SATURDAY THE 14TH (1981), SATURDAY THE 14TH STRIKES BACK (1988)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I suspect that SATURDAY THE 14TH was already in production as a standard monster-mash comedy before the fortuitous success of FRIDAY THE 13TH, and that said success prompted the oh-so-humorous title, since nothing about the film even slightly resembles the famous slasher-flick.

A haunted house is bequeathed to the family of clueless yuppies John and Mary and their two kids. However, it's haunted not by ghosts but by a Lovecraftian "Book of Evil," which starts causing weird things to happen (for one thing, the television set plays "the Twilight Zone" all the time.") Monstrous apparitions start appearing, some of which choose to model themselves on then-recent pop culture. For instance, a shark-like thing, complete with "Jaws" theme, shows up in the bathtub of John and Mary's teenaged daughter, while a gill-man resembling the Creature from the Black Lagoon attacks a plumber. Meanwhile, outside the house a married vampire couple, Waldemar and Yolanda, conspire to get into the house and find the book for themselves. Waldemar even vampirizes Mary, which leads to some jealousy on the part of Yolanda. So many weird things happen that the two yuppies welcome the appearance of supernatural sleuth Van Helsing-- but it turns out that the vampire-hunter has his own designs on the Book of Evil. At the climax Van Helsing and the two vampires unleash great supernatural energies upon each other, accompanied by making silly faces at the same time. (Since none of them are the movie's focal characters, SATURDAY does not qualify as a combative movie.) 

The first SATURDAY, like its sequel, was both written and directed by Howard R. Cohen, who did a lot of schlock pictures, the best being IMO 1985's BARBARIAN QUEEN. Both films were also produced for Roger Corman's company New World Pictures by Corman's wife Julie, and thus both are full of cheapjack effects and much recycled footage. John and Mary are essayed by husband-and-wife team Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, and it may be that SATURDAY was greenlighted in response to Benjamin's participation in 1979's successful LOVE AT FIRST BITE. Certainly both Benjamin and Prentiss attempt some dry humor comparable to that of FIRST BITE, but Cohen's script is incompetent to pull off anything but the most obvious horror-comedy schtick. Since the works of Lovecraft had yet to be mined to good cinematic effect in 1980s flicks like REANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, I theorize that Cohen may have used the "evil book" routine in homage to Roger Corman's 1963 HAUNTED PALACE, which also involved a family moving into a creepy old place and encountering a book of evil spells. Only Severn Darden (as Van Helsing) and Jeffrey Tambor (Waldemar) do moderately well delivering the stupid dialogue.

Surprisingly, seven years later the same producer and writer-director assembled for SATURDAY THE 14TH STRIKES BACK, and though there were no overt connections to the first film, again the plot concerned a family moving into a house bequeathed by a relative.  However, this time the focus is not on two clueless parents-- this time out, played by genre vets Avery Schreiber and Patty McCormack-- but on their teenaged son Eddie (Jason Presson). Eddie's existence, in fact, gives the title more relevance than it had the first time, for Saturday the 14th is his impending 18th birthday. Eddie is only slightly younger than his teenaged sister, but he feels generally marginalized and out of touch with his family, except for his seemingly dim grandfather, Gramps (Ray Walston).

Then weird things happen and monsters again start roaming the halls. There's no book responsible, though. Rather, there's a crack under the house that unleashes spirits. Eighteen years ago the same crack unleashed a magical mist, and this was the method by which a "dark force" (Satan, I assume) marked Eddie to inherit unlimited powers on his eighteenth birthday. No one else sees the monsters, particularly sexy vampiress Charlene and Kharis, an Egyptian high priest who looks like John Carradine but talks like Boris Karloff. Moreover, the rest of the family, except Gramps, began to act strangely, at one point turning on Eddie and trying to kill him. By the next day, though, they go back to being oblivious.

The mystic contagion even spreads outside the house, affecting Eddie's teacher (who launches into a song in a miniature golf park; one of three or four bad production numbers). Kharis and Charlene keep working on Eddie, trying to make him use his incipient powers for evil. STRIKES BACK thus has a slightly better core idea than its predecessor, rooted in the idea of the "monster-nerd" as a potential Faust, willing to indulge in fantasies of omnipotence. The idea fails partly because Eddie may be the most boring character ever to undergo temptation. When the spirits ask him what he wants to do with his power, the first thing that comes to his mind is to one-up his bossy sister. (The sister fusses so often about Eddie going into her room that I thought this might go the way of AMITYVILLE II, but Eddie's too boring to contemplate even comical incest.) Moreover, Presson has a really annoying whiny voice, so it's hard to identity with him. Walston gives the film a boost when it's revealed that he's not anyone's grandpa, but a mystic protector who makes it possible for Eddie to fight the force of darkness. At the climax, there's sort of a psychic struggle between Eddie and the Dark One, but it consists mostly of stock footage from earlier Corman films, so one could hardly call it any sort of "combat." Basically, Eddie just wishes things back to normal. We may be thankful that the conclusion was so underwhelming, for it may have helped put an end to any further entries in this lame series.