Friday, May 25, 2012

Bloody Birthday



Runtime: 85 minutes

Directed by: Ed Hunt

Starring: Lori Lethin, Julie Brown (yeah, not Downtown Julie Brown, but the valley girl one who was in movies like Earth Girls are Easy), Billy Jayne, Elizabeth Hoy, Andy Freeman

From: Judica Productions

If I would have been thinking, this would have been the perfect review to do this past Sunday, as the important plot point of this motion picture revolves around a solar eclipse. But as I'm sure that annular eclipse is still in your mind, it is still OK to do this review now.

This happens to be an entry in the Killer Kids genre. I've only seen a few films relating to that but they've been rather entertaining and well-done. After all, my first-ever review on here was Orphan, and there's also the quality 2008 film The Children.

This, while definitely not as good as those two movies, is still entertaining in its low-budget ways and it's also interesting to see some old stars in it (like Susan Strasberg and Jose Ferrer) along with people that became more famous later, like Brown and even Michael Dudikoff, who has a brief role as Julie's boyfriend.

The plot is pretty goofy but what can you do... three babies are born at practically the same time in a small California town; the births also happen to take place right as a solar eclipse is taking place. This is later explained as meaning that Saturn is blocked while they were born, meaning they have no conscious. Really. Don't get me started on astrology and how it's all nonsense. But, if you can ignore that and go with the story, then it's OK, I suppose. Anyhow, the kids apparently decided to be evil bastards shortly before their 10th birthdays, and they start killing people and create problems for 18 year old Joyce and her little brother Timmy in particular.

Like I said, the movie's noticeably low-budget and you'll notice if you watch it on Netflix Instant and hear the audio and the near-constant hissing. But hey, even though this technically isn't good it is still entertaining and wildly so at times, and while some of the kills are standard, the others are a little different from the norm and there are actually some setpieces that were creative, at least in idea. The acting wasn't atrocious so that was good, and Joyce and Timmy are pretty likeable, and that was also a bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, the best/funniest scene in the movie; there's actually a nude scene involving Julie Brown, and she doesn't look bad sans clothing! But that's not the great part; the great part is that her character's little sister is the girl of the evil trio and she has a peephole into her room so the evil boys are able to watch her dancing around sans clothing and change into new clothing. Yep, dancing around to music and changing clothes, only in 80's horror films... and the song being played is a totally generic and yet awesome pop-rock ditty from some random no-name named John G. Jones. I wish that entire song was on YouTube, but alas... oh, and in her room are some dope posters for Debbie Harry, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Roger Daltry, and... for some reason, Erik Estrada.

So, if you enjoy the genre and want to see a wacky but still acceptable example of that, check this out. You definitely get to see the little brats do some really evil things, if that's what you enjoy seeing. I'll be back Sunday night.

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