Bloody Birthday
If you want cake, raise a finger
Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear Jordan. Happy birthday to me. That's right, today, June 6th is my birthday. I love you guys so much I don't even take my birthday off from writing a review. I could have picked a movie I loved (Dawn of the Dead) or a movie that is universally loved (Nosferatu), but instead I decided to go with a horror movie with “birthday” in the title. I can't help it, I have a weak spot for holiday-based horror movies. It seems like almost every holiday has a corresponding horror movie, though I don't think there's one for Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Arbor Day. In any event, I decided to celebrate my birthday with a birthday movie.
Blood Birthday is a 1981 horror movie about murders committed by three children. In 1970, three children, Curtis, Steven, and Debbie were born during a solar eclipse. Ten years later, all three begin to murder the adults in the small town of Meadowvale. They even go as far as killing their teacher and Debbie's dad, the town sheriff. They use bats, ropes, guns; anything that they can find to satiate their blood lust. Their classmate Timmy catches them in the act so they try to kill him by locking him in an old refrigerator at the junkyard. He escapes and tries to convince his older sister Lori that the three kids are murders. The three leave her a note posing as Timmy telling her he is in the junkyard. There, they try to run her over with a car, but she survives. Lori is an astrology enthusiast and tells Timmy that on the day of the eclipse, Saturn, which controls emotions, is blocked. That may explain why the three children are uncaring murderers. At their birthday party, one of the boys poisons one of the cakes in hopes of killing many of the partygoers. Lori stops him, but nobody believes that the children could kill anyone. Will Lori and Timmy be able to stop these pint-sized killers before it's too late?
Dennis the Menace gets real
When I came across a movie named Bloody Birthday, I expected something along the lines of April Fools Day or My Blood Valentine. You know, a slasher with a holiday theme. Not original, but fun in a nostalgic for the 80's sort of way. When I read the description about killer children, I thought maybe it would be like Village of the Damned or The Good Son. Instead, what I got was a movie about three little shitheads that easily get away with murdering a whole bunch of people with no entertainment value. There is barely a story in this movie beyond kids killing adults. The only explanation we get is they were born during an eclipse. That doesn't even count as an explanation. If that's the case, we have to assume that there's more killer children in the world because there's no way they were the only ones born at that time. It comes off as something that was thrown in at the last minute when they realize the story has no explanation. It's not like they had a long, thoughtful story planned out and just didn't have time to explain things. Seriously, these kids just kill people for about 80 minutes and not in a fun, slasher sort of way. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but this is just too far-fetched.
The movie does have action and a bit of excitement as long as you don't think about it for too long. For being such a violent movie, there is a shocking lack of blood and gore. The sheriff's head gets bashed with a baseball bat, but when he's shown on the ground, it doesn't even look like his hair is out of place. The acting is passable and I really wanted to bash these evil little kids. I guess that's a sign of good acting? I'm not really sure. Despite being made in the early 80's the quality of the film is pretty fuzzy and isn't helped by bad directing and editing. I'm pretty sure there was one part in the movie where the audio was so out of place that I think another movie's audio somehow made it in to this one.
Clearly, they're evil little assholes
For a movie named Bloody Birthday, there sure wasn't a lot of birthdaying going on. There is almost no plot and the story that does exist is not very good of convincing. The is a good amount of action and violence, but not anywhere near the amount of blood needed to make the movie fun. I should have done myself a favor and watched a movie I liked. Bloody Birthday is a bloody waste of time.
2/10
If you'd like to give me a birthday present, send a link to my blog to everyone you know!