Bloody Birthday was released at the dawn of the slasher boom, in 1980. I didn't see the film until '86 0r '87 when it was re-released in theaters. There was still a few drops of blood to be wrung out of the dying genre.
It's one of the most outrageous movies of the era. There isn't a masked killer, no wronged dork seeking revenge. The killers are three little kids. I'm surprised there wasn't a bigger outcry as there was a few years later when mommies violently objected to Santy Claus being a vicious killer in Silent Night, Deadly Night. The sick seventies were still fresh in everyone's memories, I suppose.
There's a little hokum pokum about a full moon lunar eclipse and three babies born at the same time. It doesn't matter. All we care about is the little devils wreaking carnage on people.
One kid looks like a young Trevor Horn, but videos aren't killing the neighborhood residents. A little girl is suitably nasty, and the looks on her face are utterly convincing. The third kid, a bland blond boy, is far less memorable.
There's gunplay, a bow-and-arrow shot in a teen girl's eye, shovel battering, and a claustrophobe's nightmare sequence where a meddlesome boy is locked in an old refrigerator.
Down on their luck Hollywood veterans Jose Ferrer and Susan Strasberg have small roles. MTV's Julie Brown and American Ninja Michael Dudikoff show up before they became familiar cable TV faces.
Bloody Birthday was dismissed by critics, but it's an edgy little thriller that worms its way under the skin. There are genuinely disturbing moments as the children gleefully kill and lie their way out of trouble.
Unlike seizure-inducing contemporary digital editing, Bloody Birthday was rather clumsily cut together, probably on an old moviola. I'm a sucker for naturalistic filmmaking of the time period, before media looked way too crisp and perfect.
Bloody Birthday doesn't have the adulation of Halloween or Friday the 13th, or even Christmas Evil, but it's a disreputable little confection that would make a perfect gift for the budding slasher enthusiast. Just don't eat the icing on the cake if you know what's good for you.
Written by Mark Sieber
It's one of the most outrageous movies of the era. There isn't a masked killer, no wronged dork seeking revenge. The killers are three little kids. I'm surprised there wasn't a bigger outcry as there was a few years later when mommies violently objected to Santy Claus being a vicious killer in Silent Night, Deadly Night. The sick seventies were still fresh in everyone's memories, I suppose.
There's a little hokum pokum about a full moon lunar eclipse and three babies born at the same time. It doesn't matter. All we care about is the little devils wreaking carnage on people.One kid looks like a young Trevor Horn, but videos aren't killing the neighborhood residents. A little girl is suitably nasty, and the looks on her face are utterly convincing. The third kid, a bland blond boy, is far less memorable.
There's gunplay, a bow-and-arrow shot in a teen girl's eye, shovel battering, and a claustrophobe's nightmare sequence where a meddlesome boy is locked in an old refrigerator.
Down on their luck Hollywood veterans Jose Ferrer and Susan Strasberg have small roles. MTV's Julie Brown and American Ninja Michael Dudikoff show up before they became familiar cable TV faces.
Bloody Birthday was dismissed by critics, but it's an edgy little thriller that worms its way under the skin. There are genuinely disturbing moments as the children gleefully kill and lie their way out of trouble.
Unlike seizure-inducing contemporary digital editing, Bloody Birthday was rather clumsily cut together, probably on an old moviola. I'm a sucker for naturalistic filmmaking of the time period, before media looked way too crisp and perfect.
Bloody Birthday doesn't have the adulation of Halloween or Friday the 13th, or even Christmas Evil, but it's a disreputable little confection that would make a perfect gift for the budding slasher enthusiast. Just don't eat the icing on the cake if you know what's good for you.
Written by Mark Sieber
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