John and Mary Hyatt (played by real-life married couple Paula Prentiss and Richard Benjamin) inherit the mansion of a deceased uncle. But within this Scooby-Doo-tier bat-infested Victorian is the true prize: a book of evil, called The Book of Evil, which holds trapped within its pages all sorts of actual monsters. Since you’re still reading, you might recall this is almost exactly the same plot as 1988’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. But that movie’s also kind of doing a Footloose thing? It’s fine.

Supernatural forces of all sorts seek the book, including Val Helsing (Severn Daren) disguised as an exterminator, and Waldemar (Jeffrey Tambor), an ancient vampire, who brings his skeptical wife Yolanda along. Not a lot of marriages survive vampirism; they must really have something special. Around this point it fully switches from horror-comedy to spoof, including a pretty early Jaws-in-the-bathtub gag. Like Mad Magazine fold-ins and the party jokes page in Playboy, Saturday the 14^th is the kind of laff-a-minute farce they just don’t make anymore.

[Staff note: Our Membership Manager, Kelly, has been wanting us to show this movie for YEARS. We promised that if ever we had a Saturday the 14^th free… we’d show Saturday the 14^th, natch.]

CLICK HERE for the rest of the 2023 “A Nightmare on Franklin Street” series lineup