Because it’s really actually honest-to-goodness Saturday the 14th, I thought it might be fun to revisit a movie I saw way back during its theatrical run (I’m old, kiddies), coincidentally called  Saturday The 14th.  Directed by Howard R. Cohen, it stars real-life couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss as John and Mary (respectively), an innocent-ish pair who have inherited a creepy old house from a dead relative.

Also interested in the house are vampire couple Jeffrey Tambor and Nancy Lee Andrews, who want to find The Book Of Evil, which is supposed to be hidden somewhere in the house.  Hijinks ensue as the book is opened, monsters appear and attack, and (spoiler) Van Helsing himself shows up to save the day.

As I settled in to watch, I wondered whether or not this movie would hold up after so many years, if my memories of getting a few chuckles out of it would still ring true.

In a word (he said, ever so politely): ugh.

This thing is so badly written, horribly acted, and ineptly directed, I’m honestly surprised it ever saw the light of day. The supremely talented Jeffrey Tambor is sorely miscast here as a vampire (oddly lacking any fangs whatsoever, and with the ability to walk about in the daytime). He tries gamely, but he just doesn’t cut a very dramatic or imposing figure. If they cast against type for the comedy aspect, they didn’t tip their hand at all, so he just seems…lost and out of place.

For a married couple, Benjamin and Prentiss have very little onscreen chemistry and spend much of their time mugging their way through their lines, trying as hard as they can to show us how funny this all is. With a name like Saturday The 14th, one might assume this movie would make fun of the slasher genre, like the (and I can’t believe I’m typing this) much funnier Student Bodies. Alas, no, they stick to a haunted house/monsters run amuck plot.

The monsters that do show up look cheesy, cheap, and kind of goofy, like neighbors dressing up for the local church haunted house.  The special effects that are (thankfully) sparingly used look like they were stolen from a grade-z kids cartoon, amounting to not much more than a few animated flashing sparks and weak man-to-bat transitions.

But then there’s a scene where a group of bats is attacking Mary, and it is quite intense. I’m sure the director thought he was hilariously parodying The Birds, but with the rapid bat attack and the biting and the bleeding flesh and the panicked look on her face, this came off more like a deleted scene from Hitchcock’s original that got cut for being too graphic. Yuck.

I wish that I could say that it’s still a bunch of goofy fun, but, with the rare exceptions of a few gags that made me smirk (a Count Chocula cereal box, the attorney that dies just as he’s explaining the house’s “curse,” the weirdly funny Severn Darden as Van Helsing), the whole thing just screams “bargain basement.”

So, kids, remember: never trust a bald vampire with no fangs, never open the Book Of Evil, never take a bath in a haunted house, and you can’t spell “Saturday” without “turd.”

Uncle Mike sez: go find something else to do (but if you’re looking to punish yourself, you can watch the entire movie on Youtube below).