The Burning
Wait, George Constanza was in a horror movie? I’m in! Of course I’m talking about The Burning. The movie that Tom Savini turned down working on Friday the 13th Part 2 to work on. A decent slasher movie but realize it is slow (as far as getting into the kills) for the majority of it.
Photo Credit: Miramax
Released: May 8, 1981
Runtime: 91 mins
Director: Tony Maylam
Writer: Harvey Weinstein, Tony Maylam, Brad Grey
Actors: Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer
PLOT
A janitor at a summer camp gets severely burned by a prank gone wrong. Years later he is released from an institution, returning to a summer camp, wanting revenge for his disfigurement.
MY THOUGHTS
There are about ten kills in the movie, if you include Cropsy. The deaths have to do with gardening shears as Cropsy’s weapon of choice. I would say the deaths that stood out might have to do with the teens in the raft. One after the other kills. We get a kill near the beginning with the prostitute and then no more kills until maybe the last twenty minutes when the killings really get started.
As far as acting goes we get new actors Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens. I have to say George Costanza..ergh I mean Jason Alexander hasn’t changed too much. I mean, you can easily recognize the Seinfeld star. Though he kind of plays the leader of their small group.
It took me a moment to realize that Woodstock is played by a very young Fisher Stevens. I think he does a decent job for his first movie. He plays a prankster and jokester but ends up with his fingers cut off and slashed with garden shears.
I also want to mention Brian Backer as Alfred. He plays the weird quiet guy that is our red herring. We’re supposed to suspect that he’s up to something but he’s actually not. He’s just a typical teen boy who’s a bit weird. I think he does a pretty good job being quirky.
We start The Burning at a typical summer camp where a handful of boys decide to play a prank with a skull that ends up causing a fire that severely burns the janitor. We hear a little bit about him but we fast forward five years with a new set of teens at a summer camp.
There are the typical pranks, sex attempts/let downs, and swimming montages. Then, when the older teens get to go on a canoe trip away from the camp, the killings start. A girl goes off on her own and meets with Cropsy. The next morning all of their canoes are missing and they end up building a raft that five of the teens take to go and get help.
The remaining teens and two adults still don't realize the dangerous situation they find themselves in. So some go often to have sex. Well, we know what happens to them right? It isn’t until the raft with the kids come back to their location do they realize they are in danger.
One of the camp counselors and Alfred are the only two who end up facing off with Cropsy. We get a final battle in an abandoned mine until either Cropsy or our two heroes survive.
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I wanted to take a quick break to let you know I found these great deals on Amazon for The Burning merchandise. I’ve applied to Amazon’s affiliate program and if I can get three purchases I will be accepted into the program. This will be of tremendous help with starting my small business.
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Overall it’s a decent slasher flick. Mainly because of Tom Savini and his makeup and special effects. I was surprised to find out that Tom Savini turned down Friday the 13th Part 2 for The Burning. Don’t get me wrong, I do like this movie, but I think he would have been great in the Friday the 13th movie. We don’t get overloaded with blood though, and there is a long period of the movie (almost the majority of it) where there are no kills. But decent acting helps us like the characters that we get to know before they’re killed. Definitely suggest watching it if you haven’t seen it yet.
And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:
The concept of the film is based on a campfire story told at summer camps in and around New Jersey and upstate New York.
This film was one of the first movies to land on the UK's Video Nasties list, specifically because of the infamous raft massacre.
Tom Savini turned down "Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)" to work on this.
Tom Savini was not particularly happy with Cropsy's burn make-up as he was only given three days to work on it.
Tom Savini would play classical music during the long process of creating plaster castings of the actors' faces.
To create Cropsy's distorted POV shots, the cinematographer rubbed Vaseline on the outside edges of the camera lens.
It is Tom Savini who swings the ax that kills Cropsy in the film's conclusion.
According to DVD documentary Blood 'n Fire Memories with Tom Savini (2013), there were creative differences between the producers and writer-director Tony Maylam, and special effects make-up artist Tom Savini was actually asked to write and direct a new ending.
The film's climax was shot at the ruins of an abandoned copper mine that the production team found.
Director Tony Maylam said there was so much dust in the copper mine where the film's finale was shot that he was still coughing it up several weeks after completing the shoot.
According to director Tony Maylam the reason the film's finale didn't take place in a cave, as it was originally supposed to, was due to the fact that the cave where it was going to be shot was full of bats. Tom Savini also said another cave that was scouted for the film collapsed just after it had been surveyed.
The wardrobe of the film is mostly the actual wardrobe of the cast. There was rarely a costume-person on set.
The film's composer, Rick Wakeman, was originally offered a percentage of whatever profits the film made but he had decided to opt for a fee instead as he felt the film had no chance of being successful. The film ended up being the biggest grossing horror movie in Japan.
Actors had trouble holding up the garden shears to the liking of director Tony Maylam, so in a lot of the scenes in which costumed Cropsy kills (most notably the infamous raft scene), he played the killer himself.
This is the film that launched the careers of acclaimed producers Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein. Their mother Miriam Weinstein is also a pre-production assistant on the film.
The movie is fairly unique for a slasher movie in the sense that most of the women who are killed didn't have sex prior to their deaths (in fact, they strongly refused to be seduced into having sex). Furthermore, the character who takes on and survives the killer is a man with a violent past, rather than the standard 'Final Girl' who is usually innocent, helpless and morally upright.
Check out my other reviews here: Forever Final Girl
Let’s get into the rankings:
Kills/Blood/Gore: 4/5
Sex/Nudity: 2.5/5
Scare factor: 2/5
Enjoyment factor: 5/5
My Rank: 3.4/5
IMDB: 6.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: critics: 8/10 audience: 6/10
Letterboxd: 3.3/5