Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

Slashers have an unfair reputation of being brutally violent.  The sad truth is they often were made brutally violent, but a large part of the makeup effects and gags were never seen by an audience.  The original My Bloody Valentine is the perfect example of what was supposed to be a bloody good time turned into an anemic release in the theaters.  The real crime is that much of this footage was lost over the years or what did exist was in such bad condition that attempts to insert it back in is too noticeable. 

Happy Birthday to Me is one of those movies and, like My Bloody Valentine, was made in Canada for U.S. distribution.  Supposedly director J. Lee Thompson literally painted the walls red but, save one scene, this is hardly noticeable.  What is noticeable is the censorship, where kill scenes were blurred, chopped or removed all together.  Despite that the movie poster still tried to sell the movie on its violent content in an attempt to compete with the other slashers, almost all of which had suffered the same fate.  

Virginia (Melissa Sue Anderson) is a senior at Crawford Academy, a private high school for the elite.  She grew up in the area but was absent the first few years due to an accident that killed her mother (Sharon Acker) and almost killed her.  It was only through experimental brain surgery that she survived and, although she is a member of one of the most popular cliques at school, she is becoming more and more disturbed as her memories of that time return.

It also doesn't help that her friends are beginning to turn up missing.  At first it is thought to be a prank, but after most of the group disappear without a trace Virginia seeks the help of her psychiatrist David (Glenn Ford).  She begins to experience frequent blackouts around the times that her friends go missing and begins to become concerned that she is responsible. 

Happy Birthday to Me, though advertised as being in the same vein as Friday the 13th, is really more of a giallo in its construction than a typical horror film.  There is a black-gloved killer, a ton of red herrings and even a twist within a twist to end everything.  It gets a bit clumsy at times which is due to there not having been an ending agreed to during the filming of the movie, but it still makes much more sense than the usual giallo and is filmed with much more serious style than its contemporaries.  Much of this can be attributed to J. Lee Thompson, a veteran director of such classic films as Cape Fear and The Guns of Navarone, and such horror favorites as Eye of the Devil.  Supposedly he cut loose and had fun on this before spending his later career making action films for Cannon. 

Being somewhat above a typical slasher production, and managing to net an often inebriated Glenn Ford for some old Hollywood gravitas and taking advantage of Melissa Sue Anderson on break from Little House on the Prairie, it is also different in many other ways.  There are no gratuitous nude scenes and most of the story is treated like a psychological mystery.  Still, it had enough blood in it originally that the MPAA gave it an X, demanding numerous cuts to get an R rating.  Unfortunately, that footage is pretty much lost, although supposedly some of it has turned up on YouTube from time to time. 

The one thing I always remembered about Happy Birthday to Me was the ending.  In fact, I found I didn't remember the whole thing while watching it again, forgetting that one more twist was coming.  Much of the movie is old school horror and it is much longer of a film than it needs to be, but the tension is there and the payoff is worth it, especially after a fake reveal as the film starts moving toward its climax.  Like The Burning it doesn't play specifically within a set of rules, being more concerned with unraveling the mystery rather than rote kills which, despite the poster, are not the most bizarre even at that time.  The Abominable Dr. Phibes had much worse than this film, but this is definitely worth a look for those tired of that same old formula. 

Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

Time: 110 minutes

Starring: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Tracey E. Bregman

Director: J. Lee Thompson