America, America

Around the era of Airplane! and Police Squad this movie fits in nicely. A great spoof aimed at the horror resurgence that was happening at that time. Much like what Scary Movie did nearly 20 years later. A stellar cast, well written dialogue and jokes, hilarious sight gags, So-so visual effects but all around well made for what this movie is. I highly recommend this one for any fan of spoofs.

On the down side, I will state that, given the time when this film was made, some of the material featured in this movie hasn't aged well. It wouldn't pass today's cultural standards for comedy. Having said that, it never hurts to just laugh at a joke.

In the wake of the monumentally successful "Airplane!" came dozens of parody/spoof films in the same vein (or attempting to be in the same vein.) This one has to count as an attempt, and a fairly poor one at that. Someone has been killing cheerleaders for decades near the town of It Had to Be, Indiana. (Thus giving the film makers the opportunity to have a university called It Had to Be U.....) It falls to Smothers, as a Canadian Mountie, to crack the case. Azzara has just begun a cheerleading camp (with participants Candy, Sandy, Mandy, Andy, Randy and Glenn) and, before too long, the killer starts to pick them all off. Also on the loose are a prison escapee and a mental asylum escapee. The plot is deliberately slim (and even then doesn't really make much sense) to make way for the various (mostly horrible) jokes and sight gags. Among the many stabs at humor, only a scant few things emerge as even remotely amusing. What makes the film palatable, if it is at all, is the cast of familiar faces (some quite surprising along the way) and the general amiability of the film. Meant as a spoof of "Friday the 13th" (it was even called "Thursday the 12th" in pre-production), it lacks the graphic violence and vulgarity of that film and its sequels and opts for a kinder, more coy approach. This disappoints fans of the actual slasher movies and is aimed more toward an audience who probably doesn't even really watch such films! Smothers (headlining a feature film in 1982?) doesn't really have a lot to do, but does fit his role well and utilizes his deadpan style admirably. (His horse tends to get more laughs than anybody!) Reubens, as his assistant, basically does an adult extension of his Pee Wee Herman character to middling effect. Most of the high school cheerleaders are (as an in joke to the genre) pushing 30 and they all try to bring a lot of energy and spark to the proceedings, but they have been left out to dry with substandard gags and even more substandard direction. The jokes and potentially humorous visuals are often filmed with minimal creativity and impact. A few amusing things slide through such as a trip to a (really!) greasy spoon diner and a planeload of Japanese (who employ an unexpected and ludicrously funny stewardess.) If one doesn't expect much and gets enjoyment out of intentionally stupid humor (and checking out some stars before and after they were stars), it isn't that hard to get through and is mercifully brief. It pales mightily next to anything Jim Abrahms and the Zucker Brothers did, though. Hunky Hunter, as a football star, shows more animation here than he did during his whole career as a contract actor! Arden looks terrific, but should have skipped this. "Grease" was one thing, but... Many other notable character actors turn up briefly with varied results.

I am a big Judge Reinhold fan, didn't know about this until I did a lookup on his early career for something else.

A person named colleencouch10 had said she couldn't find this in 2013, if she has watches set for her reviews she will find out that this is now watchable as a rental on Amazon Prime and if one looks in Amazon they might be able to get a DVD of it.

Looks good enough as a premise to watch it, normally I'm not into slasher movies or takeoffs of such like Scream, but since I like his work ( see Stripes or Fast Times at Ridgemont High if you really want some great early work of his, Stripes has a recently new directors cut that adds 17 mins but it explains a hell of a lot.

at first glance in the tele mag i thought that Pandemonium would be a disappointing film to watch, but i watched it anyway and to my delight it was a well spent hour and a half.

It's a comedy spoof of friday the 13th. there are many refrences to friday the 13th in the film like when they play strip poker and how there are 3 boys and 3 girls, and one teacher.

If you like comedy and you like spoof films this is definitely the film for you. All the characters have their own comedy side to them essential to the nature of the film.

Watch out for appearances by Judge Reinhold and Pee Wee Herman!!!

whenever I rate a comedy, i rate how much i laughed, and to be honest i laughed quite a bit while watching this lesser known horror spoof. the acting is actually decent, everyone does a fine job. I'm also going to have to disagree with everyone who said Paul Rebuens was the best part of the film, he wasn't in my opinion, he was rather annoying actually. I also smiled every time Tom Smothers said oot instead of out, hah. anyway I must say this is a rather enjoyable comedy that hits more then it misses, I was not disappointed and I would recommend people to watch this lesser known comedy film, it's tons better then ungodly crap like Meet the Spartans, of course i'm sure every comedy ever made is better then any of the goddawful tripe those fools put out, but that's another review for another time, eh? I'd probably rate this a 7 or an 8 out of ten, but i've never been that good with ratings ya know, it's a good comedy, it's no "Blazing Saddles" but it's worth the 82 minute run time to watch.