Probably one of my favorite 80's horror films.

What a crazy ending!
Happy birthdaaaaaaaay hahahaha

Like the western Hondo, this movie manages to hit every convention of its respective genre and throw them all together for something that's more than the sum of its parts.An eighties slasher with an off screen, gloved killer. A menagerie of kill styles. Ludicrous plot twists. And blood, blood, blood. All it needs is more tits. Also more suspense. But this movie seems to be going more for shocks than thrills.

It's directed by J. Lee Thompson, who directed Guns of Navarone and the original Cape Fear. It's clear this movie is being directed by a veteran. The performances are decent. It looks fantastic. But it could stand a few more suspense sequences.

This movie had about 3 twists too many! I wish it wouldve just stopped at the first twist because that to me made the most since and was the most disturbing. Either way, this was very interesting and in my opinion for a complex horror movie like this to come out in 1981, it was ahead of its time.

Well-crafted, with an almost 60s-ish approach to character and motive. The gruesome murders are very much in-line with 80s slashers, but the story itself could have been cut from the same cloth as William Castle's Homicidal or even a lesser Hitchcock. I'm not sure the 110-minute run-time is justified by the content, but it's too slick and deliberate to be accused of being boring. Definitely a movie that you will laugh "with" more than "at." It's all played extremely straight-faced, which is how gallows humor works best . Was not expecting a crazy car stunt in the first 10 minutes!

The Count's Verdict: Despite a strong giallo inspired opening kill and an effective instrumental score HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME was so-so. It suffers from one twist too many. Pacing was very baggy without the nudity & gore I'd expected. Pretty much a 3rd-tier, middling slasher for me.

I think I have seen this before, but remembered almost nothing about it. I'm really conflicted with this film, as the tone and death scenes are great...yet the movie goes on FOREVER and the twist in the end doesn't really make any sense does it? It really needed to edit a good twenty minutes out of it.

None of the characters are very well developed either.

But for a very early film in the slasher era, it got a lot right before other films did it and were more popular. Because of the seriously cool death scenes, check out the cover art for one of them, you gotta give it better props than the actual film may deserve.

One of my favorite psychedelic slashers that doesn't get a whole lot of love

Like the western Hondo, this movie manages to hit every convention of its respective genre and throw them all together for something that's more than the sum of its parts.An eighties slasher with an off screen, gloved killer. A menagerie of kill styles. Ludicrous plot twists. And blood, blood, blood. All it needs is more tits. Also more suspense. But this movie seems to be going more for shocks than thrills.

It's directed by J. Lee Thompson, who directed Guns of Navarone and the original Cape Fear. It's clear this movie is being directed by a veteran. The performances are decent. It looks fantastic. But it could stand a few more suspense sequences.

This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.

The Count's Verdict: Despite a strong giallo inspired opening kill and an effective instrumental score HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME was so-so. It suffers from one twist too many. Pacing was very baggy without the nudity & gore I'd expected. Pretty much a 3rd-tier, middling slasher for me.

Probably one of my favorite 80's horror films.

What a crazy ending!
Happy birthdaaaaaaaay hahahaha

Another bonkers eighties slasher with a twist ending that seems like it was written after the rest of the film.

Good classic 80s slasher. Thought I'd predicted the ending from the beginning, but I was mistaken, it turns out...

This movie had about 3 twists too many! I wish it wouldve just stopped at the first twist because that to me made the most since and was the most disturbing. Either way, this was very interesting and in my opinion for a complex horror movie like this to come out in 1981, it was ahead of its time.