Post by StevePulaski on Nov 3, 2010 22:51:13 GMT -5
One of my favorite scenes in the 1981 film, The Burning.
Rating: ★★★
The Burning is referred to by many as a Friday the 13th knockoff for it's similar nature and identical setting utilized. However, when looked upon with a great open mind, some hope, and a craving for a scary Horror film it's actually enjoyable in it's own way. We've heard of the "Baby Boom" which began in 1946, I call the period of 1978 to around 1989 the "Slasher Boom" where many people took the route of a slasher film to get scares out of teenagers. Similar to now which I refer to as the "Remake Boom" where 70% of all the crap made is either a remake or sequel. Although back then, people took pride and put effort into a Horror film. Now it's all about how quickly it's spit in the theaters. Creativity? Simply unnecessary.
The attract factor of this film stems from the image above. I've been teased by this movie since 2007 with commercials on TV, recommendations from friends, and even a horror movie themed store had it on the television but never had a regular, for sale DVD of the thing. So when it came on Netflix: Watch Instant in September, I jumped at the opportunity fast and scheduled to watch the film on Halloween 2010 and my plans, for once, went successful. I have watched the film I've been dying to see since 2007. Was it worth it?
The plot is about a campground called "Camp Blackfoot" where a prank gone wrong when a group of kids attending the camp put a creepy skeleton head in a room with a sleepy, alcoholic caretaker named Cropsy. Cropsy overreacts to the head and hits it on a tank of gas with it's burning eyes instantly catching him on fire. He winds up so badly burned that five years after the accident he now wears a black cloak, glasses, and shoes disguising entire recognition and to avoid revealing his deformations.
Now "Camp Blackfoot" is inhabited by teenagers packing raging hormones. Many characters face different ways of trying to encounter/please a lady and the first half of the film is all about these characters trying to achieve their goals. After around forty five minutes of talking and unimportant events we finally get some killings that aren't as rewarding as one would assume.
One reason is the kills happen way to fast. I swear the first major kill scene where it's like an all out massacre lasts around thirty to forty seconds. No doubt it's the most interesting part of the film at that time, but I needed to rewind it twice just to figure out what went wrong. I've been told the uncut DVD has longer shots of blood instead of racing by them, but I'd rather have more kills than an extra second of dismemberment.
Another minor problem is that the first half is just dialog, like I mentioned. It's a bit tideous when you know the killer is extremely interesting and has a weapon that is never utilized and half the film is just talking that has no purpose. Though back in the 80's many horror films had loads of dialog to make the kill scenes seem exciting.
Now that I've nitpicked the film to death; it has it's upsides. For one, unlike the recent film Naked Fear, The Burning has true shots of campground landscape. Naked Fear utilized CGI landscape for most scenery and didn't really use the term "shot on location" too much. In this film, CGI was never heard of in 1981, so your only choice was practical effects and use shot on location setting. If that wasn't possible - you're outta luck!
The Burning is an underrated 80's gem that I feel is definitely getting a reputation that's undeserving. There's no reason it should take a reputation of a knockoff when it really isn't Think about it; everything is a knockoff or has been done before. Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween can all be considered knockoffs because Black Christmas came first utilizing a slasher in a film. Although Psycho could predate all those films in the slasher genre. While there do exist straight up knockoffs, The Burning is NOT a direct rip off of Friday the 13th. The fact the main weapon is garden sheers amuse me. All in all; The Burning is vaguely similar to F13, but not too much.
Starring: Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, and Jason Alexander. Directed by: Tony Maylam.