SATURDAY THE 14TH (1981) **

Richard Benjamin and his real-life wife Paula Prentiss inherit a rundown old house and move in with their kids.  Jeffrey Tambor is the vampire who wants a book of evil that’s located somewhere in the house and is always hanging around in hopes of finding it.  When Richard’s kid reads the book, he accidentally unleashes a bunch of monsters that can bring about the end of the world on the titular date. 

This tame horror-comedy is mostly for kids.  Adults will find it dumb as the humor is painful and the monsters are rubbery, poorly lit, or just plain bad.  The good news:  It’s only 75 minutes and it moves like lightning.  In fact, it flies by so fast that it sometimes feels like whole scenes got lost on the editing room floor. 

The biggest problem though is Richard Benjamin.  He’s just fucking terrible.  I’ve enjoyed his work in other movies, but he just has one expression here that says, “I can’t wait to quit acting and start directing!”  Prentiss fares slightly better as the mom who gets bitten by the vampire.  Speaking of which, Tambor isn’t bad, but he could’ve been great if the material wasn’t so thin. 

In fact, the script feels like a first draft.  There’s a solid (if silly) idea here, but it really needed more (funnier) jokes and stronger characters.  In all honesty, this is probably a One Star movie...

HOWEVER.  (And that’s a big however.)  There is one awesome scene that almost makes it all worthwhile.  When Benjamin’s daughter takes a bubble bath, she’s interrupted by a Gill Man-looking monster who rises from between her legs and scares her out of the tub.  As a kid, I stumbled upon this scene while channel surfing and it freaked me out.  Heck, I couldn’t even use Mr. Bubble (the same brand of bubble bath the girl uses in the movie) afterwards.  I had nightmares for weeks and was scared shitless of the bathtub for months.  As a kid, just a few fleeting seconds of this movie scared me.  Seeing it as an adult, I can admit that it still has a little bit of a kick to it.  I have to admit, seeing this scene after all these years brought a big-ass smile to my face.  That smile alone is worth Two Stars.  The rest of the movie, not so much.