Perhaps it happens when you collide with that large wet obstacle otherwise known as the sea: Unless you want to get your feet wet, there’s no going any further. England’s seaside towns are at the end of the line. They represent a pile-up - some might think a catastrophic one - of culture and society.

In Skegness, venue for the premiere of the three Coastcards films commissioned by Animate Projects as part of the Sea Change regeneration initiative, Flirtz lapdancing club sits on top of Carina’s Donuts. Old exists alongside new, smut with children’s entertainment, gaiety with the despair of extreme deprivation.

'It’s as if someone had pulled a rug from under England and everything had slipped down and couldn’t go any further,' says a voice on Andrew Kötting’s Edgeland Mutter, a film that directs its attention to Hastings. Kötting depicts a town which is 'schizophrenic' with its manifold subcultures. Among the sounds – described by Kötting as 'sonic flotsam and jetsam' – a voice explains that it’s as if 'everything in the whole world washed up in Hastings' while another claims it’s 'a place to cease to be yourself and become something new'. No wonder that a forlorn Reginald Perrin faked his suicide by running into the sea, allowing himself to assume a new identity.

In the face of decline, England’s coastal resorts are similarly searching for new identities. Southport brands itself as the country’s 'classic' resort, while Boscombe in Dorset is transforming itself into a surf capital. If anything, the Coastcards films show a more confusing situation that defies such simplistic pigeonholing, where multiple identities coexist and heritage must always be taken into account.

Indeed, Kötting shows people on the beach with metal detectors, as if seeking clues. Like the other films, there is a preoccupation with the past, blending new and archive footage. Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore’s wistful Teign Spirit overlays film of modern-day Teignmouth with gloriously evocative monochrome home movies produced by the Jones family 70 years ago.

Meanwhile, Love Brid – a breathless and frequently hilarious stop motion romp around Bridlington by Susan Collins - is somehow infused with the spirit of childhood seaside holidays, before they were rebranded as 'staycations'. A talent show at the Spa Theatre, the bright lights of the seafront - it’s as if the clock stopped in the early 1950s.

This is the time when Lindsay Anderson directed his gaze towards Margate in the seminal O Dreamland. It shows that exploring the paradoxes, absurdities and melancholia of the seaside is nothing new. Coastcards perhaps has greater resonance, as the films have been commissioned as part of a regeneration project that will tackle some of the country’s most severe instances of social and economic deprivation.

O Dreamland was made when Margate was still riding the crest of a wave. Its sinister and sordid tone looked forward to the near-death of our seaside resorts, stabbed in the back as the English packed their bags and flew to warmer climes. More than 50 years later, the three Coastcards films offer compelling viewing, as they sift through the wreckage in the vain hunt for answers and solutions.

Gareth Gardner is a photographer, writer, filmmaker and curator specialising in architecture and design. A former journalist, he has recently completed a series of case studies on behalf of CABE about six Sea Change regeneration projects. He is also director of the creative communications consultancy fuwagardner.