Starring: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker, Frances Hyland, Tracey E.Bregman.
Director: J. Lee Thompson.
It's my 34th Birthday, so might as well do something festive with the 1981(the years I was born) slasher flick Happy Birthday To Me, which has something of a cult following. Pretty sure I did watch it at some point over the years, but I feel like all I can remember is some sort of weird trippy ending, and even that might be something I made up. The cover is one of my favorite things, though. So, let's get to it.
Youth is wasted on the young, which is something I now feel old enough to say. Bernadette is told by old lady with dog that she should apply herself and get into Harvard. I kinda wish someone had told me that-and that I had listened when they did-and done more for myself in my old High School days. Maybe I'd be, y'know, doing something worthwhile with my life instead of...well, sitting in my darkening living room on my birthday watching old slasher films.
Aww, hell with it, I wouldn't change a thing.
Pranks involving a person's pet is never cool. At least George The Rat is okay. Not the strongest start to a film: I maybe caught two of the names of this group of characters, their relationship to each other isn't entirely clear(well, besides friends...what, exactly, is the "top ten") and what we do know about them is pretty unlikable. Virginia is, apparently, the newest of the "top ten"(so they were "top nine" before?) and has never played their games before...much like everything else, the "game" is unclear. Something about jumping a bridge or something. A race?
Disco music and see what seems to be every single step of Virginia undressing. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing...well, okay, it kind of is considering you have a narrative you're supposed to be doing something with. Considering the only thing that the scene actually achieves is that one of the other "top ten"(the blonde guy?) was stalking her. Okay, then.
So the group's sense of humor basically equates to that of a group of middle schoolers, which is strange because they're apparently in College. Static electricity is hilarious when applied to a serious Professor! Laughs aplenty! Again, the scene has one basic outcome: Virginia was part of some sort of brain experiment-as further elaborated on in the following scene-and has some issues.
Every scene is a long walk to one point, and then jumps to the next. We have a motorbike race, ending with the winner gleefully and publicly admitting he had broken into Virginia's house and stole her panties. Then he gets killed in a very lazy scarf-related way.
So Albert is the nerdy guy who, as a result, is called creepy by the other top ten...so why do they all hang out together? Not a lot about this movie makes an awful lot of sense.
I feel a little bit more in my comfort zone now that it's becoming a normal slasher movie. Guy lifts weights, gets head crushed by barbell or whatever.
Nothing quite says "first date" like going to a church. Yes, it's pretty and has a cool bell tower...and has a nice Quasimodo reference. I still don't know why everybody in this movie acts like a total lunatic, though. Cut to some brain surgery and...jesus, what is it with this movie? The surgery scene is well directed, with a lot of really unusual camera work and some gory effects work.
I've been mostly zoning in and out of this movie. It's somehow difficult to hold onto. I've mostly been following it and generally finding it incomprehensible. We've gotten to a VERY Seventies dance party, though, and it's kind of something special. Much like every other scene, though, we get very little out of it. It's like a series of thirty-second vignettes about a group of idiots we never get to know. If every scene ended with them drinking coffee or eating a candy bar I'd swear I was watching a bunch of commercials.
So, Virginia is the killer. Or is she? She's killed a couple dudes...wait, is the trippy ending I was thinking of that there are two killers who aren't on the same team? Or split personalty or something? I can't remember. Seems to be possible she's killing and not remembering or not killing and just hallucinating...psychic visions of other people doing killing? Weird.
Actually, the accident flashback(Virginia's Mother crashes their car into the river and Virginia almost doesn't make it out alive) is actually pretty well made, too. There are some decent scenes in this film.
Hey, looks like my Birthday Party: there's nobody here. I mean, the rest of it isn't familiar:the drunken Mother screaming at rich people and stuff, I mean. That wasn't my experience...although maybe I should get drunk and scream at some rich people. Might be fun. Maybe add dig up some graves to the list, too.
Dad walks in and finds a table surrounded by corpses and doesn't run screaming into the night. I think he may not have quite made the right call. Nope. Got his throat slashed.
Wait, what? Twins? Oh, wait, no, just....holy shit, that's some really good mask work. She must have gotten some sort of federal grant money or something for that bit. Called Vincent Price's guy or whatever. But the killer's gambit is really pretty circumstantial...must have had a pretty good idea of how deep Virginia's brain injuries went. Seriously, how nuts is this whole plan?
Final Thoughts:Pretty big downer ending there...what a weird ass movie this is. I don't even know if it's a bad movie or a good movie, it's just...odd. Even it's reveal isn't super revealing. I guess for what it is it works well enough....geez. Happy Birthday to me.
Final rating: Two and a half stars?
No comments:
Post a Comment