Making Waves is a 1987 short film (12 minutes) from Great Britain, directed by Jenny Wilkes.
A bunch of sixty-ish old ladies get on a bus that is headed to a seaside resort in Yarmouth. One of them, Mrs. Nash, takes along her son Joe (Kenneth Cranham). Everyone wonders why Mrs. Nash keeps such a close eye on her son, so Mrs. Nash explains that Joe has a blood clot that is very slowly working its way to his brain, where it may kill him.
Joe seems odd to the point of possibly having a cognitive impairment, but he's handsome, and the old ladies are attracted to him anyway. One, Doris (Sheila Hancock) sneaks into Joe's room one night and crawls into his bed. Joe tells her a shocking secret.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: The old ladies complain about the slowness of the hotel desk clerk. One says "Are you going to make us sleep on our feet like bleedin' horses?". The clerk shoots back "Not before you've had your oats, darlin'." All the old ladies burst out laughing.
- Beach Episode: A bunch of old English ladies take the bus for an outing to the beach. One brings along her weird son.
- Beautiful Singing Voice: Joe, who is weird and silent and speaks in an odd monotone whenever he does speak, has a lovely singing voice, and he entertains all the old ladies one evening at the bar.
- Crowd Song: Doris leads the crowd on the bus in a rendition of "Show Me the Way to Go Home" as they leave Yarmouth. (Naturally everyone knows the words.)
- Dirty Old Man: Dirty Old Women, namely all the old ladies on the bus, who make lascivious comments about Joe."He's trash I've seen in the market. Works for the butcher."
"Got a nice cut of meat there!" - Oh, Crap!: Joe is snuggled up to Doris in the bed when he reveals the real reason his mother keeps a constant watch on him: he once killed a lady. The result is a long loud scream from Doris that wakes up everyone in the hotel.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with the tour bus zipping off into the distance, heading from Yarmouth to wherever the old ladies call home.
- Pun-Based Title: Making Waves. It's a movie about an old lady's weird son making waves with all the other old ladies in a tour group, but they're also vacationing at the beach!
- The Reveal: Joe doesn't have a blood clot. He is a mental patient, who was released into his mother's custody after he killed a woman.
