Great Film overall

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

SATURDAY THE 14TH is an incredibly cheesy horror spoof made back in 1981. The scattershot approach sees a couple inhabiting an old spooky house which seems to be the meeting point for various monsters, generally played by guys in rubber suits. Morose vampire Jeffrey Tambor hangs around a lot while Richard Benjamin plays it straight as the hero and comes across as a real dweeb. The film spoofs various recent genre hits including Friday the 13th, Poltergeist and The Evil Dead, but the gags are really overdone and very silly for the most part; this is definitely a kid's film made at the level of kids from beginning to end. I found it rather silly and also rather irritating.

A family moves into a rundown old house in Eerie, Pennsylvania that contains an ancient book of evil. The house becomes overrun with various monsters after said book is accidentally opened.Writer/director Howard R. Cohen relates the enjoyably inane story at a zippy pace, maintains a good-natured goofball tone throughout, displays a genuine affection for the horror genre, and comes up with several witty gags (a television that only plays reruns of "The Twilight Zone," an inspired bathtub parody of "Jaws"). The natural and engaging chemistry between Richard Benjamin as happily oblivious dad John and Paula Prentiss as chipper mom Mary keeps this picture humming. Moreover, it's acted with zest by the rest of the enthusiastic cast: Jeffrey Tambor as sinister vampire Waldemar, Severn Darden as flaky occult expert Van Helsing, Kari Michaelson as perky (and super cute) daughter Debbie, Kevin Brando as smart and resourceful son Billy, Rosemary DeCamp as the snippy Aunt Lucille, Carol Androsky as perky real estate agent Marge, and Roberta Collins as annoying klepto Cousin Rhonda. Parmer Fuller's appropriately cornball score adds to the campy mood. The tacky (not so) special effects possess a certain lovably chintzy charm. A real dippy hoot.

A certain generation will probably find this spoof of monster and haunted house movies more appealing than today's Scary Movie bunch. Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss (husband and wife real life) inherit creepy house in will, not realizing a book of evil (cue the lightning) is on the shelf in the study, later opened by son Kevin Brando, unleashing monsters from each page! Vampires Jeffrey Tambor and Nancy Lee Andrews are looking to get ahold of that book, while arch nemesis Severn Darden's Van Helsing tries to as well. Even in 1981 the jokes were considered hokey and hit and miss. The title could be misleading as this isn't a slasher spoof like Student Bodies. It has monster rubber suit extras spending most of their time in the kitchen or peeping through windows. You have the television set in the living room only playing Twilight Zone and the front door no longer allowing the family to leave, greeted by stormy wind, fog, and bright light. In fact, the house is infested with fog. No doubt, for me the showstopper has foxy, leggy Kari Michaelsen having her bath intruded upon by the Gillman, chasing her around the house, with her only in a bathrobe. Prentiss is bitten on the throat by Tambor (not seen but the bite and her pallor, along with her change in behavior tell us this for sure), and suffers an attic attack from bats obviously mimicking Tippi Hedren's from The Birds. Benjamin plays the oblivious all-smiles dad, never breaking a sweat or ill at ease at all; it's pure tongue-in-cheek. Derden sends up the Euro monster hunter archetype, with thick accent and heavy take-control bravado...I enjoyed the twist about his ulterior motives when it comes to the book but the duel with Tambor was just a bit too over the top for my tastes. Loved the use of fog with the monsters, although they're ridiculously 50s Z-grade costumes. The family are all in on the joke, complicit in its cheeky handling, just going with it. Maybe this spoof would work ideally as a charming double header with the superior Full Moon High. The severed cop neighbor head gag has to be seen to be believed. Brando is a wide-eyed, spirited kid who has as many moments to shine as his veteran movie parents. To me Michaelsen has some of the best scenes: she does have as much trouble with the pizza delivery guy as the Gillman! Tambor as a vampire alone should be enough to recommend this, and he has good chemistry with Andrews. Many of the jokes are cringe-worthy and come dead on arrival, but the spirit of it all won me over. Good cast helps the material even when it doesn't always work. Monsters include a fishman, antenna-eyed alien monster, and furry ape-like monster... although not the least bit convincing, there's a reach back to times past that work in their favor.

Okay, so on the 12th day of this month which was a Thursday, I watched Pandemonium which was originally supposed to be called Thursday the 12th. Yesterday on the 13th day which was a Friday, I watched Friday the Thirteenth (no, not the slasher pic from 1980). So today, I just saw Saturday the 14th. I remember previously seeing this on HBO back in the day and not thinking it funny at all. This time, I was amused by the first time Richard Benjamin's character was oblivious to a monster behind his back and the time his actual wife Paula Prentiss tried to bite him as a vampire. Other than those scenes, I still found the whole thing lame. Oh, and the only remotely scary scene was when those bats were attacking Ms. Prentiss. While watching, when a character named Van Helsing was introduced, I suddenly remembered that Benjamin had played a character with that name in the much better horror spoof, Love at First Bite, which he made a couple of years before. Part of me was wishing I was watching that again as lame scene after lame scene kept coming on in this boring and confusing movie. So not only were the leads wasted but also great character actor Jeffrey Tambor as the vampire. Good thing teen Kari Michaelsen had "Gimme a Break" to return to after finishing this. So on that note, I can't recommend Saturday the 14th.