HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1980)
Directed
by J. Lee Thompson
Starring Melissa Sue Anderson and Glenn Ford
A pretty worthless early 1980s slasher film, best remembered
for a decent title that -- like "My Bloody Valentine,"
"Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" -- revolves
a series of murders around a significant day of the year.
"Little House on the Prairie" celeb Melissa Sue Anderson
plays a student with amnesia who went through some kind of
traumatic brain operation. She's terrified by memories of the
surgery. As if that wasn't enough, an unseen killer with black
gloves is killing off all her sinful private-school party pals.
The shit really starts to hit the fan on Anderson's birthday,
hence the title of the movie.
This was clearly made to cash in on the slasher craze of the
late '70s and early '80s, but it's such a tame movie that it's
sure not to appeal to gore hounds. The ads promised "Six of
the most bizarre murders you will ever see." The deaths in
the movie aren't all that creative, however. The most interesting
one has a guy crushed by a weightlifting set. Meanwhile, the
convoluted who-dun-it story is so piss poor that the "Murder
She Wrote" crowd won't find anything to attract them either.
The flick also suffers from way too many fake scares. It's
standard fare in a horror film that we're given one or two idiotic
moments where we are supposed to think someone is a killer, only
to find out they were "joking." But "Birthday"
keeps repeating the gimmick over and over and over and over. In
one ludicrous scene, a couple co-eds find a severed head on a
desk. Moments later, their disturbed friend (played by Keith
Gordon, who'd later turn up in "Dressed
to Kill" and "Christine")
shows up, acting crazy. Naturally, the head turns out to be an
ultra-realistic prop he created. For many viewers the scene might
turn out to be the final straw. It almost was for me, but I was
somehow able to keep watching until the full 90 minutes were up.
Things finally did get a little interesting once we learn who
the killer really is, and the movie climaxes with a pretty
memorable and ridiculous twist-ending finish. But it's too little,
too late. A failure on most every level, "Happy Birthday for
Me" remains out of print and will likely stay that way. The
poster for the movie certainly made it look pretty cool, with a
shish kabob heading straight through a screaming victim's mouth.
That scene is included in the movie, but its inclusion in the
poster actually takes away any sense of surprise we should have
had when it happens in the movie. All in all, "Birthday"
is a gutless horror film, and one that should be avoided.
"Planet of the Apes" fans will best remember director
Thompson as the man who helmed "Conquest of the Planet of the
Apes" and "Battle of the Planet of the Apes."