The Burning

Dir: Tony Maylam

1981

****

The Burning might seem like a Friday the 13^th slasher rip-off but actually that isn’t the case and there is a lot more to it than that. I would argue that, apart from Friday the 13^th’s excellent last scene, that The Burning is slightly more entertaining. The similarities between both films are suspicious but there is proof that the script was submitted for copyright before Friday the 13^th was released. The truth is that by 1980 the slasher film business was starting to lag after a surge of entries since the release of the genre’s daddy – 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Many ideas were similar to those that came before but this was mainly down to the scripts being based on the same stories. The Burning, Friday the 13^th and 1982’s Madman were all based on the Cropsy story that the film makers all heard around summer campfires in the 60s and 70s. It was a well-known story in certain parts of America and it lent itself brilliantly to the slasher genre, so it was pure coincidence these films all had similar plots and characters. The Burning was the one film that stuck to the original the closest and when the makers of Madman got wind of it they re-wrote most of the script accordingly, knowing they had been beaten to it. Many thought The Burning was just a cheap copy of Friday the 13^th and when it was released at the same time as Friday the 13^th Part 2, the horror audience stuck with a name they knew. The Burning was re-released with a different poster a year later which boosted sales and in certain areas the name was changed, which was a classic trick in the horror film industry. It’s an above average slasher film, made loads better by the inclusion of horror legend Tom Savini and rock legend Rick Wakeman. Savini actually worked on the make-up effects for Friday the 13^th but decided not to return for its sequel as he couldn’t work out how Jason would now by the murderer – indeed it didn’t make sense and he preferred the script to The Burning anyway. All good horror films have a good soundtrack and director Tony Maylam was friends with Yes’s Rick Wakeman who agreed to score the film for a fee. The keyboard wizard accepted a small fee instead of royalties as he thought the film would bomb, however the film was the biggest selling horror in Japan and he would now be much richer than he is, had he taken the percentage. If The Burning had been released before Friday the 13^th then we’d have a dozen Cropsy sequels, rather than loads of Jason films, which I don’t know is a good thing or not, but it still had the right impact and thankfully made money for the right people, as the important Miramax Films was born. The Burning was written by Tony Maylam, Brad Grey, Peter Lawrence and the Weinstein brothers, while Maylam and Lawrence didn’t go on to much else (apart from Thundercats, which I have proper respect for), Grey went on to become chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures and the Weinsteins have gone on to become the kings of Hollywood. I think The Burning works better than most 80s teen slashers because the kids felt real. The cast all wore their own clothes and brought their own character to the roles. There was the geeky one and the sort of bully but all in all they were normal teenagers, rather than crafted stereotypes. The cast included Holly Hunter, Fisher Stevens and Jason Alexander in their feature debuts, indeed, it seems that The Burning was good for everyone’s career. The horror sub-genre was flooded, it still is but there has been and always will be an audience that loves them. The late 70s and early 80s is something of a golden era, while some of the early slashers are quite nasty, there is something innocent about film’s like the Burning, as they are really just ghost stories, rather than disturbing social pieces such a Maniac. However, Tom Savini is the king of gore and many of the violent scenes are convincing and it’s not surprising that The Burning made the ‘Video Nasty’ list, which is now quite a badge of honour for a classic horror film. I remember back in the late 80s when I became somewhat obsessed with horror films, that the VHS copy was like gold. When the film was accidentally released uncut on video in the United Kingdom by Thorn-EMI, the tape was liable for seizure and prosecution under the Obscene Publications act and pretty much every school playground had at least one kid who said they had one, generally ‘given’ to them by an uncle. They now go for heaps of money on-line, if you can find one. Overall the film is much like many of the other slashers of the day, it’s not amazing but I liked the cast, the music is great and it has Tom Savini. Cropsey himself is a fairly average villain but there is something decidedly under-doggish about him that I quite like, with the humble garden shears being almost noble when it comes to serial killer weapon of choice. Without wanting to sound like a weirdo, The Burning has a ‘fun’ element that other slashers don’t, or at least didn’t have properly until Friday the 13^th Part 3. Who doesn’t love a video nasty?