Bloody Birthday
If you want cake, raise a finger
Happy birthday
to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear Jordan. Happy
birthday to me. That's right, today, June 6th is my
birthday. I love you guys so much I don't even take my birthday off
from writing a review. I could have picked a movie I loved (Dawn of
the Dead) or a movie that is universally loved (Nosferatu), but
instead I decided to go with a horror movie with “birthday” in
the title. I can't help it, I have a weak spot for holiday-based
horror movies. It seems like almost every holiday has a corresponding
horror movie, though I don't think there's one for Martin Luther King
Jr. Day or Arbor Day. In any event, I decided to celebrate my
birthday with a birthday movie.
Blood Birthday
is a 1981 horror movie about murders committed by three children. In
1970, three children, Curtis, Steven, and Debbie were born during a
solar eclipse. Ten years later, all three begin to murder the adults
in the small town of Meadowvale. They even go as far as killing their
teacher and Debbie's dad, the town sheriff. They use bats, ropes,
guns; anything that they can find to satiate their blood lust. Their
classmate Timmy catches them in the act so they try to kill him by
locking him in an old refrigerator at the junkyard. He escapes and
tries to convince his older sister Lori that the three kids are
murders. The three leave her a note posing as Timmy telling her he is
in the junkyard. There, they try to run her over with a car, but she
survives. Lori is an astrology enthusiast and tells Timmy that on the
day of the eclipse, Saturn, which controls emotions, is blocked. That
may explain why the three children are uncaring murderers. At their
birthday party, one of the boys poisons one of the cakes in hopes of
killing many of the partygoers. Lori stops him, but nobody believes
that the children could kill anyone. Will Lori and Timmy be able to
stop these pint-sized killers before it's too late?
Dennis the Menace gets real
When I came
across a movie named Bloody Birthday, I expected something along the
lines of April Fools Day or My Blood Valentine. You know, a slasher
with a holiday theme. Not original, but fun in a nostalgic for the
80's sort of way. When I read the description about killer children,
I thought maybe it would be like Village of the Damned or The Good
Son. Instead, what I got was a movie about three little shitheads
that easily get away with murdering a whole bunch of people with no
entertainment value. There is barely a story in this movie beyond
kids killing adults. The only explanation we get is they were born
during an eclipse. That doesn't even count as an explanation. If
that's the case, we have to assume that there's more killer children
in the world because there's no way they were the only ones born at
that time. It comes off as something that was thrown in at the last
minute when they realize the story has no explanation. It's not like
they had a long, thoughtful story planned out and just didn't have
time to explain things. Seriously, these kids just kill people for
about 80 minutes and not in a fun, slasher sort of way. I'm willing
to suspend my disbelief, but this is just too far-fetched.
The movie does
have action and a bit of excitement as long as you don't think about
it for too long. For being such a violent movie, there is a shocking
lack of blood and gore. The sheriff's head gets bashed with a
baseball bat, but when he's shown on the ground, it doesn't even look
like his hair is out of place. The acting is passable and I really
wanted to bash these evil little kids. I guess that's a sign of good
acting? I'm not really sure. Despite being made in the early 80's the
quality of the film is pretty fuzzy and isn't helped by bad directing
and editing. I'm pretty sure there was one part in the movie where
the audio was so out of place that I think another movie's audio
somehow made it in to this one.
Clearly, they're evil little assholes
For a movie
named Bloody Birthday, there sure wasn't a lot of birthdaying going
on. There is almost no plot and the story that does exist is not very
good of convincing. The is a good amount of action and violence, but
not anywhere near the amount of blood needed to make the movie fun. I
should have done myself a favor and watched a movie I liked. Bloody
Birthday is a bloody waste of time.
2/10
If you'd like to give me a birthday present, send a link to my blog to everyone you know!
No comments:
Post a Comment