e begin with an obligatory post-Blair Witch bit of fakery, to lend a legend that's been around for 200 years a sense of greater legitimacy than it may have developed on its own for the past two centuries: A woman from the New Jersey Pine Barrens tells of her encounter with the dread Jersey Devil in grainy faux Super-8 footage. Flash forward. Old cop Riley (Guillaume) is in a mental hospital, blithering about the Jersey Devil, throttling a fellow patient's squeak-toy teddy bear as he says ominously, "Indians took scalps—the Devil takes heads!" The squeak-toy teddy bear, in a display of Method that'd shame De Niro, says nothing. Riley then watches a Discovery Channel-style special about the history of the Jersey Devil that has no relation to any existing lore about the Devil, nor to anything else that transpires in the rest of the film.
Flash back three days. Hardworking assistant D.A. Kathryn Tatum (Maryk) is called in by her boss (Down) to check out a possible Jersey Devil-related homicide; seems Kathryn's boss' dad was beheaded by the Devil while in the woods with Riley, and she has a score to settle. Out in the Pine Barrens, Tatum encounters lovable Forestry Service Ranger Ron (Atkins) and his partner on loan from the NYPD, Mitch (Grills). Chatting over a mutilated body, they decide for no good reason to ask a guy named Mr. Shroud (Robertson) a few questions. Mr. Shroud lives in a creepy old house, which gives the plucky trio the chance to play Scooby-Doo around the Shroud property. No Scooby Snacks are found, but Mr. Shroud is. He's not helpful.
A creepy hunter is killed. Horny teens who look to be in their 30s are menaced while trying to have sex. What has the Jersey Devil to do with the mysterious goings on? Or, for that matter, the Yeti? Nessie? The Easter Bunny?
A Pine Barrens thriller that's barren of fun
There are great lines in the history of horror cinema. "Be afraid—be very afraid" is one. So's "I don't drink—wine!" Let's not forget "'Twas beauty that killed the beast." Unfortunately, "Have you seen my friend Bruno?", a pivotal line in 13th Child: The Legend of the Jersey Devil, will never be counted among such classic lines. Any classic lines associated with 13th Child will probably be uttered by Mike and the 'bots, should Mystery Science Theater 3000 ever return. 13th Child is on the Track of the Moon Beast level of badness. In fact, 13th Child is by itself reason to resurrect MST3K.
Truly bad genre films are cursed with glimmers of quality. Even Plan 9 has a nice moment, when Tor Johnson rises from the grave. 13th Child has a few painful bits of quality. Gano Grills is quite good. Christopher Atkins does what he can with the dialogue he's handed, and there is a very inventive and effectively edited exchange conducted through the grate of a solitary confinement cell. In a few shots, the Jersey Devil looks pretty good for an ultra-low-budget critter. These glimmers merely throw the crumminess of the film into greater relief. The atrocious acting (even from Oscar winner Robertson and Down), the thuddingly entropic plot and pacing, the unfocused hodgepodge that is 13th Child all make for wretched viewing. 13th Child recalls a number of dreadful '80s paperback original novels, which consisted of scenes just strung together for the sole purpose of giving the monster (take your pick of the legendary, the "spawned by toxic waste," the prehistoric and the "summoned from beyond" varieties) a bunch of people to kill. There's no narrative flow to 13th Child. There's no feverish badness that'd even make it fun late-night cable viewing.
