Rish Outfield's reviews
I guess I should start by asking, do we really need to review Saturday the 14th on our Horror website? And the answer, of course, is a resounding No. But hey, the movie was on, I watched it, I noticed quite a few Skulls, and even though it's a silly horror movie parody, we've reviewed others, so why not this one? Besides, if I didn't review it, that would make roughly a thousand movies I'd rented for no reason at all. Can you imagine how depressing that would be?
I wanted to see this movie LIKE CRAZY when it first came out. But I outgrew it. Unfortunately, a friend of mine mentioned it again yesterday and I thought, "Hmmm, it's only been two decades, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it."
It was pretty light, with a lot of silly jokes and Abbott and Costello-type slapstick. Jeffrey Tambor is Count Dracula, Richard Benjamin from Westworld is the hapless family man, Paula Prentiss from The Stepford Wives plays his wife. The story involved a family that inherits a house and a Book of Evil that releases some creepy characters into the world. The girl who plays the daughter is extraordinarily hot in an It's-the-early-'80s-and-I'm-gonna-live-forever sort of way. Man, I miss the '80s.
Produced by Julie Corman, the flick was an hour and fifteen minutes long, kids, and rated PG (back when than meant something). The film has no connection to Friday the 13th, except for the semi-clever title (which seems to be something the Cormans excelled at), but it does reference The Omen, Jaws, and sort of Amityville. The kid is annoying as hell, but not entirely bad (sadly, I've seen worse). It had really lame vampire-to-bat transformations, but some of the monsters were actually pretty cool-looking. Not scary, but they weren't meant to be scary. I wonder if I would have found any of this scary as a boy, or what I would have thought had I seen it. I knew it only from the TV commercials, but was not yet old enough to realize that not all movies were good. It's funny, but because going to the movies was such an infrequent activity in my house, the only ones I ever saw were big, must-see films like Star Trek and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It wasn't until years later that I actually found out that some movies sucked. I'm not saying that Saturday the 14th sucked, but it was pretty stupid, in the end. Yes, the girl was friggin' hot (I can only imagine how I would have reacted as a child...I might've DIED), but hey, it's no Raiders.
Line To Remember: "Selling the house now would be like closing the barn door AFTER the horses have eaten your children."
Note: The friend who mentioned the movie simply asked the question, "Do you remember the girl from Saturday the 14th?" I didn't, so I rented it. Debbie, the object of our lust, was played by Kari Michaelsen. Whoever that is.