SATURDAY THE 14TH STRIKES BACK! (1988) *

Saturday the 14^th Strikes Back! is more of a remake than a sequel.  The big difference is the main character is a teenager instead of a little kid.  Oh, and he learns he’s going to be the “new prince of darkness” on his sixteenth birthday, which just so happens to be on Saturday the 14th.  It still has all the shitty-looking monsters in a house full of stupid family members you’d expect from the series though.  That is to say, it’s rather insufferable.

Like the original, many scenes are all set-up and no punchline.  Consider the scene when our teenage hero finds a sexy vampire in his room.  This set-up is ripe with possibilities.  What do the filmmakers do?  Have her break out into a terrible song!  (Complete with vampire backup singers, no less.) 

There’s a running gag where the kid’s mom (Patty McCormack from The Bad Seed) is always making dessert for dinner.  Again, it’s amusing seeing McCormack playing Betty Crocker on Prozac, but she isn’t really given anything to do other than dish out pudding at every meal.  Avery Schreiber is painfully unfunny as her clueless husband and My Favorite Martian’s Ray Walston is embarrassing as the senile grandpa. 

Things get even worse when the evil spirits in the basement start transforming people.  A repairman turns into a chicken, the daughter becomes a giant, the aunt becomes a werewolf, and the uncle... gets a mini submarine stuck in his stomach?!?  You got me, folks.

The monsters are once again cheap hand puppets or awfully costumed actors.  I’m sad to report the great Michael (The Hills Have Eyes) Berryman is wasted as one of the stumbling monsters.  Even more insulting is the fact that he’s forced to wear the worst mummy costume since Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy!  We also get a variation on the original’s famous bathtub gag, but while the set-up is similar, the payoff is fucking lame.

Oh well, at least there’s a Friday the 13^th gag to make up for not having one in the first movie.

I guess the most memorable (for all the wrong reasons) part happens during the climactic battle between the forces of evil and a teenager.  That’s mostly because it’s filled with stock footage from a bunch of Roger Corman movies such as Avalanche, Deathsport, and inexplicably, Rock n’ Roll High School!  The only laugh-out-loud line comes when the waitress at the monster party lists the dinner specials, “Chicken poodle soup and liver and bunions”.