n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

If you can only see one movie in your life, IE, you live in the Amazon and are a forgotten indigenous tribal member and you stumble upon a plane wreck where in lies a laptop fully charged, wish upon a star, pray to your god of the oak moss that is used in owaska tea that this is the movie you find inside it. This film is so brilliant that when viewed it is like seeing burning magnesium without protective glasses. it will leave you with an indelible print allowing you to see nothing else the rest of your life. With the amazing Karen Kadler as the female lead, you will think of nothing but the wonderment of seeing her in a state of undress. The story is of Eddy, a singer so talented that the Sirens that sang to Odysseus are jealous of his velvety smooth arias that are the purest form of aphrodisiac. He and his chums are on pilgrimage of spiritual enlightenment, seeking nothing ...but "kicks" , aka..good times, tomorrow's fondest memories of the past.They settle in at a Diner and decide "this..is where it's at. " The dark side is not Peter Brecks affinity for violence but that a strange group of men named "squares" are coming for them to take them away to "Squaresville". Eddy succumbs to the strange men named " Squares" and sings for them. His close brothers, the defenders of the faith of "Kicks". Are worried for Eddy's transformation into the " Square Society". A secular society deemed to be uncool. Pete and his fellow pilgrims rush to stop the horrific metamorphosis known only as " maturation" to devastating results so grim that this viewer was aghast! You too will watch in horror as the future that unfolds was not the one that was planned, see...the jukebox play the same song over again in a state of consistent déjà Vu.See the T birds fight for the inalienable rights for Kicks, and see Eddy, god of crooners with a power no mortal man should possess, the voice of Midas brainwash record execs into believing he has talent. You shan't soon forget this visual trip of existential wonder as the Animus is destroyed and the monadic essence is released into " The Beatniks". Not to be confused with the violent blood soaked exploitation movie "The Boatniks" which starred Buddy Hackett.

No Beatniks appear in this film, the acting by the young leads is execrable, the song lyrics are both insane and badly lip-synched, and the plot is dumb. As others have commented, radio and voice actor Paul Frees assembled quite a nice cast of fellow radio and voice actors to play the "normal" people in this tale of troubled youth, but he neglected to cast credible actors as the over-the-hill "teens" who hang around engaging in delinquent acts of senseless violence. I was quite pleased to see radio and voice actor Stanley Farrar on screen, and, like other comment writers i wonder whose rather nice voice actually sang the lame songs that the character Eddie was inexpertly mouthing along to, but all in all, this one is a loser. Having read all the reviews here, some folks will no doubt seek it out for its sheer badness. To them i say, "Come back later and tell us if it was really worth it!"

This is my largest complaint; no Beatnik culture, no snapping fingers and performance poetry, marijuana, not even the stereotypical black clothes and sunglasses -- how can you get that part wrong? Instead the "Beatniks" are mostly your typical 50s squares and range to a geek-greaser (Mooney) and the lone woman in the group, think of a "Grease" Frenchy-Rizzo mix.Since, the majority of the plot of this movie revolves around Eddie's musical ability the audience gets plenty of solo performances. The music is fine for a low budget movie like "Beatniks", nothing you will remember past the end credits. Again, even when Eddie was a "Beatnik" he wasn't singing Beatnik music, more like Mel Torme-like crooning.Other glaring mistakes in this movie is the continuity (see the GOOFS section) and the character of Moon is just ridiculous, with a catch phrase that will live on forever (I'm gonna MOON ya'!). The Eddie character is a little annoying in his inconsistency -- is he a goon with a heart of gold or just a jerk? All in all this is a very, very bad movie.

Bad! Bad! Horrible! Truly rotten! Even these words cannot express how severely awful this movie was. Still, if you are into "kitsch" like I am, then you'll probably love this flick purely for the song line gems ("My sideburns don't need your love.") and hokie one-liners ("Filthy fuzz!"). A film that is worthy enough to be featured on Mystery Science Theatre (and was) but not Oscar worthy. A flick to make even the most serious human giggle but not intentionally. A cinematic masterpiece you WILL soon forget. And by the way, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with beatniks. It follows more along the lines of The Jets in 'West Side Story' or what the T-Birds would have been like after Rydell High. People don't give enough credit to Ed Wood. It is movies like 'The Beatniks' that make me believe there is a treasure trove of rotten but awesome B-movies that even surpass 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'.