On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
This September, we’re celebrating Back to School Night with four midnight movies that aren’t just academically themed but also teach the lessons essential to understanding this school of cinema.
First, read the spoiler-free bait — a weird and wonderful pick from any time in film and why we think it’s worth memorializing. After you’ve watched the movie, come back for the bite — a breakdown of all the spoiler-y moments you’d want to unpack when exiting a theater.
The Bait: Happy (Almost) New World Pictures’ Day!
“IT GETS BAD ON FRIDAY THE 13th,” reads the inscription in an ancient book with enough power to rule the world. “BUT IT GETS WORSE ON SATURDAY THE 14th!”
That’s all you really need to know before watching writer/director Howard R. Cohen’s haunted house spoof from 1981. It’s a strong enough pick for any time during pre-spooky season that turns into an ideal midnight watch on the second unluckiest date of the calendar year.
Produced by Julie Corman, there’s more than meets the eye to this kids’ B movie and home video triumph from New World Pictures. This (mostly) practical monster mash saw the bonafide scream queen of indie genre development take loose inspiration from the slasher juggernaut “Friday the 13th” and combine it with her and husband Roger’s past success in horror comedies. The result is a quietly brilliant example of the type of family entertainment this infamously controversial studio did surprisingly well.
When John (Richard Benjamin) and Mary (Paula Prentiss) inherit a notoriously cursed home from their oddly vengeful uncle, the couple defies all common sense and moves their kids, Debbie (Kari Michaelsen) and Billy (Kevin Brandon), onto the property immediately. Once there, 10-year-old Billy wastes no time finding an off-brand Necronomicon to read and wakes up a legion of creatures that soon attacks his family from all sides. But strange occurrences — like Mary finding a human skull in a cabinet, mindlessly dusting it off, and putting it back? — suggest an even stranger, more sinister force at work.
A pair of outrageously over-the-top vampires, Waldemar (Jeffrey Tambor) and Yolanda (Nancy Lee Andrews), skulk around the house’s perimeter. They’d been hoping to secure the book that was worth searching 300 years to find before the family learned its dark secrets, but the arrival of a mysterious owl exterminator…. or is he a bat exterminator?… named Van Helsing (Severn Darden) sends the dwelling into further disarray. With a “Creature from the Black Lagoon”-type monster clogging up the tub, could things at [checks notes] 329 Elm Street get any hairier?
“Saturday the 14th” is a phenomenally shabby affair that gets lazy with its film references and can’t hold a candle to most Jason Voorhees outings. Watched in the right spirit, however, it’s the kind of film that will leave you in stitches with its deadpan “Airplane!“-meets-“Addams Family” humor and a wacky commitment to visually realizing a world that makes almost no sense. The script goes all over the place and is rife with plot holes, but it should leave inquisitive midnight lovers yearning to know more about the rag-tag crew behind lines such as: “That’s like closing the barn door after the horses EAT your grandchildren!” or “If you weren’t immortal, you’d kill yourself.”
Not unlike the so-called “discoveries” of Christopher Columbus, the pioneering work of this yesteryear indie studio feels historic enough to merit a nonsense holiday — or at least to debate the value of establishing one. With this well named but strangely executed parody, fans of the husband-and-wife Corman duo have been given an annual (technically, it’s every 212.35 days… but who’s counting?) excuse to revisit a vibrant and thorny legacy.
If last week offered an After Dark 101 on the importance of fringe filmmaking community (“The ABCs of Death” producer Ant Timpson told IndieWire all about recruiting 28 directors for a micro-budget horror anthology premiered at TIFF in 2012), then this week underlines the importance of giving boundary-pushing art both a schedule and a structure. Sometimes you need an excuse to watch a movie just as much as you need a reason to make one. “Saturday the 14th” is appointment viewing in both senses. Happy New World Pictures Day! Have you done your holiday streaming yet?
Those brave enough to join in on the fun can stream “Saturday the 14th” on Tubi.
The Bite: Did They Just Steal That Cop’s House?
It can feel oddly magical when you realize that the key to unlocking “Saturday the 14th” is best summed up as: “Who knows? Who cares? Hit THAT monster with THAT book!”
Sloppy, silly, and disinterested in dead air, the Hyatt family’s renovation journey is packed with as many jokes as it has owl-bats. And yet, it was criticized upon release for lacking in the comedy department. At just one hour and 16 minutes, it’s got dialogue jammed into that house’s every nook and cranny (“Oh, that’s better, darling… They don’t look nearly as dead!”) and the cast knows its way around a visual gag better than most ([to her dead husband’s severed head] “Ernie! Oh, thank GOD you’re here!”)
This imperfect but fizzy film was Cohen’s feature directorial debut and it should get more love when it’s this easy to catch on streaming. The writer/director had worked with Corman on multiple projects before and returned for the sequel “Saturday the 14th Strikes Back” in 1987. In an interview with Julie Corman for in the 2018 docuseries “Cult-tastic: Tales from the Trenches,” the producer spoke about their secret weapon for comedic timing: filmmaker Cohen and, yes, Van Helsing himself. Actor Severn Darden emerged from the Chicago comedy scene as a beloved Second City performer and you’ll notice the extent to which his surprise antagonist character, decidedly lacking in the special effects department, nevertheless drives the back half of the film.
Here’s more to enjoy about this hidden gem, screened for After Dark on Saturday the 14th Eve in 2024:
- Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss were married in real life. As well-established stars at that point, the actor were initially hesitant to work with a second unit — per Julie Corman’s comments in “Cult-tastic.” They reportedly changed their mind after a single afternoon working the crew.
- Check back in a feature length… There’s more to come.
IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations every Friday night at 9:30 p.m. ET. Read more of our deranged suggestions…
- ‘The ABCs of Death’: How Ant Timpson and Tim League Made a Midnight Masterclass With 26 Horror Shorts
- Revisit Midnight Masterpiece ‘Holy Motors’: French Arthouse Ponders Cinema and the Self
- Kate Winslet Burns It Down in Australian Haute Couture Revenge Movie ‘The Dressmaker’
