{"id":10350,"date":"2014-12-30T11:51:22","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T16:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10350"},"modified":"2014-12-30T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T17:18:07","slug":"br-bloody-birthday-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10350","title":{"rendered":"BR: Bloody Birthday (1981)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"BloodyBirthday_BR_s\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Severin Films<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0All<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 July 8, 2014<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Horror \/ Slasher \/ Killer Kiddies<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Born during a solar eclipse, a pack of suburban kids start to decimate undesirables in their urban ‘hood.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 Audio Interview with director Ed Hunt (51:10) \/ “Don’t Eat That Cake! An interview with actress Lori Lethin” (9:50) \/ Featurette: “A Brief History of the Slasher Film” with Adam Rockoff (15:40).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

American film school grad Ed Hunt found a career making B-movies when he ventured north of the 49th parallel and found private and government funds to produce an assortment of genre films, and while Hunt may be best remembered for one of the worst CanCon tax shelter films of the era \u2013 the inept Starship Invasions<\/strong> (1977) \u2013 he nevertheless managed to show he could assemble material into a fluid narrative with the loopy Bloody Birthday<\/strong> (1981), a surprisingly shocking tale of bad kids who murder adults, and each other.<\/p>\n

The fact kids kill and die onscreen is very risqu\u00e9 \u2013 when vile pre-teen little Rhoda gets her comeuppance in The Bad Seed<\/a><\/strong> (1956), it\u2019s implied by an event; and in The Omen<\/strong> (1976), little Damien lives to kill more meddlers in subsequent sequels \u2013 but in the indie world, anything goes, especially when filmmakers needed to spin a unique concept into a drive-in flick with notoriety that\u2019s worth paying for.<\/p>\n

The Spanish film Who Can Kill a Child?<\/strong> \/ Island of the Damned<\/strong> (1976) made a band of kids the real murderers, and whether the concept stemmed from Hollywood\u2019s offering of demon children or Narciso Ibanez Serrador\u2019s creepy pack of angry tots, Hunt\u2019s film certainly belongs to the sub-genre of murderous kiddies.<\/p>\n

Made for very little money, this U.S. production makes great use of generic suburban Burbank and Glendale, California locations, and has a hook not unlike Armando Crispino\u2019s Autopsy \/ Macchie solari<\/a><\/strong> (1975), in which an astronomical event spawns murderous behaviour. Instead of sun spots, Hunt has a group of kids born during a solar eclipse numbed by any sense of emotion, or empathy, making them seemingly ideal killing machines. (The moppets prove to be less than ideal because as avaricious brats intolerant of being told No, they\u2019re destined to kill off every care giver and provider until they\u2019re left alone. They simply don\u2019t know when to stop.)<\/p>\n

The sociopaths plot and knock off parents, a sister, a stringent teacher (Susan Strasberg dies, Joe Penny survives), neighbours, and classmates with apparent impunity (their doctor, played by a slumming Jose Ferrer, manages to escape their wrath), but the brother & sister team of Joyce (Lori Lethin) and Timmy (K.C. Martel) eventually catch on to what\u2019s happening in their \u2018hood, and attempt to stop the little monsters when they find themselves on the hit list.<\/p>\n

The script by Hunt and occasional collaborator Barry Pearson (Paperback Hero<\/strong>) doesn\u2019t attempt to develop characters or much backstory, and a steady bodycount propels the film through some ridiculous scenarios, including a junkyard rampage, and the illogic of little Debbie Brody (creepy Elizabeth Hoy) killing her father (veteran character actor Bert Kramer) when he\u2019s far less of a threat than bossy sister Beverly (Julie Brown).<\/p>\n

Beverly\u2019s death by arrow is built up by establishing a peephole through which Debbie charges boys to watch her sister strip-down and dance, and Brown performs an epic topless jiggle that stops the film cold purely so audiences can enjoy her lithe physique. The peephole eventually becomes the source of Beverly\u2019s grievous head trauma, but it\u2019s a crazy sequence that\u2019s almost epic in length and detail.<\/p>\n

Hunt\u2019s direction is pretty straightforward, and Stephen Posey\u2019s cinematography is fine (Posey also shot the exploitation flicks Penitentiary II<\/strong>, Savage Streets<\/strong>, and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning<\/strong>), but Arlon Ober\u2019s score is really quite shrill: what initially sounds like a Main Title theme performed deliberately out of tune flows into several awkwardly orchestrated cues, and the film\u2019s opening kills in a cemetery has more than an overt homage to Bernard Herrmann\u2019s slashing Psycho<\/strong> strings.<\/p>\n

Severin\u2019s really nice Blu-ray ports over the same extras from the prior 2011 DVD release, and they contextualize this cult film for both actress Lethin (now retired from film) and Hunt, who ended a 26 year filmmaking drought with the recently completed Halloween Hell<\/strong> (2014) with Hollywood\u2019s most unnecessarily busy actor, Eric Robert.<\/p>\n

Leithin\u2019s interview is very genial, and the focus covers her notoriety as a horror actress in Bloody Birthday<\/strong> and The Prey<\/strong> (1984) in spite of having done much TV and film work, whereas the audio-only interview with Hunt has some interesting views on working in Canada making Starship Invasions<\/strong>, but it\u2019s a rambling piece that really should\u2019ve been trimmed down. It\u2019s amusing to hear Hunt\u2019s being defensive of Starship<\/strong> \u2013 he should<\/em> be proud in being able to sell the film and make a profit \u2013 but it\u2019s hardly the prescient space drama that exists on film. There\u2019s also some brief mentioning of The Brain<\/strong> (1988), a creepy thriller that played on TV for years before vanishing from distribution, and deserving of a special edition.<\/p>\n

The bonus featurette has\u00a0Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0author Adam Rockoff providing a concise overview of the genre’s main evolutionary stages, and interpolates on-camera interview footage with assorted trailer clips and stills of varying source quality.<\/p>\n

Ed Hunt\u2019s CanCon classiques include Pleasure<\/strong> Palace<\/strong> (1973), Diary of a Sinner <\/strong>(1974), Point of No Return <\/strong>(1976), Starship Invasions<\/strong> (1977), the viral thriller Plague<\/strong> \/ M-3: The Gemini Strain<\/strong> (1979), and The Brain<\/strong> (1988).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2014 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American film school grad Ed Hunt found a career making B-movies when he ventured north of the 49th parallel and found private and government funds to produce an assortment of genre films, and while Hunt may be best remembered for one of the worst CanCon tax shelter films of the era, he nevertheless managed to show he could assemble material into a fluid narrative…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3232,3233,3229,408,3230,3235,3231,3234],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2GW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10350"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10368,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10350\/revisions\/10368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}