Day 6
movie: Saturday the 14th
starring: Richard Benjamin, Jeffrey Tambor
genre: Comedy
year: 1981
format: TV Edit
plot: A family moves into the estate house left to them in their aunt's will. Unknown to them, the house is haunted, and contains a very powerful book that the children unwittingly use to unleash a bunch of monsters.
Okay, so it's plot sounds a bit like some of the horror spoofs that popped up the last decade as well as elements of Elvira Mistress of the Dark. And I have to say, this was a long arse waste of time. It was not funny, it did not have a clear storyline at all, the limited use of the mythos it was trying to create got muddled within itself and just seemed to fall over it's own feet.
You have two vampires who want the house for themselves, and try to buy it from the owners only to be turned down. Then instead of doing what anyone would expect them to, which is kill the owners and take the house or at the very lest hypnotize the owners into giving it to them; the vampires just wait. Literally, they just sit in their car in the driveway and wait for the owners to leave. It's not till half way through that you learn it's the book hidden in the house they really want. As well, you learn the vampires can enter the house without any issues, so that plot point is really thin. The movie's big ending centers around everyone being trapped in the house with a monster hunter who spoiler alert, turns out to be the bad guy.
Granted this was from the beginning of the 80's, but the plot feels like it was meant for a bad Saturday morning cartoon - no pun intended on the name. It just left me scratching my head the whole time trying to figure out if the writers/producers were on crack at the time?
If you're a fan of either Monster Squad from 1987 or Elvira Mistress of the Dark from 1988, you would have to admit, both those movies took the two main storylines and did them 100% better. Clearer. Funnier. Smarter.
I'm going to bury this here in this unmarked grave. I'll be back tomorrow with another treat for your Hallowe'en displeasure.
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