The Burning (1981)

Tagline: ‘Don’t look he’ll see you. Don’t breathe he’ll hear you. Don’t move you’re dead’
UK Running Time: 91 Minutes

Film Quality: 3/5
Gore Content: 3/5
Entertainment Value: 4/5
Originality: 3/5

Introduction

Thanks to the success of ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13^th’ cinemas were awash with slasher movies, each trying to outdo the other in terms of body count and gore. In 1981 came a film that set a new high (or low, depending on your point of view!) for future films to beat which got it into trouble with the censors and attracted word of mouth interest in equal measure. ‘The Burning’ followed the slasher conventions to a point but deviated in a number of ways which raises it above the level of most other pale imitations.

These pranks never end well

In a nutshell

After a group of summer camp teens attempt to play a prank on unpopular camp caretaker Cropsy, of course it goes horribly wrong. Burned beyond recognition, Cropsy goes insane and returns to the camp five years later to exact his revenge

What’s good about it?

They managed to attract a lot of high end talent to this nasty little film. The undoubted star of the show is special effects wizard Tom Savini who turned down ‘Friday 13^th Part 2’ to do the effects work on this. They are outstanding right from the opening burn effects to the infamous raft scene which caused so much trouble for the censors. It’s well documented that Savini was a war photographer in Vietnam and he based his burn effects on the sights he saw during that period, hence the amazing realism.

A young Holly Hunter (left)

How on earth they managed to convince Rick Wakeman to do the music is anyone’s guess but they did and he does a great job creating a menacing electronic score. There is some very deep bass that thumps along relentlessly, representing Cropsy’s absolute obsession with getting revenge for his horrific injuries. We also have screen debuts for Oscar winner Holly Hunter, Fisher Stevens (‘Short Circuit’, ‘Lost’), Jason Alexander (‘Pretty Woman’, ‘Seinfeld’) and Brian Backer (‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’, ‘Police Academy 4’).

As for the film itself it does deviate from the norm in a number of ways. First of all it’s the first time we ever saw the kids become the victims, usually it’s the babysitters, camp counsellors, teachers or other neglectful carers who turn their toes up, typically because they’re having sex with each other and drinking…basically NOT looking after the kids! Secondly, for the most part they act responsibly and aren’t particularly annoying…we actually like these kids and, apart from a couple pratting about in the lake, they don’t do a great deal to deserve their fate.

This leads us on to the usual criticism of the depiction of women in slasher films. Apart from one slightly gratuitous, voyeuristic shower scene, the sex and nudity is kept to a minimum and the terrorisation is pretty levelled between the sexes. The shower scene in question leads to the male voyeur being taken to one side and given something of a bollocking – no, you cannot treat women like that. This relative sexual equality is extended to the ‘final girl’ which, in this movie, is a ‘final boy’. Yes, he is to a certain extent stripped of his masculinity as we see he can’t swim, he’s bullied by the bigger kids and doesn’t ‘fit in’ with the guys. In this sense he is just as ‘vulnerable’ as the traditional ‘final girl’ is initially made out to be. That said, it does make for a more interesting and alternative final ten minutes.

Fisher Stevens gets the snip on a raft

It also breaks a few rules when it comes to the stalking and slashing of the victims themselves. The body count is relatively high for a slasher film…I believe it’s ten. However, five of these come in a single, 30 second rampage, the famous raft massacre which comes as an enormous shock to the audience. We’re used to seeing people stalked first but on this occasion THEY come across HIM and the unexpected burst of extreme violence has quite the effect.

What about the bad?

Unfortunately, for me, the killer is not particularly memorable. We know too much about him. We get the obligatory camp fire ghost story (which turns into a prank – won’t these kids ever learn?) which is kind of pointless in this sense because we know the legend is true and surely, as only five years has passed and we know full well he’s been discharge from hospital, at least one of the kids or counsellors would know this as well?

If only there was a 'stabbing weapon as metaphor for

penis' example in this film!

Oddly, as the film breaks a few slasher conventions which I find interesting, it does create some moral ambiguity. One of the ‘kids’ who was involved in the opening scene prank gets away with it…as we know Cropsy is out for revenge surely in the morality filled world of a slasher movie he would be the first to perish. Add the fact that he kills innocent children we soon leap to the conclusion that there is little to no moral code going on here…yes a couple who have sex are killed straight afterwards but what did the kids on the raft do? The film deserves praise for ignoring convention but it does have an inconsistent sense of morality.

Any themes?

Nothing beyond cashing in on the slasher movie craze. Apparently a crew were filming ‘Madman’ just a few miles up the river…was America really so overwhelmed by slasher movie crews that they were bumping into each other like locals in a small town?

Release History

This is such a great shot

The BBFC don’t like unconventional weapons, particularly ones that you might find lying around the house or garden sheds (apart from knives apparently). The weapon of choice in ‘The Burning’ is a pair of garden sheers which caused our lovely censorship body a king-sized headache that only two Ibuprofen and 26 seconds of cuts could relieve. Most of the gory scenes were trimmed and, although time wise there wasn’t much missing, the impact was massive. This isn’t a film that lingered on gory shots, it’s explicit and quick so the amount missing is deceptively significant.

This meant the opening scissor murder, neck slash, finger slice, neck stab and head chop were either missing or shortened. This accounted for pretty much all of the raft massacre scene which rendered one of the most shocking and memorable scenes in slasher movie history almost nonsensical and confusing.

This was one of the first to be prosecuted as a video nasty because Thorn EMI accidentally released an uncut version in the early 80s which meant that it was could be seized and the distributors prosecuted. In the US it fared even worse with more than a minute excised for an ‘R’ rated cinema release which was also released on VHS.

An uncut UK DVD was released in 2002 by VIPCO but it wasn’t until 2016’s Arrow release that a full uncut, remastered, widescreen print was released on a stunning blu ray disc.

Cultural Impact

Well renowned as being one of the most notorious slasher movies and one of the first to be slapped with the video nasties tag, it’ll always have that element of notoriety, in the UK at least. Apart from that it launched some serious acting talent, was one of the first productions by the Weinstein Brothers and the first to be released by Miramax. It was also further proof, if proof were needed, that Tom Savini was capable of improving pretty much any horror film he decided to work on and the only special effects artist who was a marketable name on the front cover of a VHS sleeve.

Final Thoughts

Not the most original film ever made, it did at least try to do a few things differently within the limited scope of a slasher film. What we have here is a basic film delivered by some exceptional talent all working at or near to the top of their game. Take away the acting, supreme special effects and pounding score then you’re left with half a film so what should have been a terrible film became a pretty good one as a result.

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Friday the 13^th’, ‘The Mutilator’, ‘The Slayer’