Review of Happy Birthday to Me (1981) by Tim B — 19 Jan 2010

Upon first glance, this Canadian movie is your very typical 80s slasher with a lot of inventive and violent deaths. For me, this one goes above your usual genre helping in the sense that it also has some smarts to back it up.

We get flashbacks galore that relates to the main character and the storyline in odd but intriguing ways and a whodunit that baffled me. It's not often that a slasher flick made twenty some odd years ago can still make you think long and hard.

Now making you use your brain wasn't the only thing on this movie's menu, it was also about many entertaining scenes with a tagline that still lives up to itself (six of the most bizarre murders you'll ever see!) and many fun action sequences (who knew?).

I would have to say the 'draw bridge' was the highlight on the entertainment scale. There's also many sick themes keeping the storyline going (incest and a lot of pervs in this flick) and a good lead actress for us to root for.

Melissa Sue Anderson was a very excellent lead girl. She had a creepy look to her (BRIGHT blue eyes) and was very convincing in her more emotional scenes. It took me about 30 mins by the time I noticed who Glenn Ford was.

He didn't have a lot to do but was adequate. Lawrence Dane was pretty creepy in the pervy dad role. The only reason David Eisner stood out was for his funny impressions. On the slim downside, I can't say for other than Anderson's character, that I gave a crap about any of the kids.

They all came across as a bunch of rich snobs and I was more interested in seeing them dying than interacting. At least making them 'somewhat' human would've been appreciated. Also, the twists this movie sported does get rather overwhelming in the end.

I was pretty much sold by the time the first one hit and having twist after twist got a little annoying and unbelievable after a while. But this is a slasher movie that aimed to be different from the mold.

In my eyes, it succeeded. It had me thinking, enjoying the grisly murders and kept me amused throughout. That's all I could've asked for.