Movies - The Burning

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	Movies - The Burning

The Burning is a 1981 horror film directed by Tony Maylam, with music by Rick Wakeman and early appearances from Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter.

A reworking of Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th
, The Burning tells the story of a mean, drunken caretaker at a summer camp (nicknamed Cropsy, after the huge garden shears he carries) who falls victim to a particularly nasty prank which leaves him horribly burned and disfigured. Following his release from hospital, he returns to his old stamping ground and begins a murder spree.

Although The Burning is derivative and padded with tedious teenage dialogue and some low-jinks reminiscent of Porky's
, the film benefits enormously from Maylam's knack for tension-building, Wakeman's creepy soundtrack, some unusual twists in the screenplay, and Tom Savini's convincing special effects make-up work. The movie also gave some of today's celebrities their start. Holly Hunter had a very small role as "Sophie". She utters maybe 2 lines the entire movie. Watch closely or you'll miss her! Featured though is Jason Alexander, who we all know from Seinfeld. In this movie, he has a full head of hair and shows where his comedic timing comes from, as he plays the cliched wisecracking camper and manages to survive the wrath of The Cropsy Maniac. Also featured and certainly not forgotten (as he loses his digits in the infamous "raft massacre" scene) is Fisher Stevens. Most know him as Ben Jabituya from the 1986 movie "Short Circuit"

The Burning found itself at the centre of some controversy in the early 1980s, when the British video label Thorn-EMI accidentally released the uncut version of the film on videotape rather than the slightly trimmed version passed by the British Board of Film Classification. The tapes were impounded under the Obscene Publications Act, and The Burning was added to the video nasties list. The two major scenes of contention were Cropsy's frantic (but unrealistic) mass-murder spree in the "raft massacre" sequence, and the sight of a pair of scissors piercing a woman's flesh in the post-title sequence.

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