By Justin Goins,

Am I to assume then that I have your undivided attention? Good.

This article's title aside, the Angel Lounge Massacre site, the site of one of New Jersey's most infamous crimes has long been a matter of public record, the reverberations of which are still felt throughout the state today—45 years later. But in order to understand the full story, one must inevitably revisit the sometimes weird, often strange, yet totally factual account of the events that preceded the crime.

I am referring of course to that infamous incident known as The Horror Of Party Beach. As always, the devil, or in this instance, the big fake rubber monster, is in the details.

It was the summer of 1962. Drive-ins, the first of which, coincidentally, were built in New Jersey, represented a rather lucrative investor's market in the late '50s and early '60s. Due in no small part to independent film business' exploitive nature, financiers stood to make large profits off of small initial investments.

All one needed was some capital, the brass to take a chance and a willing director to helm the project—though a little luck wouldn't hurt either. One such director was a man by the name of Del Tenney, the autore responsible for such respectable cinematic gems as Psychomania and the equally curious I Eat Your Skin.

Tenney, a seasoned pro in the picture business, could not turn a blind eye to the swinging surf craze that had gripped the nation in the wake of Sandra Dee's Gidget and Frankie & Annette's Beach Party.

California's surf culture had been thrust into the public consciousness seemingly overnight by virtue of such films. As with horror films, beach party movies enjoyed brisk business due to their ever faithful demographic: the American teenager. Surely Tenney himself could capitalize on some of this box-office. Perhaps there was even a way to combine the two above-mentioned genres.

Shopping a script around to prospective investors, titled Invasion Of The Zombies, Tenney intended the film as a companion piece to his now-completed gothic murder mystery Curse of the Living Corpse—double features being the standard by which independent theatres booked film engagements in those days.

Incidentally, Corpse would be the humble film debut of actor Roy Scheider, famous for his roles in the The French Connection and Jaws.

Del Tenney, never to be outdone, envisioned Invasion Of The Zombies as the first film of its kind, a monster musical of sorts, set amongst the sand and sun. Though in reality that dubious distinction already belonged to the succinctly named The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies, a mouthful of a title released on an unsuspecting public just months prior, in 1962.

The central plot of Invasion Of The Zombies, though pretty outlandish, was strangely topical for its day: Nuclear waste, illegally dumped off the coast of New York, pollutes a nearby shipwreck, causing the skeletons of its lost crew to mutate into strange, blood-drinking anthropoid monsters.

Okay, so topical in a rather broad sense.

Shot entirely in black and white, the film's production was an exercise in cost effectiveness, principal photography being completed in only two weeks. With local Stamford, Connecticut homes and businesses serving as filming locations, the movie boasted a budget of less than $120,000, a pittance even for its time. Most of the cast was unpaid extras from the area. One of the leads was even played by a college roommate of Tenney's wife! Be that as it may, the most glaringly obvious cost-saving measure on the film would have to be the monsters themselves; those horrors that the title would come to suggest.

Played by assorted crewmen on the set, the creatures, who would serve as the film's antagonists, were rather laughable even by 1960s standards; their oversized papier-mâché heads practically tipping over beneath the weight of gigantic fins; ping pong like eyeballs popping out of their sockets, and mouths filled not with teeth but with what can only be described as Bratwurst and other assorted summer sausages (I'm not kidding).

It is doubtful that these monsters could elicit terror in anybody, more than likely inducing a fine spray of grape Nee-Hi out of one's nostrils, or at least inspiring a healthy belly-laugh where screams were in short supply. The ill-conceived design of the creatures, however, were the least of Del Tenney's worries.

With the start of production looming, Tenney, sensing rather wisely that he couldn't have a musical without any music, was at a loss as to the casting of the pivotal role of the band whose talents the teens of Party Beach would clamor for; subsequently baiting the monsters' approach.

The film's minuscule