THE BURNING
This is the very first Miramax picture. That's right, those Wunderkind Weinsteins who brought you such immortal classics of cinema as 'sex, lies and videotape', 'Bob Roberts' and ..uh... 'Sarafina' - they started it all with this here little Camp Mayhem epic. Okay, so it's no Sarafina but it does have a lot going for it. Or at least one thing going for it - Tom Savini. Fresh off the similar-themed Friday the 13th, he turns in a tour de force gore performance. Granted this was early in his career, but he was really on fire during his 80s slasher phase. The bonus feature 'Blood and Fire' is a must-watch for his memories and personal photos and videos working on this film.
Let's see what else has it got... a killer named Cropsy... an interesting cast of "teens". Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter, Fisher Stevens (who has a weird scene involving vitamin E that I totally did not get), a young David Lee Roth. What? Not David Lee Roth? It's actually Larry Joshua? Never heard of him. Jason Alexander was about 25 maybe. Holly Hunter, early 20s. Apparently Fisher Stevens was actually a teen. I like that. I like authenticity in a teen slasher movie. I also like tits in my teen slasher movie. This one has nice tits - and more! A couple of full frontals from the talented misses Carrick Glenn and Carolyn Houlihan. These full service gals (especially uber-fox Carrick Glenn) should have had as long and storied a career as fellow starlet Holly Hunter. They definitely had a lot more lines - i think maybe Holly mumbles something about cheetos and squeals once or twice - that's it - some thespian. But anyway, no they each had one or two more roles and then completely disappeared. I demand to know what happened to them!!!
Someone get me Harvey's number.
Back to the Weinsteins. They filled, i say filled, this camp with every Hollywood Jewish Community Center Junior Pageant actor and actress they could find. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Harvey also has a screenwriting credit on this one. Fortunately I don't think he ever tried that again. Not such good dialogue, brohim.
But we don't give a rats ass about dialogue in our teen slasher movies, do we kids?? Hells no! It's all about...
THE SOUNDTRACK!
This one's by clownish alcoholic keyboard player Rick Wakeman - formerly of Yes. And frankly I expected better of him. Lots of bubbling synth patterns and noodling melodic lines in the vein of Tangerine Dream or John Carpenter, both of whom pull this stuff off with loads more aplomb. Then there's a little "goin' down the river" banjo music - where do they come up with these crazy ideas?? And some other imitation "pop" music. But no Scorpions. Should have had a Scorpions tune in there somewhere.
What more can I say. You need to watch this. Again, it's no Sarafina, but there's plenty to keep the dedicated horror/slasher/fisher stevens fan happy for an hour and a half (the absolute perfect length for this sort of film, by the way). I'm not sure why it took so long to get to DVD. Maybe Holly Hunter was embarassed and used her Holly Hunter powers to keep it buried.
