Kevin Williamson Fans Take Notes

Let’s see . . . we’ve got Halloween and Friday the 13th and Mother’s Day and New Year’s Evil and Prom Night and My Bloody Valentine and Silent Night, Deadly Night. What’s one to do when every holiday has been used already? Well . . . how about birthdays?

The year was 1981. The pinnacle of the "golden age of gore." Teen-kill mania was at an all-time high and the audiences were a vast and bottomless source of revenue for any schmoe with a movie camera and a few bucks. For some strange reason a lot of the "slasher flick cash cow" films were produced in Canada. Such is the case with Happy Birthday to Me.

Melissa Sue Anderson (the blind Ingall from the Little House on the Prairie TV series) is a neurotic chick with a mysterious and murky past. She’s also a member of the "Crawford Top Ten," a tight-knit clique of snotty kids who attend Crawford Academy, a quaint New England (by way of Montreal) prep school. As is usual in films like these, someone is picking off the "Crawford Top Ten" one by one. Who could it be? Is it the standard creepy nerd Alfred? The peeping tom macho man? The boyfriend? I just watched the damn thing yesterday and I’m still not sure myself. It’s either a multiple personality thing or an evil twin or somebody in disguise. The fact that four people wrote the screenplay should’ve tipped me off right from the start. But nonsensical plot aside, Happy Birthday to Me is still lots of fun . . .

. . . How can I say that the movie is worth seeing after confessing that it’s sophomoric and confusing? I think that the poster’s tag line sums up the solitary reason to rent the video: "6 OF THE MOST BIZARRE MURDERS YOU’VE EVER SEEN!" Now that’s a claim to fame if ever there were one! While I have to admit that a few of the murders have yet to be replicated, I must contest a few others. For those of you who are curious but don’t want to rent the video, here goes:

1) Throat slashing with a straight razor - Murder? Yes. Bizarre? Not really.
2) The old "scarf in the spinning wheels of a motorcycle." - Have yet to see this in another film because no character since has been stupid enough to fix their motorcycle while wearing a long scarf.
3) Throat-crunching free weights - The Toxic Avenger crushes a guy’s WHOLE HEAD in a Nautilus machine, but otherwise this death remains bizarre.
4) Pruning shears to the gut - Been there. Done that. It’s called The Burning.
5) Shish-kabob through the mouth - Now THAT’S bizarre! It’s also the central image of the video box cover and 1 sheet. The pinnacle of the film’s creativity.
6) Fireplace poker attack - Only interesting because it’s Glen Ford(!) who gets it with the poker.

So there you have it. The Cliff’s Notes version of Happy Birthday to Me. But if you, like me, have a soft spot for the "stalk and slash" genre, you could do a lot worse. The film is a veritable "how-to" of the whole sub-genre. Red herrings out the wazoo, the requisite confusing ending, a school setting, obnoxious victims, and clueless authority figures. While wholly unoriginal, the direction is solid and craftsman-like. Credit director J. Lee Thompson, who has helmed a ton of movies (Battle For and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes being notable ones. He’s been directing Charles Bronson DTV flicks for the past ten years or so).

Unique in it’s lack of uniqueness, Happy Birthday to Me is a great rental choice if the Kevin Williamson film of the month is becoming tiring.