In its first half, Happy Birthday to Me damn near lost me completely, maybe because I wasn’t fully paying attention, maybe because it needs to be watched again. No problems there: I’ll definitely be watching again. It may even be that its makers want the audience to be lost early on; or it could just be a horrible mess of a movie. I like to think it’s intended: for the most part we’re as lost as the main character, until all the answers are revealed, and it’s one of the more insane cinematic journeys I’ve been taken on.

As I entered this on my list I realised what a great year 1981 was for horror (in my opinion, anyhoo…) – The Evil Dead, Friday the 13th Part II, Ms. 45, The Howling, American Werewolf in London, even Halloween 2 was pretty damn good for a sequel to a masterpiece, and Blood Beach and The Final Conflict both have their moments. Right now, though, Happy Birthday to Me is top of that list: it has all the things I look for in the best era of horror; though made in the early Eighties, the styles are very Seventies to me; it has a crazy score, not too much gore (but plenty where it counts), and it’s out there, in addition to being (basically) “just a slasher”. A second viewing will either completely destroy this initial opinion of the movie or make the movie one of my all-time favourites: so it’ll be a while till I risk that.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 1st, 2004 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews, unrated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.