13th Child (2002)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Being one who was born and raised in South Jersey and near the Pine Barrens, I just had to see this movie. I read all the negative comments and ratings and braced myself for the worst. However, I was not all that disappointed.OK, so I gave this movie a HUGE benefit of the doubt, being a huge fan of South Jersey folklore and of the Jersey Devil, and also a fan of horror movies. But I still did enjoy it for the most part. It was good and bad.The Good: Cliff Robertson gave a great performance as Mr. Shroud, the mysterious Native American descendant. Christopher Atkins was also good as Ron, the park ranger and Gano Grills was good as Mitch, his partner. Robert Guillaume was excellent as Riley, the former cop.Aside from the acting, the basic story was great. And what made it better was that it was really filmed in New Jersey, particularly in Batsto village/park. But they did a good job of making it into Shroudsberg Manor. Also, I personally laughed at the Piney Hunter. I thought he was the funniest person.Although they changed the Jersey Devil legend, they did a good job in keeping with South Jersey history. They put the Lenni Lenape as the Natives there, which is true.The Bad: Michelle Maryk was downright awful as Kathryn, the D.A. assistant sent to investigate. Leslie-Anne Down was good but...why such high billing? She was only in the movie for a minute or 2. Seems like the good actors were given the small roles. Michelle Maryk got WAY too much screen time, I see why they gave her such a low billing, I wouldn't advertise her myself.The effects were not so great, and the camera-work was a bit shaky at times. The editing was awful, and the text on screen was badly put together. The time changes were confusing, but I actually sort of did get them. And they changed the legend, but I understand why.Over all: Not a movie for everyone. Mainly one for South Jersey locals.If you go to watch: Put it in your mind that this will be pretty bad and that the legend was changed, it will be easier to sit through then.6/10.

You can't go wrong when you buy a tape or DVD for 1 or 2 dollars. If you don't like it, just sell it and pass it along, and you're not out much at all if anything, but this one is one that I'll keep. A nice and eerie telling of the Jersey Devil folklore without being grossly gory. Some here say that it's not being honest to the folklore, but then again it's FOLKLORE. Overall, I would not give it a 9 or 10, I'd say that it's more deserving of a 5 or 6, but there are three things that made me jack up the rating. One, a super performance by Cliff Robertson that is spooky enough but not hammy, tough for good dramatic actors to do with horror material. Two, very cool way that the creature manages to get in and out of locked places, worthy of comparison to the best X-files. Three, the idiots who gave it an undeserved zero or one, that's worth a couple extra points right there. (same ones who give this comment the NO vote) These are the type who are sour on anything that isn't a gorefest of unredeeming violence. You know the type, they think the remake of TCM is better than the original, and they think Hitchcock's Psycho was boring between the killings and should have been in color. Oh, wait a minute, yeah, that was done already!

The Devil in this movie looks like a rip off of Alien, the acting is so bad, it looked like they just wanted to leave, cant blame them. The movie says it is the legend be hind the the Jersey Devil it gives you a really bad idea of what the movie is about. What you get is a shapeshifiting pair of cured brother's 200 years old who go around killing people, the reason if never given, OK so they were cursed for killing a Shaman's son, but not why they are killing now, or why they are stuck in the area that are. The movies starts out good then goes off into the outterlimits. There is only a few moments when anything doing with the legend is even touched on. I know I am a bit biased on the horror, monster movie genre as I like all kinds and types but of all I have seen this must be close to the top of my 10 worst movies I have seen. Saw you time and your money and avoid this movie.

I am from South Jersey, and very familiar with the legend. I even worked as a tour guide at Batsto Historic Village, where the movie was filmed. Interesting fact, the outside scene of the hospital is actually the visitors center at Batsto. Also, one of my friends is a thirteenth generation decendent of the Leeds family, and her mother worked as a consultant on the film. The story of the Jersey Devil that most people know, the one of mother Leeds cursing her thirteenth child and causing him to become the Jersey Devil, is where the title of the movie comes from. Unfourtantly, that story is copyrighted, and the film makers of this film had to use an alternate story. So naturally it wasn't what most people expected, but it could have been saved. Unfortunately, the filmmakers tried to cover all of the holes in the movie, weak backstory, mediocre acting, and poor editing, with excessive gore. The only thing I could think of when I left the theater was, Yucky! It was a poorly made movie, that wasn't properly researched.