“Hey, you’re cute, I’d like to tie you up.”

Justin’s rating: Oh a wise guy, eh?

Justin’s review: I’ve discovered it’s a worrying sign when there are no real reviews of a particular movie online save for IMDb comments. That’s not exactly a sign of quality or even a fully legal release, but I forge ahead with these because if I’m going to leave a digital legacy, by golly, it’s going to be as The Only Guy Online Who Reviewed Body Waves.

Man, I’m going to have a pathetic funeral some day. Please don’t attend.

Under pressure to prove himself and earn $3000 in two weeks to impress his dad, Rick (Bill Calvert) tries some get-rich-quick schemes. This leads him and his surfer bud Dooner (Jim Wise) to sell suntan oil on the beach, which bombs pretty hard. But when they agree to whip up a cream to help a trio of extremely stereotypical nerds gain confidence, the fake product actually ends up working as an ultimate aphrodisiac.

As all this is happening, Rick bumps into a martial artist guitarist DJ named Stacy (Leah Lail) who’s into Led Zeppelin, so you know she’s a catch. She’s worried about her radio station being shut down by protesters who claims that it’s broadcasting satanic messages or somesuch. So he’s also trying to help her save the station and, as time permits, assist Dooner in buying back his grandpa’s urn from the pawn shop.

Body Waves hovers somewhere between C- and D-list talent. We’ve got actors such as Dick Miller and Larry Linville picking up a meager paycheck for cameos, while director PJ Pesce entices us with a pedigree that includes From Dusk ‘Till Dawn 3, Sniper 3, and Lost Boys: The Tribe.

There’s no getting around the fact that Body Waves is amateur hour nearly across the board with awkward line deliveries, bad sound, and a nonsensical plot. Yet… I’ve seen so much worse. It’s clearly trying to be one of those beach-themed teen sex comedies from the ’80s with a heavy dose of Revenge of the Nerds thrown in, only it’s about five years too late to be relevant.

What Body Waves ends up being, however, is a kind of goofy vacation flick with a side of Three Stooges slapstick and a supercomputer with a female torso.

The slyly dorky humor here and likable characters does a lot to make this amateur hour worth seeing. It’s clear the filmmakers understood the assignment and freed themselves up to get weird and wild. I really didn’t expect to laugh or even smile, but such miraculous events did happen. Several times.

Guys, this is — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — actually kinda funny. It got that rough, subversive sense of humor that reminds me of the the Killer Tomato series.

The nerds (not to mention this film’s tone) are so over-the-top that they shoot past terrible and circle the globe right around to awesome. The lead character abruptly launches into Kevin Costner’s speech from Bull Durham to win back his girlfriend. There’s an airborne blow-up doll that wipes out a guy, a female supercomputer that eats a toy Yoda, a spontaneous rap performance, and the strangest spontaneous game of football ever filmed.

I’m not saying that this is some undiscovered classic, but Body Waves may be one of those hidden gems that vibes with you. I mean, it totally may not, but if it does, you could have a new cult fave on your hand.

Intermission!

• Absolutely bizarre silhouette opening credits of people flexing and dancing while the credits are projected onto their body parts, Word Art-style and dubstep is played
• And nothing like kicking off with a weird dream sequence where a guy’s nethers are cut off with giant scissors
• Ano-Recto Cream is a horrible name
• That fish-n-chips store has a uniform that looks like Gilligan
• Rinse off fries, you can reuse them
• The girl on the beach turning the calendar to show us the day
• “I quit before I met the skipper!”
• Radio stations broadcast satanic messages on air
• “Dude, heavy invasion from Planet Dweeb.”
• The girl doing martial arts on her ex was pretty vicious
• “You want your grandpa back, dontcha?”
• “NOT!” is the ultimate comeback… in 1992
• “Just remember, you’re gentlemen savages, politically correct outlaws.”
• The condom game show
• It’s not a tattoo. It’s only a decal.
• “You are a geek.” “Yeah, but can I call you?”
• “Are you sure you’re from Sweden?” “Sweden, Ohio.”
• And now it’s time to interject a better movie into this movie
• The drive-in scene is so odd all around
• “STOKIN’!”
• You can totally believe these characters are wind surfing and snowboarding by juxtaposing closeups and stock footage
• “What a piece of junk! It looks like something from an old Disney movie.” shots fired
• “It’s just a computer, fella, it’s not Star Trek!”
• Clarissa the computer has a female torso and a toilet seat
• Name-dropping Ferris Bueller and Risky Business
• The tall rap hairdo
• “300 Killed At A Goo Boys Concert” headline
• “I sold my script for two million dollars! And I failed 10th grade English!”
• A bosom can speak in a chipmunk voice