Happy Birthday To Me

Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

Runtime: 110 minutes

Directed by: J. Lee Thompson

Starring: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Tracey E. Bregman, Jack Blum, Matt Craven

From: Columbia

My birthday isn't until late February but I'll watch it this week if I want to, watch it this week if I want to... the review of this Canuxploitation slasher is below: 

I figured this was a good time to see some horror films again so here's a classic slasher from the early 80's that I've never seen, even though I've known of its great poster for years, even back as a kid when I saw the cover of the VHS on the shelf at the local videostore. To think that I am finally seeing this motion picture via Amazon streaming it instead of some form of physical media. Considering the movie somehow had Glenn Ford (then again, he DID do The Visitor shortly before this) and was directed by a guy who went from doing the original Cape Fear to such schlock as Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, King Solomon's Mines, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects and other Golan-Globus productions (J. Lee Thompson) and this was in between those two things... the pedigree was nice for an early 80's slasher.

This movie is about some students at the elite Crawford Academy, a private high school in Canada. Yes, this is also Canuxploitation, which definitely makes me happy. Virginia is part of “The Top 10” at the school; I gathered the ranking was more due to popularity and how rich their parents are rather than academic performance, given how some of them act. Anyhow, murders start happening by a killer wearing black gloves-yes, the giallo genre was a definite influence-and does it relate to Virginia? We find out that she suffered some sort of accident and had an experimental procedure done on her; Ford is her psychiatrist who tries to deal with the fractured mind and memory.

The movie is pretty absurd and it being 110 minutes, at times it is overlong, yet at least it was entertaining. Some of it was things that might only interest me; falling into that category was a bitchin' light blue 1980 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am, complete with “The Screaming Chicken” on the hood. As a whole, it was an enjoyable movie to watch. While many of The Top 10 are A-holes, at least they were funny A-holes so this was not a chore to sit through. It's not bad when plenty of time is spent with these characters. I was greatly amused that the standard red herring was basically “Young Norman Bates”, years before the 4th Psycho movie, let alone Bates Motel. Alfred is a weird loner who has dark hair and does taxidermy, so it was obvious what they were going for. So of course he wasn't behind it all... or was he...

And this is one of those movies where there is an infamous ending; plenty don't like it as it really comes out of left field. Yet, I was fine with it. At least in its universe there is a valid reason for it happening, even if all that happening was implausible. And for everyone who watches these films for the kills-meaning, most people-the poster brags about how they are all bizarre. Not all of them are but all are nicely done and some are definitely creative. Plus, the people who were killed all knew the killer, making it all the more disturbing for those characters. To me, those scenes are a big reason why I rate this as high as I do. For the old school slasher fans, they should definitely see this, and it can be streamed from Amazon for only a few bucks.