Upon the film's release, a reviewer for "The New York Times" wrote, "The most to be said for is that he has not stinted on the gore," and a review in "Newsweek", which was negatively critical of the musical numbers performed by the Del-Aires, considered it the worst film in the previous twelve months, with the possible exception being "Blood Feast". Additional negative commentary on the film has come from Thomas Lisanti in his book "Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959–1969" ("by far the worst of the sixties beach films") and the author Stephen King ("an abysmal little wet fart of a film.") Author and film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film a "BOMB" rating, calling it "one of the earliest anti-nuclear warning films", but also stated that it failed to get its message across. Film critic Michael Medved included the movie in his books "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time" and "Son of Golden Turkey Awards". The latter book recognized the movie as "The Worst Beach Movie Ever Made". Despite giving it a negative reception, Medved cited the film as the catalyst of his fascination for bad movies and described "The Horror of Party Beach" as a "good bad movie."