There are few childhood memories more precious than Channels 15 and 16. Back when the Horror Nerd was just a little nerd, those were the channels reserved for Cinemax and The Movie Channel in the Lickness (my evil alter-ego) household. Occasionally, when certain specifications were met (on the sixth day of every month during a lunar eclipse...or sometimes just when the wind was coming in from the north), the normally impenetrable fuzz of Channel 16 (this would be TMC) would start to bleed over and give tantalizing looks at the forbidden fruit of pay cable. On said occasions, my brother would SCREAM for yours truly to run down to the basement and see what good fortune had in store for us on that day.Well, on some fateful summer day in 1989, "The Burning" was the movie in question that the cable TV gods saw fit to grace us with. Ordinarily, horror movies scared the s*** out of the six-year-old Horror Nerd; this movie was quite the opposite. It had its creepy moments, but there is such a fun, cheesy, tongue-in-cheek quality to this film that it's hard not to enjoy it as pure camp. My brother laughed his ass off, and I joined him. The movie is still one of my favorites, and while the Horror Nerd's brother is no longer with us, this is a movie that still brings a smile to my face every time I see it.
Oh boy, this is some movie. In a factoid that must embarrass the Weinsteins to no end, "The Burning" is the movie that put their fledgling company Miramax Studios on the map. The year was 1981, and slasher flicks ruled the landscape. As such, there is virtually nothing - AT ALL - original or groundbreaking about the movie. All of the elements (summer camp setting, virtuous and nonvirtuous teens, gratuitous nudity, a hideous freak of a killer, etc.) had obviously been done a thousand times before, and have been done a thousand times since. None of it matters, because this flick is just loads of fun to watch. It also doesn't hurt that it has some real actors, including George Costanza himself as the requisite "practical joker" camper and Holly Hunter in a few "blink and you miss her" appearances.
THE MOVIE!!
Like a lot of '80s slasher films, "The Burning" begins with a sort of "legend" story, a la Paul Holt telling the other camp counselors the story of Jason Voorhees in "Friday the 13th Part II." A group of young campers at some mythical movie summer camp are planning to play a nasty prank on Cropsy (Lou David, who projects tons of lecherous sliminess in the role), the nasty handyman at the camp who has wronged all of them in one way or another. In one of those "what could possibly go wrong here?" twists, the incident goes horribly awry, resulting in Cropsy being burned from head to toe and winding up in a burn ward for the next several years, where he slowly goes insane. All things added up, he gets out five years later with sweet revenge on his mind, promptly kills a prostitute, and makes his way to his old stomping grounds...At this point, the movie sets us up with its "teenage" mini plots. There's a group of likable teens, where Jason Alexander shows up (with hair, no less) and immediately becomes the most awesome character in the entire movie. His friend Eddy (Ned Eisenburg) has the hots for Karen (Carolyn Houlihan), but she is reluctant to consummate the relationship due to Eddy's bad boy reputation. Meanwhile, unpopular camper Alfred (Brian Backer) struggles to fit in with Alexander and his wisecracking friends, all the while feuding with douchy jock Glazer (Larry Joshua, infinitely hateable in this role) and his would-be girlfriend Sally (Carrick Glenn). While all of this is going on, the two camp counselors (Brian Matthews and Leah Ahres) are your typical summer camp movie likable "adults-in-charge." Lots of fun, s***s and giggles to be had.
There's one very important thing you should know about "The Burning" - the makeup effects are done by Tom Savini, and this may arguably be the finest job he has ever done. Not only is Cropsy a nasty-looking son of a bitch, but the movie's money scene - a lake raft massacre - is one of the most impressive set pieces I've seen in any '80s slasher movie. Some directors and makeup artists like to cut away from the moment of impact and leave the absolute worst of the worst stuff up to your imagination, but I'm a huge mark for the way Savini does it (along with director Tony Maylam), always lingering as the various slashy implements penetrate the skin. When Cropsy starts his inevitable revenge in this movie, it's a very visceral movie.At times, "The Burning" is also a very funny movie. Even more amazingly, a good deal of the lines that make the audience laugh were actually MEANT to do so. Alexander's comic timing was already well on display here, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out if a lot of his lines were improvised. There have been some examples of GREAT casting in the pantheon of slasher movies (first and foremost has to be Crispin Glover in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), and a young Jason Alexander as a summer camper with a penchant for shooting the camp douchebag in the ass with a pellet gun has to be ranked right up there with the best. Every time he's onscreen in "The Burning," it's a must-pay-attention scene. As for the unintentional comedy, there should be more than enough questionable lines in the screenplay (a college friend of mine was actually a member of a band called "Down with Glazer" to give you an example of the type of movie we're working with here) and welcome slasher cliches to sate any MST3K-style party you may want to throw with this flick as the main course.
Also, for all the guys out there, both of the movie's slutty teens show off their goods...and they're quite glorious. Both Carrick Glenn and Carolyn Houlihan have amazing assets, if I say so myself. If you're like me, seeing gratuitous nudity in horror movies is always an enjoyable experience for reasons other than eye candy, because it takes you back to the days when this was an essential ingredient in mainstream horror films, and when "neck-up-only" shower shots that wuss out weren't the norm. Not so in "The Burning"; all the good stuff is right out there for you to see.
Conclusion paragraph time...there is little that stands out about "The Burning," but it doesn't even matter. It's loads of fun to watch either by yourself or with a group, it's got some absolutely amazing gore effects work from Tom Savini, and it's got the bald guy from "Seinfeld" as an honest-to-christ cool teen. For fans of '80s slasher cinema, there are few flicks that satisfy the craving quite like this one.
