THE BURNING (1981)

Director: Tony Maylam

Writers: Harvey Weinstein, Tony Maylam, Brad Grey, Peter Lawrence, Bob Weinstein

Producer: Harvey Weinstein

Cast: Leah Ayres, Brian Matthews, Jason Alexander, Brian Backer, Larry Joshua, Lou David, Ned Eisenberg, Fisher Stevens, J.R. McKechnie, Carrick Glenn, Carolyn Houlihan, Sarah Chodoff, Shelley Bruce, Bonnie Deroski, K.C. Townsend, Mansoor Najee-ullah, Jerry McGee, Jeff De Hart, Holly Hunter, Kevi Kendall, George Parry, Ame Segull, Bruce Kluger, Keith Mandell, Willie Reale, John Tripp, John Roach, James Van Verth, (and uncredited cast members) Greg Hinaman, Timothy Klein, Robert O’Neill 

At Camp Blackfoot, a group of kids spending their summer at the camp decide to get their revenge on the sadistic camp groundskeeper called Cropsy (Lou David). Their practical joke results in Cropsy being accidentally set on fire. After five years of hospitalization and failed skin grafts, the horribly disfigured and vengeful Cropsy reenters society. Returning to the area where he suffered his burning, Cropsy lurks around another summer camp to find victims to kill. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

As soon as Halloween (1978) struck box office gold, murdering maniacs became the low-budget moviemakers’ best bet to strike it rich. Thus, the genre that would become known as the slasher film was established with the massive success of Friday the 13th (1980). That film became the template that most others in the genre would imitate or try to distinguish their selves from. Apparently, the zeitgeist of the New York State area in 1979 and 1980 was such that summer camp killers occurred to at least three different filmmakers at the same time. The local Cropsy maniac legend inspired two productions to base their stories on it. Madman (1982) had its script altered once that film’s makers found out that another film in production called The Burning was also based on the Cropsy legend. The Burning was supposed to have been conceived and registered before that most iconic summer camp slasher film Friday the 13th debuted on movie screens.

Once Friday the 13th made gory payoffs a fixture in the slasher genre, that film’s Tom Savini became a much sought make-up effects artist. The Burning managed to secure his services because Savini preferred its script over that of Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). 

Savini's work for The Burning’s raft kill scene was not seen in its entirety for many years. Just at the time that The Burning was trying to get released, the MPAA was coming down hard on screen violence and insisted on cuts for the film to get an R rating. Fortunately, recent releases on DVD have restored the cropped out bits of Cropsy carnage. Not only is that raft kill sequence a brutal highlight, the Cropsy maniac’s disfigurement is a fine and grotesque character creation by Savini. 

This film is often most noted as being the jumping off point for a lot of talents. Featured In the young cast is Fisher Stevens and a blink-and-you-miss-her appearance by Holly Hunter. Jason Alexander is a favorite that demonstrates his humor and likability as a kid much more well adjusted than his classic neurotic George Costanza character in the '90s television sitcom Seinfeld. 

The Burning was the debut production of Miramax Films founded by the now notorious Harvey Weinstein. This film seems to have been a victim of bad timing at the box office. It was probably seen as just a rip-off of Friday the 13th summer camp horror, and it was released at about the same time as Friday the 13th Part 2. 

There is a curious structure to The Burning. After the opening practical joke makes a monstrous maniac out of Cropsy, there is a scene that establishes how dangerous he is. Then we spend the rest of the film at a present day summer camp where Cropsy will vent his murderous rage. Over half an hour will pass before the kills start to drive up the body count. During that recess from the violence, we are immersed in the hi-jinx and petty conflicts of the summer camp kids and their counselors. This may seem like an odd way to pace a slasher film, yet I find it effective. We relax and are diverted by other matters that settle us into the summer camp environment before the horror starts to build again. Gore hounds may get impatient during the lull between kills, but it also may have more of an impact once Cropsy really lets loose. 

Unlike many slasher films, The Burning has no whodunit aspect to it. We witness the tragedy that motivates the killer, and we are never in doubt about his identity. Instead, the film has a surprise revelation at its conclusion about one of its other characters. This presents a bit of a moral ambiguity that reminds us that seemingly decent people can also be responsible for awful and unintended consequences.