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The Burning (1981)

Dir: Tony Maylam

Cropsy (Lou David), a strict janitor at the ‘Camp Blackfoot’ summer camp, is accidentally (and severely) burnt after a prank played on him by some of the kids goes wrong.

Five years later a hideously disfigured Cropsy is released from a medical institute and, ignoring the laughable advice of the Doctors (“I know you resent those kids for what they did, but try not to blame anyone for what happened"), heads back to the campgrounds where he finds a new summer camp, ‘Camp Stone Water‘, has opened up near the now abandoned ’Camp Blackfoot’ site.

Armed with a pair of sheers and with vengeance in his heart Cropsy decides to prune back a few of the Camp’s unsuspecting teenagers….

 

One day a polite British director met two fledgling American Producers (Bob and Harvey Weinstein, soon to be the most notorious Producers/Distributors in Hollywood) as well as the world’s premier horror movie FX guy, an English prog rock music legend and…‘George Costanza‘…to make an entry into that most iconic American horror sub-genre, ’The Slasher Movie’.
And from this utterly bizarre set-up we got “The Burning”.
Which became one of the more famous ‘Video Nasties’ in the UK when ‘accidentally’ released in a fully uncut form on VHS in the 80’s.

First off I shall stroll down memory lane and mention the catchy score by ‘Yes’ keyboard legend Rick Wakeman (who joins Keith Emerson - who scored “Inferno” - in the ‘most unlikely composers for a horror film’ club) which I had on a cassette tape before I had ever seen the film (along with the great John Harrison score for “Day of the Dead”, and which I still own) and as such I get a bit misty eyed when it warbles its way over the opening credits.

Sadly, except for the early murder of a prostitute which is well executed and downright nasty (if, for the initial stab, the prosthetic belly looks a bit firm, in the other two shots, where blood pours and spurts, the knife really does look like it's being twisted into living flesh and it's still a pretty damn grotesque, if brief, sight) the film fails to do much of anything for half of its running time after Wakeman’s score ends.
From now on it's 30 minutes of nothing but (far too many) false scares, false starts and utterly zero additions to the huge body count total so far of...1.  
Yes, 45 minutes into a 90 minute Slasher film just one person has died.
It's "Porky's" without much humour and with  no Chuck Berry on the radio.  Neither a good thing.

Thank God for Sally's (Carrick Glenn) teenage titties popping up during the essential shower scene (bee sting nipples and all) and for the ever chipper Jason Alexander (yes, a actually hairy George Costanza can be seen here folks), in his debut, to keep the interest perked.

And why, half way through the film no less and after we have already been given the 'origin of Cropsy ' pre-credit sequence and have already established the presence and insanity of Cropsy, are we spending time on a (false) camp fire tale about 'Cropsy'? This is the kind of 'fireside legend' Slasher cliché that you have near the start of the film, not when the story has already been established and the movie's half over!  
And although I'm trying not to dwell on the negatives here (as there are positives, not least of which is a nice bit of full frontal nudity) the film also manages to utterly botch one of the best clichés of the Slasher film, the 'finding of the dead bodies' scene, by having it play via a piss-awful freeze frame capture (a badly matted one at that) of the actress's head taken from earlier on in the film.

Plus you feel damn cheated when over half of the possible victims (you’ve spent over 30 minutes following) actually come to no harm of any kind whatsoever.
In fact, as the end credits roll, "The Burning" has delivered a rather less than amazing victim body count of 9.
But even then let's remember that one of those was off-screen and 5 of them were all in one scene!
In fact the film itself seems to know it's not spent enough time killing enough people when, during the finale, it flashbacks to some of the ‘Raft Murders’ without any narratively valid reason for doing so.

Ah. Yes. The ‘Raft Murders’.
Here we finally get to talk about some of the good stuff.
The famous 'raft sequence' is still a classic moment in not only the Slasher sub-genre but the Horror genre full stop.  It's still unique in execution and was a truly audacious move.  
It's a triumph of planning, directing and editing and if this fine scene surprisingly features some of Savini's weakest FX in the film (the rubber fingers and guy's giraffe neck are genuinely poor) the sheer speed of the killings and unexpected quantity of victims offed at one time still manage to make this sequence nicely visceral. 

Most of the other kill scenes and FX are very good though, with the exception of a truly wasted on-screen attack/off-screen kill that you think is going to have a gory aftermath payoff and yet delivers absolutely nothing of the sort and instead simply gives us a confused (dreadfully staged and framed) 'shock' appearance by 'Cropsy'.
Thankfully it leads to a good death scene and improved Savini FX.

Cropsy makes for a good, hulking, if utterly characterless killer and is suitably gross when his burnt face is fully revealed. He also has groovy demise (hardly a spoiler really) that adds to the success of the unusual finale that sees us with ‘final guys’ for a change and not the classic ‘final girl’ set-up of most Slasher films.

Performances are vapid for the most part but the aforementioned Jason Alexander stands out here and plays his character for laughs for the most part and it’s amusing for any “Seinfeld” fan to see him in this (blink and you’ll also miss a pre-stardom Holly Hunter and a more noticeable Fisher Stevens) as he delivers many of his lines in that same ‘George’ fashion…only with a rather red nose.
The other memorable character is the camp bully, and all round Neanderthal, Glaser (Larry ”Cop Rock“ Joshua) who's seen too many Joe Dellasandro movies and "Saturday Night Fever" re-runs on TV.

The fact is it seems Brits are not really in tune with helming a (very pure) entry into the American Slasher sub-genre and as such the film lacks spark and lacks that certain ‘something’ most Slasher films have.
This is mainly down to the shockingly uneventful, almost death scene free in first half, screenplay of course, but we have to thank the Gore Gods that Savini did the FX in this (as he is known to be very hands on in how the death scenes are staged) as only the few murder moments, and Wakeman’s unusual and fine score, bring “The Burning” to life.
And the film itself can thank all the Gods ever known to fickle mankind since the dawn of time itself for that ‘Raft’ scene…as without that “The Burning” would probably still be awaiting a proper DVD release.
Shockingly this was heavily cut by the MPAA on its initial cinema release and quite how anyone managed to stay asleep in that version is a miracle.

So we have some good (brief) moments, some mostly good FX, a catchy score, fun ‘star spotting’ cast and one classic scene.
But that can’t stop “The Burning” ultimately ending up as a rather flat, achingly slow, uneventful, low body count (come on…half the deaths all in one brief scene?) Slasher movie that just manages to scrape into the ‘average’ category.