Reviews of The Burning 1981
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Mystery March Challenge - Week Three
It's summer camp time, and the young adults are feeling frisky. Hormones are raging, and unfortunately so is a garden shears wielding burn-victim janitor maniac. He's hiding in the woods, creeping up on naked ladies, and generally wreaking bloody havoc with his perfectly silhouetted weapon.
A brilliantly corny and cliché ridden slasher horror, The Burning is surprisingly entertaining despite its grating 80s score. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did,…
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With a cast that includes Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter and a script co-written by the Weinsteins, The Burning is a real curio of the dead-teenager genre. It's also one of the less enervating campground slashers, owing to some idiosyncratic characters and Tom Savini's gory crescendos. A rather pointless early detour into 42nd-street scuzz feels like an outtake from Maniac or Basket Case but made me no less nostalgic for an era when horror movies needed no postmodern pretense to exist.
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Horror Slasher, Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter and a few other young faces you might recognize.
So really late last night or early this morning it was 4 AM, I wanted to watch a good 80's slasher but Netflix didn't have what I was looking for. While looking I came across this, I had never heard of it before so it sounded the most interesting. Boy did I get lucky, this was so good. What I liked most about this is…
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Part of: Mystery March Challenge
Film recommended by: FilmslayerTonight's the night. Cropsy's going to get what he deserves.
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Incredibly effective slasher from the early 80s that not only copies Friday The 13th but is far superior in almost every way.
For a start the characters are believable , genuine and even likeable for the most part. I would go as far as to say that if this hadn't been a slasher I would have enjoyed this group of characters in a simple teen comedy. In fact for the first 50 minutes this is what this is. The special… -
I am not a fan of horror or gore in films, so for a film made in the 80's I spent a good part of it hiding my face with my hands! I give this movie props for that fact as so many older films these days do not age as well (gore effects-wise). It's simple but effective. If you like your slasher flicks then you will enjoy this a lot!
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Let's be honest for a moment.
The Burning is not the goriest slasher ever made. Hell no.
It's graphic, and bloody, yes. No question about it. But there's bloodier and gorier slashers around. The Burning mostly lives on because of two things:
1. The raft massacre.
2. It actually has some good characters.
We all know about the raft. It's cool - even if some (not all!) of Tom Savini's effects actually suck! Since when did a neck become twice…
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Brutal and gnarly addition to the slasher cadre. Once again, Tom Savini's artistry totally makes what would otherwise be a fairly standard genre flick. Unlike The Prowler, which I watched earlier tonight, there's some actual characterisation, with baby-faced Fisher Stevens, Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander contributing to an enjoyable watch.
Rick Wakeman's score is pretty mediocre but there are a couple lovely flourishes which compliment the feature rather well. Also director Tony Maylam utilises some interesting transitions which caught my…
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