Happy Birthday to Me
(teen/revenge/party/slasher) 6******skulls
*Blood* *No Nudity* *Gory*
1980/Color/108 Min./RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video & Columbia Pictures & Birthday Film Company, Inc./Canada/Rated R
Director...........J.Lee Thompson (Cape Fear, Death Wish IV, Firewalker)
Screenplay.....John Saxton & Peter Jobin & Timothy Bond
Music..............Bo Harward & Lance Rubin
Producers.......John Dunning & Andre Link
Based on a Story by John Saxton
Special Make-up Effects by The Burman Studio
Dramatis Personae
Virginia.............Melissa Sue Anderson (Little House on the Prairie)
Dr. Faraday........Glenn Ford (The Blackboard Jungle, Gilda, Superman)
Hal Wainwright..Lawrence Dane (The Clown Murders, Rituals, Scanners)
Estelle...............Sharon Acker
Mrs. Patterson...Frances Hyland
Ann...................Tracy Bregman (The Concrete Jungle)
Alfred................Jack Blum
Steve................Matt Craven (A Few Good Men, Jacob's Ladder, K2)
Maggie..............Lenore Zann (Def-Con 4)
Rudi..................David Eisner (To Catch a Killer)
Etienne.............Michel Rene Labelle
Greg.................Richard Rebiere (Heavenly Bodies)
Bernadette........Lesleh Donaldson (Funeral Home)
Ammelia...........Lisa Langlois (Blood Relatives, The Nest, Truth or Die)
Critique: You are bound to feel disappointed by the special incredibly implausible twist ending. The drunk mother scene demanding justice was just fine, and the idea that Virginia would snap when this injustice was linked to her mother's death. Why convolute? This movie has the annoying habit of showing a quick clip of one thing, and then the next cut is of a mannequin, or some other simulacrum presumably provided by the murderess. Remarkable that the Crawford High School kids can go off to the Inn for drinks. Were there ever such days?
This is a ripoff. Director Thompson can't be any more happy, from Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum (Cape Fear) to this in 18 short years. He also directed two of the sequals to the "Planet of the Apes" on his way down.
Plot Summary: A young woman is almost strangled in her car, but just when she thought it was safe she is razed. Albert has a pet rat which is used as a prank, swimming in a Shriner's beer. Then these geniuses head out and just make it over an opening drawbridge. Virginia was in the car and is angry and disgusted at the stunt. She goes and visits her mother's grave late at night, and runs into an odd fellow in the graveyard then hurries home. The odd fellow skulks around outside her house and sneaks through an open window. She notices the window more open than she had remembered and closes it. As she gets undressed for bed it appears that the intruder watches from the closet. She seems a bit spooked thinking there's someone in the bathroom but soon decides there's no one there. She notices the window open and screams and intruder escapes. When Virginia suffered severe brain damage, a novel process was applied to her derived from the electric field that salamanders use in reconstructing missing body parts. She is slowly starting to remember things from before the accident. Someone is sneaking around the motorcycle guy's garage. A simple flick of the scarf into the spokes suffices. Virginia and another of the girls sneak into Alfred's apartment where they find an odd looking object shrouded on the table. It is the head of the girl Bernadette missing the day before. But it's just a model. X is lifting weights and when the gloved stranger arrives he obviously knows the person. After more weight is put on, the rack is pulled away and the finishing touch is ten pounds on the genitals causing him to drop it on his head. One of the fellows, Rudy, hides something, perhaps an article of clothing in the garden at Crawford. Rudy meets Virginia in the bell tower and someone is killed. Virginia is then with the psychiatrist (Glenn Ford) and she remembers awakening during the operation and being pronounced dead. The missing students are piling up. It turns out it was an anatomical skeleton buried in the But it looks like Rudy's OK. Albert sneaks up behind Virginia at her mother's grave and she whirls around and stabs him. Virginia surprises everyone by taking Steve home, but he's more surprised when he gets fed his shishkebab. Virginia remembers the accident at the bridge. Next thing you know a friend of hers, Ann, is found drowned in her bathtub, but when the psychiatrist David shows up and there's no body. Karen the redhead is missing. Virginia remembers. Nobody showed at Virginia's birthday party. There's something in her mother's past and that of Will Thomason that makes both her and her daughter outcasts. Well, this memory looks like it's too much for Virginia and David's taking the blunt instrument. Daddy arrives and finds spattered blood. He runs out into the rain and finds David all bludgeoned. Around the table, it looks like the kids have finally arrived at the party. Surprise! It's one of the girls who has a miraculously good mask good enough to fool all her best friends and her father. SHe'd been skulking around behind Virginia the whole time making Virginia think she herself was killing people. Why? Because of the scandalous fact that Virginia was found out to be the bastard sister, and her mother left them. She then made an excellent Virginia mask, so excellent it has consistently fooled her best friends and her father.