(1981)
Director: Tony Maylam
Writers: Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, Tony Maylam, Brad Grey, & Peter Lawrence
I'll admit it. I was REALLY late to The Burning. I saw it for the first time a little under a year ago (not realizing that it was one of the movies on my video nasty checklist), but that's okay because I saw it under the best possible circumstances and it quickly became one of my favorites. My friends and I had headed up to a fantastic drive-in theater (still in operation today!) near Pittsburgh for their bi-annual horror movie marathon weekend. We got there kind of late and had missed most of the first feature, Friday The 13th. But I had seen Friday The 13th so many times that I wasn't too disappointed. As we were setting up camp (yes, you can camp out at this drive-in too), The Burning started up. I had heard of The Burning and was pretty excited to see it, so I kind of crapped out on setting up tents and whatnot pretty early. By the time the movie was about halfway through, everyone else was fully engrossed as well. The were some other fantastic movies playing that weekend, not the least of which were Day Of The Dead and Return Of The Living Dead, but The Burning really stood out for me. So once I found that it was part of my required viewing of video nasties, I was real excited to revisit it.
The real star of The Burning (aside from the incomparable George Costanza) is Tom Savini's makeup effects. Fresh off of his work on Dawn Of The Dead and Friday The 13th, this is Savini at his peak. The effects, and the raft massacre in particular, are no doubt what got this film put on the nasties list.
The Burning centers around the campfire legend of Cropsy, a summer camp caretaker who is burned alive in a terrible prank gone wrong. He then wanders the woods seeking out victims to take revenge upon. It's not a particularly complex movie, but it's a lot of fun and unlike many other summer camp slasher flicks, the teenagers are actually, for the most part, pretty likable characters. If you enjoy a good slasher and you haven't seen this one, you're missing out.
Enjoyability: 11 out of 12 beers
Quality: 9 out of 10 skulls
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