The Burning (1981)
Director: Tony Maylam
Cast: Jason Alexander, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, Brian Matthews, Larry Joshua, Lou David
MGM / Color / NTSC R1 / Rated R / Widescreen 1.85:1 / Dolby Digital Mono / English / 91 mins / Purchase at DIABOLIKDVD.COM
Caretaker Cropsy at Camp Blackfoot isn’t too well liked by the campers. So a group of the boys decide to pull a prank on him to get him back for being a big meanie. So they break into his hovel, place a human skull complete with maggots (where’d they get that?) and candles in it’s eye sockets next to his bed, light the candles and finally bang on the window to wake him up. Their plan? To scare him to death. The actual outcome? Toasty Caretaker. That’s right, he knocks over the skull, the candles catch shit on fire (oh, look, gas cans!) and he cooks to medium well. Why “medium well” and not “extra crispy”? Because he didn’t die.
Fast forward 5 years to Camp Stonewater. Typical summer camp full of horny teens, slow-motion boobs-a-floppin’, extreme ass close-ups, and overall hi-jinks. But there is one loser, Alfred (Brian Backer from 80′s raunch-comedy classics Meatballs and Fast Times at Ridgemont High), who isn’t having any fun. He’s a freak and no one likes him very much. So of course he gets picked on by the camp bully and taken up for by the counselors and some of the other campers (a couple of them being Jason Alexander from Seinfeld and a very, very small part by Holly Hunter from Raising Arizona and David Cronenberg’s Crash).
Alfred and group of the campers go off with 2 counselors on a 3 day canoe trip and on the first night are told the awful tale of Cropsy around a spooky campfire. Is he really in the woods with them or is it just another campfire tale? They soon find out after a girl comes up missing and their canoes are lost. From there the mayhem ensues and Caretaker Cropsy, along with his trusty shears, takes his revenge and the body count climbs.
I’m a sucker for the slasher cycle in the late 70′s on into the 80′s. From Bob Clarks Black Christmas to Sleepaway Camp to Friday the 13th and its many sequels I can’t get enough of the “stalk-n-slash” formula. Luckily for me The Burning doesn’t break from the mold I love. Horny teens + psycho killer + gobs of gore = Cinesploitation is a happy place.
The blood and gore courtesy of none other than gore-meister Tom Savini are top-notch. The story moves along at a good pace, leaving bodies strewn about. And as I alluded to before, there are a couple of boob shots and even a scene where a full-on buck naked chick gets chased around the woods (*FULL FRONTAL ALERT!*) before getting the Cropsy treatment. Oh, the days of 80′s unshaven bush…I think I saw twigs in there.
The Burning was the flagship horror title from the Weinstein’s, then company, Miramax who cashed in on the box office success of Halloween and the afore mentioned Friday the 13th. It is a top-notch slasher from the hay-day of the slashers. Fun, titillating and brutal.
I forgot how much I appreciate that fanny shot.Great review,bro.
B.W.