saturday the 14th [1981]

 

finally!  i watched this flick & lived to tell the tale.  & boy!  as the bard sez, it is a tale told by an idiot full of hubbub & amounts to nothing.  still, call me loco but i enjoyed this parody of the classic monster movies of yore.  the plot goes like this: married in real life couple richard benjamin & paula prentiss play john & mary hyatt.  the hyatts inherit a haunted house from their dead uncle.  a house of their own, finally!  so they pack up their things, & their kids, debbie hyatt, played by kari michaelson, & billy, played by kevin brando, & move in.

but you see we find a vampire couple, waldemar, played by jeffrey tambor, & yolanda, played by nancy lee andrews, complete in cheesy pancake makeup & black capes, trying to buy the house before the hyatts can move in.  why?  because inside the house is a book on the occult that if opened can unleash monsters that will destroy the world!  but our vampires are law-abiding citizens that cannot stop the hyatts from moving in.  they can only watch the family while sitting outside in their car.

lo!  young billy finds the book, unleashing, you guessed it, monsters galore.  one of these monsters is so fiendish he cleans the house & does the dishes for the family!  horrors!  still, waldemar is determined to get that book & will sneak in the house as a transformed bat,  mary hyatt thinks the bat is an owl until she gets a pair of puncture wounds on her neck from waldemar & starts to act a little goofy.

meanwhile, the monsters do what they do best by scaring the younger hyatts.  one scene has a shark fin swimming in a bathtub when young debbie is taking a bath.  another scene is a monster in billy's room.  when billy calls for his father to rescue him the monster hides, literally, hides, behind hyatt pere so that each time dad turn around the monster turns too.  dad can't see the monster, so everything is a-ok.   billy is left alone in his room with a monster.

what the hell are we gonna do now?  how about throw a housewarming party on saturday the 14th, a date, according to the van helsing, played by severn darden, who was brought in earlier by the family as an exterminator for their bat infestation, when all hell breaks loose if the monsters are allowed to roam free.  van helsing needs both the book & young billy to prevent the world from ending.  

but enough of the plot.  if my summation of the plot lacks coherence well blame it on the script.  directed, barely, by howard r. cohen, & produced by julie corman of new world pictures, this is a flick that can be appreciated by the most masochistic of horror movie lovers.  like me!  all principals ham it up big time.  benjamin & prentiss are game & make the most of a threadbare plot.  tambor is, as always, a pro in whatever role he plays.  young debbie can really scream her head off which makes me wonder why kari michaelson didn't become a scream queen.  

you could do worse than spend an evening with this pic.  especially if your evening involves copious amounts of mind-altering substances.  i kid!  i kid!  or do i?  since this is a movie that calls to mind the mom&pop video store era where you can judge a movie based on its VHS box art.  the run time is a merciful 76 minutes.  the plot is incoherent & goofy.  but the leads are fun.  there is a twist too at the end.  not every bad buy/good guy are what they first appear to be.  you could do worse by watching this movie.  but you could do better!

peace!