| Product: |
The Burning (DVD) |
| Date: |
26.10.00 (45 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Its a horror film with some decent effects
Disadvantages: Everything else
Well what can be said about The Burning that is positive? not much really. The film satrts with a flashback, it takes place at a teenagers summercamp (what a surprise) where there is an alcoholic caretaker who beats up and taunts some of the kids. To get revenge the kids make a fake skull and fill it with lit candles, The caretakre, name Cropsy because of his love for garden shears, has fell asleep through his drinking so the boys put the skull next to his bed. They start tapping on thw wnidow to wake Cropsy up and manage ot do so, when he opens his eyes the first thing he sees his the skull and panics. Screaming he hits the skull and the candles set fire tohis bed and soon his whole room is on fire with him it in.
It then changes to the hospital whre they take Cropsy to, he is not dead but is too badly burnt to walk or live a normal life. The doctors joke on about him (Big Mac, very overdone!) but get a shock when he grabs one of thier arms and so thet run away. Cropsy his back and his his trusty shears he hands back to the summercamp where it all happened, where a new set of kids have turned up for the summer. Made in 1980 to try and cash in on Friday the 13ths success, The Burning was actually Miramaxs first film and was produced by Harvey Weinstein. It was directed by Tony Maylam (who went on to get fired from Rutger Hauer's Split Second).
The film has a musical score by Rick Wakeman (Of Yes fame) which is very similar to John Carpenter and effetcs by gor emaster Tom Savini (Who turned down Friday the 13th Part 2 to work on this film). It was placed on the video nasties list on 1983 and banned but was released a couple of years ago still with 15 seconds of cut material. The scenes which caused it to be placed on the list and is mostly (Very badly) cut is a scene involving Cropsy and a raft full of kids. The kids set off on a raft to find their canoes and when they find one Cropsy is in it and kills all five kids in about 10 seconds. One par
t of this as a kid called Woodstock getting his fingers sliced off by the shears and then the camera stays on him screaming with blood pumping out, another kid gets the shears through his neck and another gets them in the forehead. Ive got this scene uncut in realplayer format if anyone wants it they can mail me and I will send it to you.
The effects in the film are generally good but we've come to expect this from Tom Savini, but the script is amazingly poor and the direction is so boring and inept that you could fall asleep. When the kids first arrive in csmp, there are a lot of fake scares that are supposed to build tension but dont and so just turn out plain boring. The musical score is far, far overdone and is more stupid than scary. The plot doesnt make sense when one of the kids who burns Cropsy at the start is a camp leader know and has aged about 5 years, all in the time Cropsy has went ot hospital and returned to the summer camp (thats the big plot twist BTW that one of the camp leaders helped to play the trick on Cropsy).
You know whos going to die and you know when, the only difference here is that the nerdy, geek who spies on the girls in the shower (yes it also includes pointless nudity) actually lives and saves the day by killing Cropsy. The film also marks the debut of Holly Hunter, who has top billing on the video box but is actually in the film about 11 seconds, the geek is probably the best known actor, Brian Backer who also starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and won tons of awards through stage acting. The film only lasts 88 minutes and its 88 minutes of pure hell and cheesy dialogue (Oh no I forgot my inhaler, I better go back to the hut in the dark alone and get it when lots of people have been murdered).
Avoid like the plague.
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