Happy Birthday to Me

Rating:
Summary: The best horror-mystery to ever feature a Shish Kebab!!!!!!!
Review: Happy Birthday to Me is an often neglected and seldom viewed 80's cinema gem. It is a damn shame that it has not received the cult status it so solidly deserves. The plot involves cliques, prep schools, and a very weird birthday party, but that is not what is important here. What matters is all the stops director J. Lee Thompson pulled out to make this into a near masterpiece of the slasher genre.

Let's begin with the topnotch cast. Melissa Sue Anderson (of Little House on the Prairie) bravely fills a leading role that is decidedly unclear about whether it is that of a protagonist or antagonist. Whichever way you look at it, Anderson acts with aplomb! Secondly, there is veteran thespian Glenn Ford who, despite what some overzealous critics said, gives a fine performance as the doctor in addition to adding a sense of dignity to the proceedings. Also of note is the luminary Lenore Zann (a multi talented wonder who has sadly never enjoyed the success she deserves). Her enlightened performance is both savvy and sensible and she brings a sense of validity to a character that other actress would have simply let fade away into the background as it seems the misguided script intended. Another unforgettable personality is Sharon Acker. Seen only in flashbacks, she takes the role of the overbearing mother to new heights: a sheer classic in overacting! For those familiar with Sleepaway Camp (another piece of great 80's horror) Acker's whacked out mother just might rival Desiree Gould's Aunt Martha. While these are the players who really stand out, also of note are Lawrence Dane (as the enigmatic father), Frances Hyland (the headmistress), and Lesleh Donaldson (who makes the most out of her `1st victim' cameo).

But enough about acting, on to the gore! And oh, what a gory movie Happy Birthday to Me is. The film skillfully manages to be bloody and raw, without becoming revolting. In fact, the grisliest scene is not a murder at all, but rather a realistic medical procedure! That's not to say there are no shocking murders, however. There are 6 bizarre murders as the poster promises, with the notorious shish kabob scene remaining one that will always live in infamy. The only thing more delightful than these sadistic killings is, of course, the twist ending! A real twist ending! What a twist! The twist is virtually unpredictable as it comes almost entirely out of left field and scarcely even makes sense! Oh, but it's just terrific! And let's not forget about the theme song that one hears shortly after. As an audience member, one barely has time to compose themselves after the twist when they're treated to one of the eeriest songs ever composed during the end credits.

In short, Happy Birthday to Me delivers on all levels and now that it is easily accessible on DVD, you'd have to be a fool to let this unparalleled work remain unwatched.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Underrated Slasher
Review: 5 out 5 stars when it comes to slashers! Clever plot twists, inventive murder scenes, and a great build up to the ending. Plus: Melissa Sue Anderson is great as our lead character, Ginny. Worth a watch!

Rating:
Summary: Restore origional score for 25th Anniversary Edition?
Review: 5 star 1980's horror gem finally released on DVD scarier than ever...thanks to tragic (goofy) new cover art and distracting new score . Hey Columbia, thanks for finally bringing this classic to DVD in R rated, 111 minute version. The color and dialogue's sound quality are better than I hoped.

But why the other changes? They don't do justice. The new score is too loud. Worse: It undermines the suspense and ruined a number of scenes. Please find a way to release a Collector's Edition with the classic art, original score with same r-rating?

And where are all the other extras we love DVDs for in the first place? Where the Crawford Top Ten slain in vain? Say it isn't so!

Rating:
Summary: WHO REMADE THE SOUNDTRACK??????
Review: As a teen, I remember seeing this movie and loving it...I finally purchased it on DVD and when I began watching it, I was horrified...Not because of the blood, etc but because of the "something out of '70's cop shows" score! It is probably the worse score I've heard and it's also awfully loud, too! This new score took away the suspense from the movie...Can the DVD please be redone and it's old soundtrack brought back? Then I can return mine to the manufacturer and get the real "Happy Birthday to Me". Bring the original score back and I will change this review to 5 stars! Thanks!

Rating:
Summary: New Music BAD
Review: Great Thriller-- Awesome Surprise Ending-- but the one thing that is awful is how they did away with the original creepy music score that every death scene has. The begining music is that like of a night out at the disco party-- not of a death scene. The original score when the first death occurred was scary, and suspensful, now it is just laughable--i actually muted it during the scene. Thank God they kept the end song with its haunting lyrics and theme.!!!

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Movie!!! Needs to be on DVD!!
Review: Happy Birthday To Me is an excellent horror film from 1981. Very good cast, that includes Melissa Sue Anderson and Glenn Ford. The atmosphere is chilling, Storyline and Plot are well written and excellent, the killings are creative, all this plus a well writtten and executed music score. This is one of the BEST horror movies ever made. Ranks right up there with Halloween and Friday The 13th. This movie needs to be on DVD!!! I give it 5/5 Stars!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Horror movie classic. Who is the killer? Best twists!
Review: Here is another horror movie classic. College kids like this one. Melissa Sue Anderson (Little house on the Prarie) and a gaggle of other university students are being killed one by one. Each one of the students are a little on the crazy side, so no telling whom the killer may be. Her mom had died. Eventually her dad and herself move back into town and the family house. "Virginia" is really down and bothered. But she is making friends in school and considers herself to be in the Top Ten. Cast also includes Tracy Bregman (Days Of Our Lives, Young and the Restless, Bold and the Beautiful) and Glenn Ford (Superman [1978]). Can you guess who the killer is? This RCA home video print is not too good. The color is faded. The film being Canadian might have something to do with that. But this is a good film worth watching and good acting from Melissa Sue Anderson.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie, but the DVD...
Review: Hollywood is a tough town. All one need do is look at the career of J. Lee Thompson to prove this statement. This is the guy who directed "Cape Fear," not the remake with Nolte and De Niro but the frightening original with Peck and Mitchum. As the years went by things began to turn south for Thompson. Things got so bad that he ended up directing pictures for Cannon, the company that churned out all of those low budget, ultraconservative shoot 'em action films in the 1980s with the likes of Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff, and Charles Bronson in the lead roles. In fact, Thompson and Bronson worked together on several of these potboilers, including "10 to Midnight," "Death Wish 4: The Crackdown," and "Kinjite: Forbidden Secrets." By the time Thompson passed away in 2002, only critics remembered him for his earlier, more important efforts. But Thompson made another crucial contribution to American film, specifically American horror films, when he lensed the 1981 slasher flick "Happy Birthday to Me." Why is this motion picture worth mentioning? Because it is one of the few giallo films made outside of Italy--and made by an Englishman.

Virginia Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson) just wants to fit in at the Crawford Academy, one of those noxious private schools filled to the rafters with snotty rich kids. Ginny, as Virginia is known to her friends, does manage to worm her way into a group called "The Top 10," which apparently refers to the ten biggest jerks in school. It's a bit surprising Ginny pulled off this social coup since a car accident that claimed the life of her mother put her in the hospital with a brain injury. Only now is she slowly reintegrating herself back into society, with the occasional help of her psychiatrist Dr. David Faraday (Glenn Ford) to see her through the rough patches. Ginny needs the shrink more than she knows because she's starting to experience a few bizarre problems. She sees things others don't see on occasion, and she wonders why a game involving members of the Top 10 jumping their cars over a drawbridge should bother her so much. Faraday tells her the trauma to her brain, and the subsequent operation, is causing a repression of memories. Not to worry, claims Faraday, as the memories will slowly surface and allow Ginny to recall what happened during the fatal accident.

There's a problem, though. Someone is going around killing off the members of the Top 10 in particularly heinous ways. From what we gather during the murder scenes, the killer is someone these kids know. Whoever it is, he or she has a deranged mind. For example, loudmouth troublemaker Steve (Matt Craven) expires when the killer shoves a shish kebob through his mouth. Hotshot motorcyclist Etienne (Michael Rene LaBelle) perishes when the killer tosses his scarf into the spinning wheel of his motorbike--unfortunately while Etienne is still wearing the scarf. Another scene reinforces the importance of always having a spotter while lifting weights.
Both guys and girls in the Top 10 fall prey to this killer, and their bodies disappear soon after the awful deed is done. Potential suspects range from a disturbed member of the group with a penchant for gooey special effects to an administrator at the school who hates the Top Ten to...just about anyone, really. Virginia fears she might be the one behind the killings due to possible problems with her surgery. The truth, which comes in a denouement that is as unbelievable as it is massively entertaining and deranged, contains more twists and turns than a mountain highway.

I mentioned that Thompson's film classifies as a giallo. If you aren't familiar with the term, I'm about to assign some homework for you. The word "giallo" translates as "yellow" in Italian and refers to the color used for the covers of cheap mystery paperbacks sold in that country years ago. A giallo mystery as translated onto celluloid by the likes of Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, and many others usually contained several crucial elements. First, the killer wears black gloves and black clothing. Second, we see the murder take place from the murderer's point of view. Third, the killings are imaginative and stylish, with lots of blood and lots of color thrown around. Fourth, nearly every character is a suspect. Fifth, red herrings pointing at said suspects abound. Every few minutes the viewer thinks he or she has the culprit nailed down only to discover seconds later another possible suspect. Sixth, a major character--either the murderer or the hero or heroine of the film--will experience flashbacks to an earlier event that provides clues to the murderers identity, or a reason why the killings are happening. "Happy Birthday to Me" contains nearly all of these elements. The conclusion to Thompson's film is so giallo that Dario Argento would weep with joy if he ever saw it. Go watch some gialli and compare.

As a cursory examination of the reviews pertaining to the DVD version of this film will show, the studio releasing the disc decided to cut corners by replacing the original score with a cheesy dance soundtrack. Worse, the DVD cover resembles in no way, shape, or form the original shish kebob in the mouth movie poster. Even worse, the only extras on the disc consist of trailers for other films, namely "Identity," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and "Resident Evil: Apocalypse." While I never saw the film before watching the DVD, I do remember the creepy television spots for the movie and would have liked to see them on the disc. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I'm going to fall in line with my fellow horror fans and give the DVD three stars due to these problems. No studio should EVER mess around with a film's original content. Watch with caution.





Rating:
Summary: One of my all time Favorite Horror Films
Review: I previously reviewed this film, below where it says Caroline, I can't figure out how to add the first six reviews that I wrote last year to my current page, but hopefully this review will clear things up. All I can say about "Happy Birthday To Me" is that it is an often imitated great flick. The reviewer who says that Scream ripped it off is dead on. I was also reminded of HBTM, when I saw the Scream series. Anyway, this film is so great, it really keeps you guessing. And watch out for that skewer scene-yikes! The ending is without a doubt one of the best I have ever seen in any movie, horror or otherwise. If you haven't seen it yet, you must. I managed to buy it on Ebay for less than the out of print price.

Rating:
Summary: Pray you're not invited to the party...
Review: If you've seen this film before, and recently purchased the DVD release, popped it into your player, and got the creeping feeling of something being not quite right, you're not alone... the movie on this disc is not the same as when originally released as the studio releasing this film to DVD has changed some of the musical scoring (substituting an inappropriate disco-like score in some parts)...I'm having the strangest sense of déjà vu...oh wait, a similar thing was done on the recent DVD release of Return of the Living Dead II (different studio). Seems kind of sad that for what has to be one of the biggest markets for DVDs (the United States), you'd think companies could see fit to try and preserve the original elements of a film, rather than changing it (for whatever reason), releasing it (without any warnings or notice of change on the packaging), and slapping a hefty price tag on the box (this DVD is one of the more expensive one's I've seen in awhile).

Happy Birthday to Me (1981), directed by J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown), stars Little House on the Prairie's own Melissa Sue Anderson in one of her few film appearances (she mostly works in the medium of television). Also appearing is Glenn Ford (Blackboard Jungle), Lawrence Dane (Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman) along with small group of young actors, some I've seen before (Jack Blum and Matt Craven both appeared in Meatballs, as the characters Spaz and Hardware, respectively, and Lenore Zann appeared in a handful of films, including another 80's slasher film Visiting Hours, before transitioning to television, now earning a living doing mostly voiceover work), and some I haven't (I see some actors credits include having appeared in various soap operas since the film, but since I have a job I don't have the opportunity to experience the wonderment that is daytime TV).

Anderson plays Virginia `Ginny' Wainwright, a young woman, returning to the small town of Crawford, along with her father, after a somewhat mysterious absence. She attends the prestigious Crawford Academy, a local private school, and being academically gifted, soon finds herself included among the Top Ten, a cliquish group that seem to do just about everything together...INCLUDING DYING! Ooops, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself...anyway, it seems Ginny's absence has something to do with a recent psychologically and/or physically damaging incident, one she's now repressing, but has been getting help from her shrink, Dr. David Faraday (Ford). As the memories begin to free themselves from Ginny's subconscious mental morass, her classmates begin suffering strange and horrible deaths (death by motorcycle, crushing weights, and shis-kabob) at the hands of someone they know (we often get the view of the killer's perspective, with the intended, unassuming victim making some kind of statement like, `oh, it's you'). The deaths are very real, but the bodies always seem to disappear, leading police to believe the victims are just missing, and not necessarily dead. Who is killing off Crawford's top students and why?

First off, I think the students portrayed here were supposed to be in college, but they suffered from the `Beverly Hills 90212' syndrome, a common affliction in the world of Hollywood, in that the actors looked a bit older than the characters they were supposed to be playing. That said, I think most everyone in the film did a pretty good job. The characters, while mostly there as fodder, didn't appear stupid and transparent, as is common in many of the slasher films I've seen, so credit does go to the writers and the director. And while the movie does fall squarely within the slasher film genre of the time, it seems to try and elevate itself above many films in the genre by providing a stronger story, rather than just killing (pardon the pun) time between the murders. In fact, the film reminded me a lot of those Bette Davis or even Joan Crawford horror films of the early to mid 60's (director Thompson's extensive experience in film shows through in this aspect), except that Melissa Sue Anderson is no Davis or Crawford. The various `red herrings' thrown around seemed a little clunky, especially since the clues (there were a few, looking back now) pointing towards the identity of the murderer were really vague and not very helpful. The various murders were pretty spectacular (a few of these scenes were originally cut before theatrical release to satisfy the ratings board...too bad they couldn't have gathered the parts cut out, extending these scenes, releasing an unrated version). The film does move along well, creating some suspenseful moments, but I felt the ending, while definitely over the top and worth sticking around for, ultimately hurt the movie, as it heaps a multitude of scenarios before spilling its' guts (another pun), ultimately asking the viewer to accept quite a bit when the killer's true identity is revealed.

The wide screen anamorphic print (1:85:1) provided on this DVD does look pretty good, and the audio (Dolby Digital 1.0) is clear for the most part. Special features are few, but included in the case is a reproduction of the original poster art (the thrown together DVD cover art really stinks...why is the girl's eye glowing? Is she possessed by a demon? There's nothing like that in the film). Also included are trailers for some other Columbia releases like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Identity, and Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but not one for this film. All in all, I would have been willing to give 3 ½ or four stars for this release, had the studio not neglected its' audience by plugging in a shoddy musical score and found a way to keep it intact as it was originally released. Subsequently, I can only go as high as 2 stars...and that's too bad...

Cookieman108