgruntled, arrogant sheriff who seems to have a personal vendetta for killing the gorilla… I mean Skunk Ape. Naturally, the local mechanic and the scientist are very attracted to The Violas' lonely lead singer, Theodora, but they are not the only ones. The mysterious ape seems to have a King Kong syndrome. What is the Skunk Ape doing in this small town, who will survive, and who falls in love? Find out, when you watch Stomp! Shout! Scream!

So we've got a well written script filled with humor, witty dialog, and enough kitsch to open your own miniature Eiffel tower shop in Paris.

This B flick gets a +.

One of the only genre feature films I've seen recently that pay a respectful homage to the original films and still take themselves seriously without indulging in their camp-value - which usually creates the exact opposite of what they attempt, there is nothing worse than "camp" that's not entertaining. But again, this is not the case. "Stomp! Shout! Scream!" is funny, looks great and features excellent actors (a very lovely Claire Bronson in particular). Great original songs by Catfight! and excellent selections from various modern Garage bands including The Woggles, who are amongst the scene's best. For fans of the original 60's films, this is a must.

This movie has all the staples of the bad 60s beach movies but the site I watched it on claimed it was a comedy. Nothing even remotely funny happens until 59 minutes in and that's a song. I guess their idea of comedy is a deputy correcting the sheriff a hundred times. While the music is good, the rest of the movie just comes off like those old bad movies.