THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
While the slasher/horror genre is a seemingly bottomless pit of material with thousands of films over a few short decades, many of them financially successful and a couple even respected as films, the slasher/horror/spoof genre is one that can only support a few releases. Ok, exactly two. Wes Craven's Scream took the confines of the genre and made them the point of the film itself. While it has aged poorly and seems less clever now, it did have a strong impact at the time (the same can't be said of its two sequels). And last year's Scary Movie was a spoof of a spoof, which makes sense, but is a trick that can't be repeated too many times (Lord help us, there is indeed a Scary Movie 2 on the way). So when Rhino Films and Lion's Gate decided that they needed to release their own slasher/horror/spoof/spoof they couldn't have misfired more.

Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th is about as stupid as any single movie can be. The jokes are infantile, the images are amateurish, and the acting is hammy as hell. Huge fans of Scream and Scary Movie would probably get a few chuckles here and there, but overall this movie is so obvious and weak that it should probably sink back to the non-release status where it languished before this home release.

While B-grade actors like Tom Arnold, Tiffani Amber-Thiessen, and Coolio probably won't be finding themselves in anything better any time soon, the large cast of fresh faced actors will look familiar to fans of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. They aren't really playing characters here, but rather stereotypes of characters, but on purpose. For instance, the nerdy horndog played by former Buffy regular Danny Strong repeats his "I'm never gonna get laid" catch-phrase over and over with a knowing wink to an audience used to such script contrivances. There is a point, but that doesn't make it funny. The whole film is an ordeal to sit through.

VIDEO:
The widescreen transfer looks like a workprint. There isn't any real damage evident but the film stock has a quality that you don't see much anymore, a sort of analog graininess that makes the film seem even cheaper.

AUDIO:
The audio is a muddy 2.0 mix that doesn't do much. Subtitles in Spanish, French, and English are also available.

EXTRAS:
A trailer is included.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Eh, whatever.