With Tom Savini doing the makeup, Rick Wakeman on keyboards, and Bob and Harvey Weinstein on story duties (forming Miramax while they're about it), The Burning is a notable entry in the slasher genre. Released in 1981, it rode on the coattails of Halloween and Friday the 13th, and in terms of quality it can stand proud alongside those better-known movies.
The prologue sets up our monster. A group of boys at a summer camp decide to play a Halloween prank on the caretaker, Cropsy (Lou David). As they guffaw, the joke goes horribly wrong and in his fright Cropsy sets himself on fire.
A decade on and the summer camp is in full swing. We're introduced to the horny boys and girls (keep an eye out for early performances from the likes of Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter), who spend their time bickering, bullying, boating, and bonking.
But Cropsy is back, and he has a pair of secateurs, and he wants revenge. After numerous well-staged red herrings, the slaughter begins. And it doesn't disappoint. Savini's work here is of the stabby and slashy variety, and it's appropriately wince-inducing. We get heroics from the camp counsellors Michelle (Leah Ayres) and Todd (Brian Matthews) but essentially it's a free-for-all, and anyone's guess who'll finally take down the homicidal gardener.
That's not to say that the characters are mere fodder. The film takes time to establish the lusts and rivalries in the group, mostly without resorting to cliché. I particularly like the way that the bullying beefcake (Larry Joshua) is repeatedly pushed back by the camaraderie of the nerdy kids. The sexual politics are typically retrograde, with endless excuses to show as much nubile flesh as humanly possible. And then stick a knife in it.
While atmospheric, gory, and funny without being self-mocking, there's nothing particularly innovative about The Burning – it doesn't have the memorable weirdness of 1983's Sleepaway Camp, for example – but it's well-made and sharply written enough that you are swept along on its ruthless tide of gore.
It's just a pity the good work doesn't carry right through to the end. Aside from a mild and needless twist, the final showdown is a mess of scrappy editing and baffling continuity, as if the filmmakers were scrabbling for footage. With a proper climax we might have been looking at classic rather than curio status.
Overall, it's understandable why The Burning has achieved its cult following. Ignored on release, it deserves reappraisal as a straightforward, unfussy slasher elevated by good writing, great performances, and even better makeup effects. Now in HD!
The prologue sets up our monster. A group of boys at a summer camp decide to play a Halloween prank on the caretaker, Cropsy (Lou David). As they guffaw, the joke goes horribly wrong and in his fright Cropsy sets himself on fire.
A decade on and the summer camp is in full swing. We're introduced to the horny boys and girls (keep an eye out for early performances from the likes of Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter), who spend their time bickering, bullying, boating, and bonking.
But Cropsy is back, and he has a pair of secateurs, and he wants revenge. After numerous well-staged red herrings, the slaughter begins. And it doesn't disappoint. Savini's work here is of the stabby and slashy variety, and it's appropriately wince-inducing. We get heroics from the camp counsellors Michelle (Leah Ayres) and Todd (Brian Matthews) but essentially it's a free-for-all, and anyone's guess who'll finally take down the homicidal gardener.
That's not to say that the characters are mere fodder. The film takes time to establish the lusts and rivalries in the group, mostly without resorting to cliché. I particularly like the way that the bullying beefcake (Larry Joshua) is repeatedly pushed back by the camaraderie of the nerdy kids. The sexual politics are typically retrograde, with endless excuses to show as much nubile flesh as humanly possible. And then stick a knife in it.
While atmospheric, gory, and funny without being self-mocking, there's nothing particularly innovative about The Burning – it doesn't have the memorable weirdness of 1983's Sleepaway Camp, for example – but it's well-made and sharply written enough that you are swept along on its ruthless tide of gore.
It's just a pity the good work doesn't carry right through to the end. Aside from a mild and needless twist, the final showdown is a mess of scrappy editing and baffling continuity, as if the filmmakers were scrabbling for footage. With a proper climax we might have been looking at classic rather than curio status.
Overall, it's understandable why The Burning has achieved its cult following. Ignored on release, it deserves reappraisal as a straightforward, unfussy slasher elevated by good writing, great performances, and even better makeup effects. Now in HD!