Written by Bob Weinstein And Peter Lawrence And Brd Get Andy Tony Maylarn And Harvey Weinstein
Directed by Tony Maylarn
Camp Counselor (re Cropsy): "Every year he kills. Right now he's out there. Watching. Waiting. So don't look; he'll see you. Don't breathe; he'll hear you. Don't move; you're dead!"
Ooh, look. It's a slasher movie set at a camp and both Jason Voorhees and his mother are nowhere to be seen. This movie certainly came out at a precarious time, a year latwr to what would be an enduring horror franchise.
We start at Camp Blackfoot where unfortunate caretaker Cropsy (Lou David) fond himself the victim of a prank. A prank that resulted in him being horribly burned. The fire should've killed him but it didn't. However it did awaken a desire for revenge as members of another camp had the misfortune to find out.
The other camp being Stonewater, years after the events of his horrible burning. In this camp, the closest to protagonists were responsible but hunky counselor Todd (Brian Matthews) and outcast camper, Alfred (Brian Backer). In the sense, they're the only two survivors of note.
The rest of the movie itself introduced a variety of characters such as the bully Glazer (Larry Joshua) and his girlfriend, Sally (Carrick Glenn) as well as the oversexed Eddy (Ned Eisenberg) and his girlfriend, Karen (Carolyn Houlihan). Needless to say, their characters are there to be cannon fodder along with other campers who all get killed in a gory fashion.
Of course, there's also the counselor Michelle (Leah Ayres), the only female survivor of the movie who did one of the few sensible things by trying to get the police involved. There's a romance of sorts with her and Todd as well.
As for Todd, he did make for a reasonably good hero with both him and Alfred directly being the ones to take Cropsy down. Visually, Cropsy does look horrifying, got some good kills and a rather bloody comeuppance to boot. Alfred made for an okay distressed dude but it's not hard to see why some of the campers didn't care for him.
- The movie opened with Cropsy's burning and ended with another campfire telling of his haunting of the woods. Cropsy seemed to favour pruning shears as a weapon.
- A young Holly Hunter appeared in this movie, this being one of her first acting roles.
- The idea behind this movie revolved around a campfire story that was circulated at summer camps in New Jersey and upstate New York.
- Chronology: There's a five year gap between Cropsy's burning at Blackfoot and his attack on Stonewater.
Unfortunate timing to one side, I have a soft spot for The Burning. While it doesn't outshine a certain movie, it's a damn sight better than the majority of sequels that movie would have. The kills are decent, Cropsy looks creepy, Todd's nice to look at and I really did that end scene.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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