It gets bad on Friday the 13th
But it gets worse on Saturday the 14th.
—The Book of Evil
Saturday the 14th is a 1981 Horror Comedy film written and directed by Howard R. Cohen.
A family inherits a deceased uncle's house. John (Richard Benjamin) and Mary Hyatt (Paula Prentiss), together with daughter Debbie (Kari Michaelsen) and son Billy (Kevin Brando), move in, but Waldemar (Jeffrey Tambor), a vampire, and Yolanda (Nancy Lee Andrews), his wife, want desperately to get into the rundown house because it contains a book of evil.
It had a limited theatrical release in 1981, but aired on TV afterwards.
Followed in 1988 with a sequel, Saturday the 14th Strikes Back, with none of the original cast returning.
This film provides examples of:
- Bathtub Scene: Debbie provides Fanservice in a scene, with something lurking in the water, too.
- Bittersweet Ending: The curse on the house is removed, the monsters are defeated, Debbie has a new possible boyfriend, the threat of the book is gone for good, and Waldemar and Yolanda leave on cordial terms, but several relatives and neighbors are dead, and Mary is a vampire (Because she got it from Waldemar, not the book or the curse on the house, it's more than likely that it stuck).
- Brandishment Bluff: Van Helsing threatens to toss a foaming blue liquid on Waldemar and Yolanda... that he reveals after they leave to be a beverage.
- Censor Suds: The FX crew actually did a good job making live-action, life-like suds covering Debbie's breasts in the bathtub scene. Their only issue is defying physics as they are stuck to her and don't slide off.
- Chekhov's Gun: Billy dispatches the alien by smacking him with the book of evil until he falls out the window. the villain is ultimately dispatched with the same book, in a similar manner.
- Chewing the Scenery: Every actor knew this movie was silly, and they act accordingly. Van Helsing particularly.
- Classical Movie Vampire: Waldemar. Downplayed with Yolanda, who looks more like a parody of Vampira or Elvira.
- Daywalking Vampire: Vampires Waldelmar and Yolanda and eventually Mary seem only slightly inconvenienced walking around during the day.
- Decapitation Presentation: Ernie the Policeman's head... in a roast.
- Decoy Antagonist: Waldemar and Yolanda are not the real villains.
- I Do Not Drink Wine: Van Helsing does not drink coffee.
- Dwindling Party: The guests at the party in the climax. only the unnamed delivery guy survives.
- Eccentric Exterminator: The Major and his assistant, Van Helsing.
- Evil All Along: Van Helsing, as revealed in the Climax.
- Foreshadowing: The climactic plot twist ( the vampire couple being a Decoy Antagonist and Van Helsing being Evil All Along) is foreshadowed throughout the movie.
- Waldemar and Yolanda act affable, almost cordial, throughout the movie before the climax, not like villains.
- Van Helsing, meanwhile, has a thick Germanic accent, mentions having met Attila the Hun, and says "I do not drink coffee"- a parody of a line normally given to Dracula, not a vampire hunter.
- Gift-Giving Gaffe: Everyone brings an electric can opener to the party.
- Haunted House: The house for most of the movie. after the climax, it reverts back to a normal house by the end credits.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: This movie parodies the trope saying that Saturday the 14th is worse than Friday the 13th.
- Inadequate Inheritor: The relative at the will reading who inherits 3000 overdue library books and a blown raspberry.
- "Jaws" Attack Parody: A variant of the Jaws theme plays when the Bathtub monster's 'shark fin' peeks above the water.
- Knight of Cerebus: It's when Van Helsing enters the movie at the end of the second act that it stops being laugh-out-loud comedic and the stakes start rising... until the climax.
- Monster Mash: Vampires, Werewolves, Aliens, Mummies, fish-monsters, and other creatures in the book. Of these, the three vampires are the most prominent in the plot, while the Alien is just a Starter Villain.
- No Ontological Inertia: When the villain is defeated, the house reverts from a haunted house to a normal one.
- Heavily implied to be averted for Mary, who was turned by Waldemar, not the book.
- Parental Obliviousness: John and Mary are either completely oblivious to the strange occurrences in the house, or (if something more blatantly obvious, like Mary's Virus-Victim Symptoms) dismiss it as something else. Their kids see it all, though.
- Averted during the third act, when Van Helsing tells them about the book and it's effects to their face.
- Running Gag: Early in the film, John keeps blaming various strange noises on "damn owls".
- Shark Fin of Doom: The bathtub monster has one.
- Shout-Out: To numerous horror movies.
- The title itself riffs on Friday the 13th, which released a year prior to this film.
- The house is on Elm Street.
- Yolanda is still upset with Waldemar for seeing "that Harker woman".
- The can of Wolfsbane is labelled as Talbot-brand.
- Starter Villain: The Alien that confronts Billy near the beginning, and is killed when Billy nearly literally throws the book at him.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The book which everyone is hunting for.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Monsters walking around the house, monsters doing the dishes, severed heads on the table...
- Vampire Hickey: Mary gets one early in the movie. it vanishes by the end of the film.
- Virus-Victim Symptoms: After Mary is first bitten by Waldemar early in the film, she has a visible Vampire Hickey. Afterwards she starts acting more aggressively, sleepwalks, squints and holds her hand over her face in the sunlight, wears only white, has an aversion to garlic, sleeps with dirt on the bed, has some Voice of the Legion moments, and nearly bites John. It's unknown when exactly she fully turned and became a Vampire, and despite everything else going back to normal after the climax, it's entirely possible she's still a vampire, since that was due to Waldemar and not the book.
- Wizard Duel: The final showdown between Van Helsing and Waldemar seems to involve making Stock Sound Effects at each other.
