Review of Happy Birthday to Me (1981) by Adam R — 17 Sep 2011

Know why films like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Halloween," "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" are the foremost examples of the slasher film? The identity of the villain(s) is never in doubt. It's illogical to spend a good portion of the movie faffing about searching for the identity of the culprit when the substance of the story is watching people (usually a pack of good-looking, ineffectual teens) get senselessly butchered.

"Happy Birthday to Me" unfortunately takes the mystery path and suffers for it. Ginny Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson) is the most troubled member of the cool kids at her school, her popularity marked somewhat by a long, mysterious absence from school and a head full of bad memories related to the car accident-related death of her drunken mother (Sharon Acker). Soon her friends begin meeting gruesome, inexplicable ends, causing Ginny to confront the trauma of her past as her list of compatriots nears the single digits.

To be fair, "Birthday" does have its share of imaginative death scenes. One pompous preppie leaves this world in the same style as Isadora Duncan, while another encounters the elusive and exotic death by kabob. However, these token scenes only serve to enliven a rather bland story with one of the most ridiculous denouements ever attached to a horror tale. Suffice to say the antagonist is homicidally embittered by an incident that resulted in little to no negative change in her life, making her creativity in picking off dumb members of a clique pointless -- a feeling under which the entirety of the film is ultimately mired.