Samedi 14 contre-attaque

The original Saturday the 14th was not good, but it had some funny moments with Paula Prentiss, Richard Benjamin and Jeffrey Tambor. The horrible "special effects" were comical because you knew it was just a spoof on horror movies. With that being said, the first Saturday the 14th was a lousy movie, but watchable. Jeffrey Tambor made for an interestingly ominous vampire, and the strange behavior of Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss as a couple before things got weird just fit with the crappy B movie theme.

Saturday the 14th Strikes Back has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. There is no story line, the acting is just dreadful, and I just can't figure why it was written and then green-lighted for production. Watching grass grow or paint dry for 74 minutes would be far more entertaining than this movie.

Well, the only really redeeming part of the movie for me is that it is one of the few movie with sleep mind control in it. The sister, the mother, the father and the sexy aunt are controlled twice during the movie while they sleep. What they are doing is pretty strange, but the scenes are kinda cool. If only the movie had been rated R, we would have gotten to see some sexier night attire.

I haven't seen the whole thing, but I will one of these days.

Overall, the movie could have been a lot better, but the execution was a little botched.

My review was written in June 1989 after watching the movie on MGM/UA video cassette.

This unnecessary, unfunny sequel to he 1981 parody received some theatrical play last year ahead of current home video availability.

Filmmaker Howard R. Cohen again maximizes the references to familiar horror icons, but dialog is lame and level of spoofing obvious rather than inspired.

First pic had the team of Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss fronting the action. This time teen Jason Presson is slated by an assortment of baddies -ranging from Michael Berryman's mummy to Leo V. Gordon's Evil One ringleader -to take over the world on his birthday, the title date.

While monsters, including pretty vampire Pamela Stonebrook and werewolf Tommy Hall, come up out of the basement, the dingbats in Presson's family never notice anything wrong. Armed with a bell and amulet presented by his fake grandpa Ray Walston, Presson does battle with evil, culminating in an embarrassing montage of stock footage including shots from number Roger Corman films, even including "Avalanche" and gangster pics.

Poverty budget is apparent in chintzy special effects, as well as stillborn ideas like Stonebrook suddenly belting a song with a 3-girl chorus appearing to dance around the room amateurishly. Thoug "Bad Seed" Patty McCormack is cast as Presson's mom, Cohen fails to make any refernce to her film background.

It is truly a rare occurrence that I can say there is almost NOTHING in the film worth seeing, but this is one of those few cases! This movie was AWFUL! I couldn't believe how bad it was. This is most definitely the worst sequel I've ever seen to a movie. I didn't think the first "Saturday the 14th" was anything great, but at least it wasn't horrible, this film is just BAD!

The acting is quite bad, the story is stupid, the comedy is nearly non-existent, the directing is less than top-notch, the make-up effects and special effects are really bad. The only good thing I can say about this film is the acting of Ray Walston, I don't know why, but I've always liked his acting (although I can't imagine why he would choose to do this role). Other than Ray, this movie is virtually worthless.

I would definitely recommend spending 74 minutes of your life doing something else or watching a better movie, but if you absolutely must, be my guest. Thanks for reading,

-Chris

Teenager Eddie has to save The World from ancient evil forces that are coming from a crack in the family home's basement. On Saturday the 14th. In my opinion the original movie was a reasonably entertaining monster romp. This, the sequel, is just plain awful, a painful 78 minutes. It isn't funny, it's dumb. The only two things that I sort of liked was the Gramps character and horror legend Michael Berryman playing a Mummy, though this is undoubtedly the worst movie that I have seen him in and he looked embarrassed to be in it. Under no circumstances would I recommend this trash.