On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema within the streaming age.
This September, we’re celebrating Back to School Night with 4 midnight movies that aren’t simply academically themed but additionally educate the teachings important to understanding this college of cinema.
First, learn the spoiler-free bait — a strange choose from any time in film and why we predict it’s value memorializing. After you’ve watched the film, come again for the chunk — a breakdown of all of the spoiler-y moments you’d wish to unpack when exiting a theater.
The Bait: Happy New World Pictures Day!
“IT GETS BAD ON FRIDAY THE 13th,” reads the inscription in an historical ebook with sufficient energy to rule the world. “BUT IT GETS WORSE ON SATURDAY THE 14th!”
That’s all you really want to know earlier than watching author/director Howard R. Cohen’s haunted home spoof from 1981. It’s a powerful sufficient choose for any time throughout pre-spooky season that turns into a perfect midnight watch on the second unluckiest date of the calendar yr.
Produced by Julie Corman, there’s greater than meets the attention to this children’ B film and residential video triumph from New World Pictures. This (largely) sensible monster mash noticed the bonafide scream queen of indie style growth take free inspiration from the slasher juggernaut “Friday the 13th” and mix it together with her and husband Roger’s previous success in horror comedies. The result’s a quietly good instance of the kind of household leisure this infamously controversial studio did surprisingly effectively.
When John (Richard Benjamin) and Mary (Paula Prentiss) inherit a notoriously cursed house from their oddly vengeful uncle, the couple defies all frequent sense and strikes their children, Debbie (Kari Michaelsen) and Billy (Kevin Brandon), onto the property instantly. Once there, 10-year-old Billy wastes no time discovering an off-brand Necronomicon to learn and wakes up a legion of creatures that quickly assaults his household from all sides. But unusual occurrences — like Mary discovering a human cranium in a cupboard, mindlessly dusting it off, and placing it again? — counsel an excellent stranger, extra sinister pressure at work.
A pair of outrageously over-the-top vampires, Waldemar (Jeffrey Tambor) and Yolanda (Nancy Lee Andrews), skulk round the home’s perimeter. They’d been hoping to safe the ebook that was value looking 300 years to seek out earlier than the household discovered its darkish secrets and techniques, however the arrival of a mysterious owl exterminator…. or is he a bat exterminator?… named Van Helsing (Severn Darden) sends the dwelling into additional disarray. With a “Creature from the Black Lagoon”-type monster clogging up the bathtub, might issues at [checks notes] 329 Elm Street get any hairier?
“Saturday the 14th” is a phenomenally shabby affair that will get lazy with its movie references and may’t maintain a candle to most Jason Voorhees outings. Watched in the appropriate spirit, nonetheless, it’s the form of movie that may depart you in stitches with its deadpan “Airplane!“-meets-“Addams Family” humor and a wacky dedication to visually realizing a world that makes nearly no sense. The script goes in every single place and is rife with plot holes, however it ought to depart inquisitive midnight lovers craving to know extra in regards to the rag-tag crew behind strains resembling: “That’s like closing the barn door after the horses EAT your grandchildren!” or “If you weren’t immortal, you’d kill yourself.”
Not in contrast to the so-called “discoveries” of Christopher Columbus, the pioneering work of this yesteryear indie studio feels historic sufficient to advantage a nonsense vacation — or at the very least to debate the worth of building one. With this effectively named however surprisingly executed parody, followers of the husband-and-wife Corman duo have been given an annual (technically, it’s each 212.35 days… however who’s counting?) excuse to revisit a vibrant and thorny legacy.
If final week provided an After Dark 101 on the significance of fringe filmmaking neighborhood (“The ABCs of Death” producer Ant Timpson told IndieWire all about recruiting 28 administrators for a micro-budget horror anthology premiered at TIFF in 2012), then this week underlines the significance of giving boundary-pushing artwork each a schedule and a construction. Sometimes you want an excuse to look at a film simply as a lot as you want a purpose to make one. “Saturday the 14th” is appointment viewing in each senses. Happy New World Pictures Day! Have you executed your vacation streaming but?
Those courageous sufficient to hitch in on the enjoyable can stream “Saturday the 14th” on Tubi.
The Bite: Did They Just Steal That Cop’s House?
It can really feel oddly magical while you notice that the important thing to unlocking “Saturday the 14th” is greatest summed up as: “Who knows? Who cares? Hit THAT monster with THAT book!”
Sloppy, foolish, and disinterested in lifeless air, the Hyatt household’s renovation journey is full of as many jokes because it has owl-bats. And but, it was criticized upon launch for missing within the comedy division. At only one hour and 16 minutes, it’s bought dialogue jammed into that home’s each nook and cranny (“Oh, that’s better, darling… They don’t look nearly as dead!”) and the forged is aware of its method round a visible gag higher than most ([to her dead husband’s severed head] “Ernie! Oh, thank GOD you’re here!”)
This imperfect however fizzy movie was Cohen’s characteristic directorial debut and it ought to get extra love when it’s this straightforward to catch on streaming. The author/director had labored with Corman on a number of initiatives earlier than and returned for the sequel “Saturday the 14th Strikes Back” in 1987.
In an interview with Julie Corman within the 2018 docuseries “Cult-tastic: Tales from the Trenches,” the producer spoke about her secret weapon for the film’s comedian timing: filmmaker Cohen, sure, but additionally… Van Helsing himself. Actor Severn Darden emerged from the Chicago comedy scene as a beloved Second City performer and also you’ll discover the extent to which his shock antagonist, decidedly missing within the particular results division, nonetheless drives the again half of the movie.
Here’s extra to get pleasure from about this hidden gem, screened for After Dark on Saturday the 14th Eve in 2024:
- The Rod Serling-inspired narration coming from the TV that may solely play “Twilight Zone” features a nod to the present’s historic roots: “It’s destination is… Cincinnatti, Ohio.” Serling examined an thought for the same present titled “The Storm” out of WKRC-TV earlier than his sci-fi hit aired on CBS.
- As fairly well-established stars at that time, Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss have been at one time hesitant to work with a second unit, per Julie Corman’s feedback in “Cult-tastic.” They reportedly modified their minds after a single afternoon filming with the alternate crew, which was important to maintaining manufacturing prices down.
- “Saturday the 14th” launched Julie Corman’s assistant/the movie’s post-production supervisor to its editor. Per Corman, the pair later bought married. Benjamin and Prentiss have been additionally husband and spouse.
- Despite struggling the brunt of the movie’s vaguely inappropriate aquatic terror, teen daughter Debbie is nowhere to be seen on the “Saturday the 14th” poster. Actress Kari Michaelsen appeared in lots of sitcoms, together with a 1989 episode of “Full House.”
- “Saturday the 14th” was not extensively praised by critics, however it was amongst New World Pictures’ best-selling bodily media releases.
- According to IMDb, Craig Coulter — aka the Delivery Boy — has been in additional than 100 commercials.
- If you have been to host a screening of “Saturday the 14th,” then you definately would haven’t any alternative however to serve the right Van Helsing social gathering: onion dip, potato chips, membership soda, and Barbara Streisand data.
- This movie has an outrageous variety of sarcastic rhetorical questions, however “What do you want me to do? Bring out a Monopoly set?” is top-tier house invasion humor.
- 329 Elm Street is a Freddy Krueger reference and 1827 Maple Street is one other nod to “Twilight Zone.” Please contact After Dark if you determine the place 4386 Brentworst Drive is from…
- The finale appears to indicate that as a result of the cop and his spouse have been murdered…the Hyatts simply moved throughout the road and into their home? Which Mary wished from the start? Very suspicious.
IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight film suggestions each Friday evening at 9:30 p.m. ET. Read extra of our deranged ideas…
