The Cast of Surf School (2006)

There are always new movies popping up on Netflix Canada.  I tend to check every day just to see what has been put up there.  Sometimes I see that there are classic films now streaming for me to watch, and other times there are terrible films that go up.  A month or two ago, I saw that Netflix had put up a movie called Surf School.  This movie is included in the bottom 100 of IMDb.  It is also a movie that I had unknowingly seen before.  I discovered that while watching it.

There was a point in my mid-teens when I decided that I wanted to watch as many movies as I possibly could.  You might say that I’m still sort of in that phase of my life.  It’s not a particularly great thing for my social life, but that’s not the point here.  I’m getting a little off track.  During my mid-teens, when I would watch anything and everything that I came across, I found a movie about a bunch of high school seniors going to Costa Rica to surf.  I apparently didn’t care too much because in the time since watching it, I had completely forgotten what it was.  When I stumbled across it on Netflix, and started watching, it all began coming back to me.

I think the reason I chose to watch Surf School in the first place (outside of my compulsive completest attitude) was because of the cast.  Now, it’s not a good cast, but my immature mind liked the cast.  Let me share with you the four cast members that I knew for other things before watching the movie, and now the two that I recognize before my second watch and realization that I’d seen it before.

Sisqo: He’s not the lead actor in the movie, by any means.  The reason that I’m mentioning him first is because he is who he is.  Sisqo is that guy who made The Thong Song.  He sang a song about thongs, and they even put a reference to it into Surf School.  “You could write a song about THAT thong.”  Yeah.  Sisqo is in Surf School.

Corey Sevier: Most of you probably don’t know this guy.  Or maybe you do.  Apparently he played Apollo in Immortals.  What I know him for, though, is a movie he made before Surf School called Decoys.  Decoys was about aliens coming down to Earth, having sex with college kids, and killing them.  I really like the movie.  There’s also a sequel that I don’t like so much, but the original is a fun enough little film that I made sure to get it on DVD.  That is how I know Corey Sevier.

Lee Norris: Minkus!  This is Minkus from Boy Meets World!  What else do I need to say?

Harland Williams: I’ve never really liked Harland Williams.  His shtick doesn’t work for me.  I can understand other people liking it, but I don’t.  I know him from RocketMan, a movie that he made almost a decade before Surf School.  I’ve also seen some of his stand-up comedy and didn’t like it.  Something about him rubs me the wrong way.

Laura Bell Bundy: Now we’re into the two that I didn’t know before the first viewing, but did know prior to the rediscovery of Surf School.  I watch the television show How I Met Your Mother.  There is a character who worked at the news channel that Robin worked at.  Her name was Becky, and she made a commercial about “Boats! Boats! Boats!”  That was Laura Bell Bundy.

Taylor Negron:  He’s just a guy that I’ve seen in things, but never paid much attention to.  I always notice him, but can never figure out what I know him from.  He’s a “that guy.”  The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas?  Perhaps.  Loser?  Mabye.  Stuart Little?  That might be it.  Angels in the Outfield could be what I know him from.  Or I know him from Nothing But Trouble.  Better Off Dead?  Fast Times at Ridgemont High?  Any of the various television shows he’s shown up in?  Who knows?  I recognize this guy when I see him, but I never know why.

So those are six people that are in Surf School who I recognize for other things.  The first four could be the reason I would have watched it in the first place.  Mind you, I dislike Harland Williams, so I don’t know why I would watch a movie for him.  I do recognize these six people, and I have seen the movie before.  Those two things are a fact.  I will recognize them all for Surf School now, though.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Most would say it’s a bad thing.  I would put it somewhere in between.

Surf School is not an outright terrible movie.  The cast attempts to hold things together with the terrible script that is filled with misogynistic jokes, racist jokes, and homophobic jokes.  They try.  And they do make the movie watchable.  I can see all of the bad stuff on screen, but I didn’t have a tough time watching it.  That has to count for something, right?  The cast made it that way.  That is why this post was dedicated to the cast.

Before I go, I have a couple notes to make:

• My post about the IMDb bottom 100 is the post for Crossover.
• I wrote about finding movies on Netflix Canada in my post for Bigfoot’s Wild Weekend.
• If you have any suggestions for future Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can leave a suggestion below, or you can tell me on Twitter.