Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)

Film and Plot Synopsis

In Surf Nazis Must Die, an earthquake leaves the California coastline in ruins. With the beaches in chaos, a self-proclaimed Führer of the new beach leads a group of neo-Nazis into fights with rival surfer gangs to seize control. However, when these thugs kill an oil well worker out for a jog on the beach, they get them a new enemy—the man’s mother. His death devastates her and she vows revenge. With more a handguns and grenades than she can carry, the woman breaks out of her retirement home and exacts total vengeance on them.

‘Surf Nazis Must Die’ Movie Summary

What happens when you try to combine the movies Beach Party, Clockwork Orange, and Mad Max, mix in a healthy dose of poor writing, shitty 80s music, and acting that comes from a 4th grade PTA play? You get post apocalyptic opus known as Surf Nazis Must Die.

Sometime in the future, Los Angeles is leveled by an 8.6 magnitude earthquake. Since today’s media only wants to cover Justin Bieber peeing in a Florida jail, or Miley Cyrus’ Hand Of Adonis Sex Toy, I’m going to assume that The Apocalypse is upon us now, so you Californians might want to brace yourselves for the Big One, because once the buildings come a tumblin’ down, all h-e double hockey sticks is going to break out on the beaches. It’s not that the Pipeliners, led by Aerial, Mex, and Teeth, or those yellow-skinned Samurai Surfers: Wang, Yin, and Yang, are looking for total control. Even Curl, Blow, and Dry of the Designer Waves have no problem sharing their tight space with the other fellas. All you have to do is ask, but those dirty, rotten Surf Nazis led by Adolf, a gay-looking ripoff of Freddie Mercury, want it all, and they want it now.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, Leroy Washington escorts his “elderly” mother out of her ruined abode, and drives her down the street to The Stardust Retirement Home; a home that has miraculously escaped the destruction of the massive quake. Mama is pissed that her only child has forsaken her this way, and does the only thing she knows how to do. She hangs up her American flag on her mirror, lights up a stogie, and plays some Five Card Stud with the other committed grandmas.

Adolf calls a meeting of all the rival gangs (and one random biker dude aptly named Wheels), and tries to unify them under the Nazis’ leadership, but there are just too many strong-willed personalities in the bunch for that to happen, and they all go their separate ways, but the Nazis don’t sit idle. Back at Surf Nazi camp, Mengele, the Quartermaster of the pack, is busy making sheet metal hooks for this guy named Hook – a bad ass who lost his right hand surfing…never mind that you can plainly see him holding the crafted weapons with his right hand. Hanging out there too is Brutus, who is practicing shooting things with his harpoon. Eva, Adolf’s girlfriend and the one with the biggest balls of the group, bullies anyone who gets in the Nazis way including the biker, Wheels, who’s not paying up like he should be. Finally, sweet Smeg, the Buddy to Adolf’s Charles, is in charge of recruiting hot beach bitches when his “Leave it to Beaver” mom isn’t busy nagging him.

One ill-fated day, a beach kid, being molded by Adolf, steals an old lady’s purse for the gang, but he is stopped by Leroy Washington, who is out for a quiet jog. Apparently, nobody told him whose territory he was stepping on, and Adolf comes over to set Leroy straight. After a brief but tense conversation between the two men, Leroy grabs Adolf, and throws him to the ground. Still holding onto Adolf, Leroy looks up as Hook hits him in the back of his head with his hook. Leroy falls to the ground dead…big mistake!

Cut to a funeral home where Leroy’s mama is crying before his casket. Someone has taken the only thing that matters to her in the whole world, and those tears of hers quickly turn into salty drops of revenge. This old lady is going to take the law into her own hands, and she quickly returns to the scene of the crime, looking for clues. She overhears Smeg bragging to some hot beach bitches that his gang killed Leroy, and Mama jumps him, looking for answers. She then goes and buys a grenade and a gun, and sets out to destroy the Surf Nazis all by herself, but only after consulting her bible on the porch.

She sets fire to the gang’s surf boards, but Adolf thinks it’s the rival gangs who have done this as a challenge to their supremacy. The next day, the Nazis will take their revenge on the other gangs. Coincidentally, all the other gangs are going to attack the Surf Nazis the next day too. As the sun rises, the Samurai Surfers attack Adolf and Eva who are sleeping on the beach, but it’s a trap. Hook jumps out of a strategically placed oil barrel, and throws a knife into the back of Wang, killing him, or maybe it’s Yang who he kills, or Yin. I’m not sure which one Hook took out. The director probably doesn’t have a clue either. Eva then cuts the throat of another one, and Adolf punches the last one a few times like he’s at a pillow fight, and that guy somehow dies from the blows.

The Nazis then set out to kill off the Designer Waves, who try to “gymkata” their way to safety, but alas they are no match for Hook, Brutus, and Mengele. Well actually, they are a match for Mengele. He’s a terrible fighter, but somehow HE manages to kill the last remaining DW.

The Nazis go back to their camp to relax after a lovely day of mayhem, and to stitch up Adolf who somehow managed to take one in the ass in the fight against the Samurai Surfers. Brutus walks off to get himself and Hook a beer, but he is ambushed by the Pipeliners who throw acid into his face. Mengele sneaks up and kills one of the Pipeliners from behind. Hook strangles another, and then Mengele kills the last one. Unfortunately for Brutus, he is useless to the gang now that he can no longer see, and Adolf kills him with his own harpoon. The remaining Nazis celebrate the night away with a bonfire, thinking that they have killed off all the rival gangs in LA.

The next day brings with it Mama on a bad ass motorcycle. She arrives to the Surf Nazis compound while they are still sleeping, and rolls a grenade about 600 feet into the complex where is explodes right as it comes to a rest next to Hook. He and Mengele are killed. As Adolf cries, Eva hears a motorcycle drive away. She thinks it’s the biker gang who is responsible for the attack, and they give chase. Mama giggles her way back to the Stardust, and runs inside to get her gun. Adolf and Eva arrive, and somehow now knows that it’s Mama who’s after them and not the biker gang. Mama pulls the gun on them, and they take off on her motorcycle. She then gives chase, in their 80s rape van, to an oil refinery far off in the mountains, and randomly shoots in their general direction while Adolf and Eva look for hiding spots.

Suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, everyone is back at the beach, and Mama commissions a random guy at gunpoint to chase the Nazis in his boat since the pair are trying to escape on their surfboards via the ocean. The boat awesomely runs over Eva, cutting her head off. (Oddly, the kidnapped driver has no problem with this as he gets a high five from Mama.) As the two make a pass towards Adolf, he throws a knife from his surfboard into the driver’s back, killing him. Mama takes over, drives up behind Adolf, and shoots him…somewhere. Nobody really knows where she hit him, but she says she got him. She stops for a moment to light up her Swisher Sweet, but before she can take a puff, Adolf jumps onto the tiny boat (without rattling it of course), and lunges at Mama. She grabs him by the throat, and sticks the gun into his mouth. She shoots his brains out, leaving enough blood splatter over her face to make Dexter proud. Mama then gets back onto her Harley, and drives off in time for lunch with the ladies.

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