By JOHN BILLINGER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah, Friday the 13th. A day of cancellations, superstitions, and for some, a day to marathon the \u201cFriday The 13th\u201d series. This film series has thus far earned 12 installments (so close), and has a strong cult following, despite negative critical reception from those high-brow critics. What can I say? People love a good gore fest now and then, but what about the day after Friday the 13th? What about Saturday the 14th? Who cares? Well, someone did, because they made a movie about it as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the title, one might suspect that 1981\u2019s \u201cSaturday the 14th\u201d is a parody of the 1980 hit \u201cFriday the 13th\u201d, but you\u2019d be wrong. It has nothing to do with the former film other than a similar title. Instead, it spoofs 1930s and 40s horror films. Not very well, might I add. \u201cAbbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein\u201d this is not. Since the movie hardly bothered to be about anything, I won\u2019t be bothered to write up a synopsis, instead I\u2019ll just copy and paste the IMDB plot summary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA family inherits an old mansion which houses the dangerous ‘Book of Evil’ that has all the monsters of the world trapped inside it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you, IMDB for that summary because, by god, the film is so boring to watch, that it would\u2019ve been impossible for me to write up a half-decent synopsis. Believe me, despite being only one hour and fifteen minutes long, I was so bored I could\u2019ve sworn I was in some type of coma. I\u2019m even struggling to write this review. That’s how boring this thing was. As a plot for a standard b-movie from the era that it\u2019s supposedly parodying, it\u2019s fairly stock, but when it\u2019s used for a god-awful comedy, it is bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And for parodying the 1930s\/40s horror films, it does a pretty poor job. If they wanted to make it a proper parody, why is it set in the contemporary 1980s? Shouldn\u2019t this have been a period piece much like Mel Brooks\u2019 \u201cYoung Frankenstein\u201d? Well, probably the budget didn\u2019t have what it takes to make it so, but surely they could\u2019ve gotten some old clothes and an old car? Afterall, the haunted house set looks like a traditional haunted house. It could\u2019ve worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you know what doesn\u2019t work? The jokes. It\u2019s one thing to watch a bad comedy where every once in a while, there\u2019s a semi-half-decent joke that gives you a slight smile. It\u2019s another thing entirely to just sit there and watch bad joke after bad joke. Every. Single. Joke. Falls flat on its face. It\u2019s hard to watch, especially when the actors try to make it funny, but they\u2019re not given the proper direction to make it funny. A good actor with the right direction can make a bad joke funny, but that wasn\u2019t the case here. It\u2019s pretty much a waste of talent the whole way through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n