13th Child

Living in New Jersey one becomes familiar with the legend of the Jersey Devil, it's a shame that the creative team behind this picture didn't brush up on that legend. The film has the fun stylings of those campy drive-in horror films, but aside from that, suffers from painfully long/slow scenes coupled with downright derivative imagery. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, ALIENS, 12 MONKEYS, and even the EXORCIST all exist in this film. The film, for a low budget feature, actually shows decent production but the acting, script, and story all suffer so. Here's hoping a "Volume 2" isn't in the works.

If you are thinking of seeing this movie, I would think again. Living in Southern New Jersey, the Legend of the Jersey Devil really hits home. So when we heard of this movie, there was no doubt we were going to see it. So we paid $7.75 each at the local multiplex, and settled in. I was originally expected Blair Witch Project type filmography, but the video was actually better than I thought it would be. The movie on the other hand was absolutely dreadful! Not only was their a non-existent plot, but the author completely changed the legend of the Jersey Devil! No Mother Leeds? There were so many obvious errors in the movie, it was really an amateur production. The theatre booed loudly at the end. I heard no less than 10 people comment that it was the worst movie ever. I couldn't help but agree.

Started out with some promise with documentary style of the Curse of the 13th Child and/or the Jersey Devil, but after that starting with the pot smoking hunter it reminded me of a 1974 style , made for TV monster movie. A lot of blurry images of the monster and a camera man's eye view of the victims. This stinker had absolutely nothing to do with the Jersey Devil or the 13th Child (whatever that is). The low budget Devil's choppers had one look to it. A close-up, corn syrup sticking , hard plastic stiff, opening of the jaws. Cheap. The only decent part of this bomb was Cliff Robertson aka Mr. Shroud. He did look like Bela Lugosi in White Zombie. I think Cliff was just having some fun and had the high powered friends to get this onto the shelves and get a writer's credit.

Bad acting was only one reason this movie sucks ass. What a complete waste of time to watch this dreadful piece of sh*t!! Who would have thought that "Benson" would stoop so low as to "act" in a crappy movie like this. And Christopher Atkins needs to go back to the Blue Lagoon. He sucked as well. Oh, and how many times did we actually get to see this Jersey Devil? Hell, he made probably about three appearances in the whole damn movie. Good thing though, it was totally comical when you did get to see him. And Michelle Maryk, she was absolutely awful. Her enthusiasm just overwhelmed me throughout this nightmare. She looked and acted just like what she drove around in, a dull, pale old VW Bug!! Avoid this one at all costs.

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.