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WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH (1974) aka Tender Flesh aka And No-One Would Believe Her Director: Laurence Harvey. Hacktors: Laurence Harvey, Meg Foster, Stuart Whitman. Rating/5: The lowdown: If, like me, you are awake in the early hours of the morning then you may be lucky enough to come across a film like this on TV. A film you have never heard of. A film with a title that makes it sound like a Love Story clone. A film that starts with a hippy girl wandering along a nudist beach to a frankly bonkers title song. A film that most people would watch for five minutes, then give up on and erase from their memory banks. Fools! I, however, am made of sterner stuff. I am a film mashochist. I will watch anything. So I watched this, and could barely believe my luck as it turned out to be a delicously camp, wildly gory Deranged/Psycho riff that should be seen by all self-respecting horror buffs. Good points: If you can get past the bizarre title song sequence, then the first clue that this may be worth watching is the mad eyeball seen watching our heroine Robbin (a very young genre fave Foster) as she goes for a skinny dip on the beach. You know this is a eyeball belonging to a loony as it is flecked with veins and all bloodshot, hence signifying that it belongs to a mad person, and a perverted one at that! When Robbin is dressed, she is joined on the beach by the sauve Jason Henry (director Harvey). As he's wearing dark glasses, we're unable to see if he is the owner of those mad eyes. He invites the girl to come to his house. Being a hippie, she agrees without question. But something is not right here. Someone has mad eyes and is a pervert, and Robbin is a an attractive girl who likes to get naked. Which in this film is just asking for trouble. Just how much trouble you have to see to believe... Bad points: The worst thing about this film will be trying to find it. Otherwise it is a camp cult classic in every way and all the bad bits just make it even better, so why spoil the surprise? DVD Details: Not currently available on official DVD. Overall: Welcome To Arrow Beach is a film very much in the mould of Psycho, Deranged and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but with a dark twist which I won't spoil for you. Starting with a long shot of a nudist beach sets the pervading theme of voyeurism. This is then added to other interesting themes such as incest, cannibalism, sleaze, murder, madness and mayhem! Trust me, this movie is never boring. Featuring full frontal nudity and insane gore effects for a studio film made in 1974, this is a real rarity and is well worth the effort in hunting down. Foster proves a beautiful and feisty lead and Harvey perfectly portrays his character as the different facets of his personality come to light. The plot, while not groundbreaking, at least puts characterisation first and never flags.     Sadly, Laurence Harvey died shortly after completing this film at the age of 45, but does great work here both in front of and behind the camera. Best known in his career for The Manchurian Candidate, he proves a capable director which makes it all the sadder that his career ended prematurely after just three films. Release Date: This movie hit UK video on CBS/Fox in August 1984 as And No-One Would Believe Her. It was also released on Diamond Video later on as Welcome To Arrow Beach. Both tapes are now deleted. So scan your TV listings and hope you're lucky to catch this fantastic lost film, or keep an eye on Amazon US and Amazon UK, where it sometimes appears in Used & New/zshops. It's also worth Googling for it... Reviewer: Jon Kelly. [Check it out at Amazon US] [Search for it at Amazon UK] [Reviews Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present