13th Child

You can't go wrong when you buy a tape or DVD for 1 or 2 dollars. If you don't like it, just sell it and pass it along, and you're not out much at all if anything, but this one is one that I'll keep. A nice and eerie telling of the Jersey Devil folklore without being grossly gory. Some here say that it's not being honest to the folklore, but then again it's FOLKLORE. Overall, I would not give it a 9 or 10, I'd say that it's more deserving of a 5 or 6, but there are three things that made me jack up the rating. One, a super performance by Cliff Robertson that is spooky enough but not hammy, tough for good dramatic actors to do with horror material. Two, very cool way that the creature manages to get in and out of locked places, worthy of comparison to the best X-files. Three, the idiots who gave it an undeserved zero or one, that's worth a couple extra points right there. (same ones who give this comment the NO vote) These are the type who are sour on anything that isn't a gorefest of unredeeming violence. You know the type, they think the remake of TCM is better than the original, and they think Hitchcock's Psycho was boring between the killings and should have been in color. Oh, wait a minute, yeah, that was done already!

I figured that I'd see this since I live in the Pine Barrens and I thought the Jersey Devil would make a good story, but was disappointed.

Besides them making up their own version of the Jersey Devil legend, the movie had other bad points. The acting of most of the people in the movie wasn't very good. The special effects were bad even for a B movie. Also parts of the movie that were supposed to be scary ended up being laughable because of the lousy acting and sound effects.

Most of this could be forgiven as this was a B movie, except the plot made no sense what-so-ever. I talked to some other audience members as we left the theater to see if it was just me who was confused, but they were just as confused as I was.

Currently this is only playing in South Jersey, but I'd wait for it to come to video when it gets near you.

If you were lucky enough to rent this stinker at Hollywood Video, where it is a new release, be sure to get it back ASAP for the dollar credit for early returns. That way it won't be a total loss. BTW what is with all the Jersey Devil stuff? I didn't see a single hockey player!

seriously?! with the exception of "the mothman prophecies" there has never been one single decently entertaining cryptozoologicaly based movie ever made, and this film is a perfect example of bad cryptozoological movies. First of all the writer/s had little respect for the actual ledgend of the jersey devil, but thats the least of the movies problems, the actors (except for the old dude who was controlling the devil, the only decent proformance in the entire movie) were awful, the dialog sounds like it was written by some directors cousin who thinks he knows a thing or two about hollywood screenplays, i dont want to sound like a bitter militant movie buff but i do want people to give the field of cryptozoology the respect it deserves, and if it keeps getting bad movies made about it like this the public will be far less likely to accept it in the field of mainstream science (i know the odds of that actualy happening are slim.......but still) hopefuly hollywoods thinning creativity will turn out a decent cryptozoologily themed movie in the future, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I am from South Jersey, and very familiar with the legend. I even worked as a tour guide at Batsto Historic Village, where the movie was filmed. Interesting fact, the outside scene of the hospital is actually the visitors center at Batsto. Also, one of my friends is a thirteenth generation decendent of the Leeds family, and her mother worked as a consultant on the film. The story of the Jersey Devil that most people know, the one of mother Leeds cursing her thirteenth child and causing him to become the Jersey Devil, is where the title of the movie comes from. Unfourtantly, that story is copyrighted, and the film makers of this film had to use an alternate story. So naturally it wasn't what most people expected, but it could have been saved. Unfortunately, the filmmakers tried to cover all of the holes in the movie, weak backstory, mediocre acting, and poor editing, with excessive gore. The only thing I could think of when I left the theater was, Yucky! It was a poorly made movie, that wasn't properly researched.