 | The over-done Scary movies series are well known for directly spoofing and referencing various popular movies of their time. But the idea of spoof horror comedies goes back years. Abbot & Costello made a number of spoof movies, featuring popular movie monsters of the period, with their Abbot & Costello Meets... movies. In the 1980s spoof/parody movies reached a peak with some 50+ appearing over the decade. However back in 1981, one came out that turned out to be, and still is, a confusing hotch-potch horror comedy, Saturday The 14th. Firstly with a title like that, you'd assume it was a parody of the popular slasher genre, but you'd be wrong. Unlike Student Bodies (1981) which came out at the same time, which did directly parody the slasher genre, the only connection Saturday The 14th has, is its title. At best it's a take on the "haunted house" genre of movies, like The Amityville Horror (1979), and pre-dates House (1986) as a spoof of the genre. And that's at best! The rest is an old school (Abbot & Costello) meeting of whatever costumes the film-makers could hire from the fancy-dress store. Obviously a vehicle for Richard Benjamin, who had starred in the commercially successful Love At First Bite in 1979, and his wife Paula Prentiss. So in Saturday The 14th, they also had the eponymous "Dracula" style vampire, and bug-eyed demon, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. And... Well that's it, apart from the only contemporary reference of having a shark fin pop up in the bath scene, al la Jaws. |
Saturday The 14th was Richard Benjamin's last movie, before he went onto direct. It was the directorial début of Howard R. Cohen, who also wrote the screenplay, and would direct the sequel in 1988. He'd already dipped his toe in the vampire genre, writing the screenplay for the camp horror comedy Vampire Hookers (1978). Interestingly one of the central elements of the movie, is the ancient book that will leash evil onto the world. Which is also the central element of Evil Dead which came out the same year. I would say great minds think alike, but Sam Raimi is a genius and Howard R. Cohen wrote cheesy schlock. After all we are talking about the guy that wrote the screenplays for Emmanuelle 5 (1987) and Deathstalker (1983), oh and Deathstalker IV: Match Of Titans (1991). They made four of them?! Roger Corman really milked that one. By the way, Saturday The 14th was produced by Julie Corman. And as for the claim that it was "The year's number 1 horror-comedy spoof!", I'd personal give that award to Student Bodies, at least it spoofed what its title suggested it was going to.
