Saturday the 14th Strikes Back

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.

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.

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.

Howard R. Cohen for some reason was thinking audiences were clamouring to get back to the theatre to watch another SATURDAY THE 14TH movie. So he gave us that. This 1988 sequel has nothing to do with the original. Jason Presson plays Eddie Baxter who's got himself a pretty weird family including Gramps played by Ray Walston. His house is on top of a crack within the earth and we witness some strange happenings going on with the family.

Ridiculously bad and luckily only comes in at 78 minutes. Right from the start of the film you see a beach with scary music playing. Pretty scary huh? Terror and screaming in fright are the last things on my mind when I see a beach. That is how the film is set up. No real laughs and no real scares. in this one.

this movie has it all,bad acting,bad directing,bad special effects.THATS probably being generous though,there is no reason to watch this movie.other then if your drinking a few,and you wanna make fun of a awful movie.i on the otherhand,found myself weirdly interested in this movie......im into the whole haunted house theme,so anything that has to do with that genre gets me alittle interested.i like the 1st Saturday the 14th better then this one though,but for some reason im into b-movie cheesefests,this one just made me laugh.it is really terrible,i cant believe im admitting that i like this garbage,but if you wanna watch something putrid,go out and rent this DVD.....but be warned,it stinks.