| Saturday the 14th | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Howard R. Cohen |
| Produced by | Julie Corman |
| Written by | Howard R. Cohen Jeff Begun |
| Starring | Richard Benjamin Paula Prentiss Severn Darden Jeffrey Tambor Kari Michaelsen |
| Music by | Parmer Fuller |
| Cinematography | Daniel Lacambre |
| Editing by | Kent Beyda Joanne D'Antonio |
| Release date(s) | October,30,1981 |
| Running time | 75 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Saturday the 14th is an American horror-comedy film released in 1981, directed by Howard R. Cohen and produced by Julie Corman. The film was followed by Saturday the 14th Strikes Back in 1988.
Contents |
An all-American family inherits a deceased uncle's house. John (Richard Benjamin) and Mary (Paula Prentiss) together with their daughter Debbie (Kari Michaelsen), and son Billy (Kevin Brando) then move into the house. Waldemar (Jeffrey Tambor), a vampire figure, and Yolanda (Nancy Andrews), his wife, want desperately to get into the run down house because it contains a book of evil.
Billy finds the mysterious book Waldemar and Yolanda are after. He opens it and reads of a curse hanging over the date of Saturday the 14th. As he turns the page a monster is unleashed, and with each turn another disappears from the page and is materialized within or outside the home. The house is soon swarming with monsters. Soon strange things start happening: eyes appear in John's coffee, sandwiches are eaten, the television tunes into The Twilight Zone only, dirt is found in Mary's bed, dishes get done by themselves, neighbors disappear. As this is happening, neither John or Mary suspect anything, blaming things on a lack of curtains.
Waldemar gets into the house by turning into a bat. Mary keeps hearing noises at night which she thinks are owls, but are the sounds of Waldemar as the bat outside her window. John hires an exterminator to get rid of the owls. The exterminator is actually Van Helsing (Severn Darden), who is also after the book of evil in the house.
John and Mary begin planning a house warming party on Saturday the 14th. Guests arrive but cannot leave. When they try, a large storm appears outside the door. As the night unfolds the monsters begin to off the guests one by one. Eventually a duel between Van Helsing and the vampire erupts where it is discovered that Van Helsing is after the book in order to rule the world. The vampire Waldemar is actually trying to prevent this from happening. Good wins over evil, as Van Helsing and the monsters are defeated. The family ends up in an upscale all-American looking home while Waldemar and Yolanda keep the original house as their own.
The film was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by New World Pictures in October 1981. It was later released on VHS by Embassy Home Entertainment.[1]
The film was released on DVD by New Concorde Home Entertainment in 2001. This release is currently out of print.[2]