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The Burning

The Burning (1981)

May. 08,1981
|
6.3
|
R
| Horror

A caretaker at a summer camp is burned when a prank goes tragically wrong. After several years of intensive treatment at hospital, he is released back into society, albeit missing some social skills. What follows is a bloody killing spree with the caretaker making his way back to his old stomping ground to confront one of the youths that accidently burned him.

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Reviews

Claysaba
1981/05/08

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

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Salubfoto
1981/05/09

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

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Roman Sampson
1981/05/10

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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Quiet Muffin
1981/05/11

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

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hellholehorror
1981/05/12

This definitely is not original. The story has been seen many times. On the plus side the cast is great, the effects gory and the atmosphere quite good. It is very predictable from beginning to end but this makes it better somehow. The scares are silly but they do make you jump and that is all that you want from this type of film. Overall it is an unoriginal classic slasher before the swish Scream (1996) ages.

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xposipx
1981/05/13

The movie starts out with some campers plotting against their terrible counselor. One thing leads to another and their prank goes wrong burning him alive. He doesn't die though, and goes back to camp with a vengeance.It takes a while for the murders to kick in, but when they come they are nice. There are scissors to stomach, slit throats, fingers chopped, a few throat stabbings, head split open, tons of stabs, and an axe through a head. A lot of the film is really dark and grainy, but in some cases it really helps the atmosphere. The problem with some camp movies is that they are too bright...this one kept the lighting about right. The only thing setting it back a litter were the annoying scores. The sets were pretty average throughout....some minor things were wrong but all in all the technical stuff didn't hurt the movie. The sound effects sounded like a windows 95 chime.In a movie like this the only actors that stand out usually just cannot act. The only one who could not act was Brian Matthews who played the fearless leader. He went on to play in some soap operas later in his career.... that's where he belongs. On the other hand, we get a surprisingly fun performance by a really young Jason Alexander. There's Larry Joshua who plays this annoying bully. He was pretty bad too now that I think about it....but I just looked at his resume on IMDb and he actually made it pretty big; the guy is in Spider Man!Final Thoughts: The worst part of this movie was the fact that we had to wait about 40 minutes to see a second kill. Minus a couple actors, this is a really solid early 80's slasher. To me it has been mostly forgotten and extremely underrated. It was a really fun view.

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rooee
1981/05/14

With Tom Savini doing the makeup, Rick Wakeman on keyboards, and Bob and Harvey Weinstein on story duties (forming Miramax while they're about it), The Burning is a notable entry in the slasher genre. Released in 1981, it rode on the coattails of Halloween and Friday the 13th, and in terms of quality it can stand proud alongside those better-known movies.The prologue sets up our monster. A group of boys at a summer camp decide to play a Halloween prank on the caretaker, Cropsy (Lou David). As they guffaw, the joke goes horribly wrong and in his fright Cropsy sets himself on fire.A decade on and the summer camp is in full swing. We're introduced to the horny boys and girls (keep an eye out for early performances from the likes of Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter), who spend their time bickering, bullying, boating, and bonking. But Cropsy is back, and he has a pair of secateurs, and he wants revenge. After numerous well-staged red herrings, the slaughter begins. And it doesn't disappoint. Savini's work here is of the stabby and slashy variety, and it's appropriately wince-inducing. We get heroics from the camp counsellors Michelle (Leah Ayres) and Todd (Brian Matthews) but essentially it's a free-for-all, and anyone's guess who'll finally take down the homicidal gardener. That's not to say that the characters are mere fodder. The film takes time to establish the lusts and rivalries in the group, mostly without resorting to cliché. I particularly like the way that the bullying beefcake (Larry Joshua) is repeatedly pushed back by the camaraderie of the nerdy kids. The sexual politics are typically retrograde, with endless excuses to show as much nubile flesh as humanly possible. And then stick a knife in it. While atmospheric, gory, and funny without being self-mocking, there's nothing particularly innovative about The Burning – it doesn't have the memorable weirdness of 1983's Sleepaway Camp, for example – but it's well-made and sharply written enough that you are swept along on its ruthless tide of gore. It's just a pity the good work doesn't carry right through to the end. Aside from a mild and needless twist, the final showdown is a mess of scrappy editing and baffling continuity, as if the filmmakers were scrabbling for footage. With a proper climax we might have been looking at classic rather than curio status. Overall, it's understandable why The Burning has achieved its cult following. Ignored on release, it deserves reappraisal as a straightforward, unfussy slasher elevated by good writing, great performances, and even better makeup effects. Now in HD!

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punishmentpark
1981/05/15

An okay intro and one gory kill will have to last the viewer a pretty long time before this slasher really starts going gory again - in spite of some obligatory false moves. In between, there's the authentic summer camp atmos - including some terrific '80s vintage nudity and plenty of tomfoolery - to keep you entertained, if that will do it for you. It sure did for me, even a second time around.It's certainly not as good as the original 'Friday the 13th' and it's all quite chaotic and haphazardly put together, but it has more than enough to make it work for a slasher. Some will even recognize George (Jason Alexander), wíth hair. And Tom Savini did the gore - 'nuff said, fade to red...7 out of 10.

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