In ‘80s, Nazis coming back was worst case scenario. Their actual return proved even dumber than this Troma movie. Surf Nazis Must Die was always a more memorable title than movie. At 82 minutes it still feels like a lot of vamping and cutaways to surf footage. Eleanor (Gail Neely) doesn’t do much considering she is the instrument of Surf Nazi death, but it’s fun seeing her ride a motorcycle, pull a gun on a nurse and the climactic speedboat chase.
Since even low budget movies shot on film in the ‘80s, Surf Nazis Must Die now holds up in 4K. You can see the film grain on the sunny beach, and deep night sky by the campfire. The corners of the rocks reflect the moonlight. There are further silhouettes under an overpass.
In a new interview, director Peter George talks about the making of and legacy of the film with distributor Lloyd Kaufman. But the biggest addition to this is George’s daughter who vouches for her generation’s awareness of it.
A Projection Booth Podcast episode serves as a commentary track, circa 2013 because George mentions Grudge Match as a recent film. The hosts do tout the pleasure of the film and really speculate on the larger world it suggests, particularly with other surf cults. They acknowledge it could use more Mama.
When George joins them, he shares the history of surf nazis, his jobs with Fred Olen Ray, casting and permit issues.
Some archival material includes Troma Cafe skits and Kaufman sharing receipts for YouTube’s ripoff algorithm circa 2017. Seven minutes of deleted scenes have no sound so George talks us through it including the Surf Nazis’ van, more surf footage with the wetsuit fittings sotry, and Mama and Leroy (Robert Harden) go to the beach which would come earlier in the movie.