Bloody Murder – 2000, US, 87m. Director: Ralph E. Portillo.
The Burning – 1981, US, 91m. Director: Tony Maylam.
Rats: Night of Terror – 1984, France/Italy, 97m. Director: Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso.
BLOODY MURDER (2000) Teenagers readying a summer camp for the upcoming season are menaced by a hockey mask-wearing killer in this micro-budgeted homage to slasher movies of the 1980s, specifically Friday the 13th. In fact, Bloody Murder follows the Friday mold to a tee, including the camp’s history of unsolved murders, the legend of an unstoppable killer, and the crazy old doomsayer who warns the teens of inevitable death. In typical fashion, the teens ignore the adults and are picked off by the maniac—and that’s where Bloody Murder unfortunately degenerates into yet another Scream wannabe as characters start referencing horror movies while trying to figure out who the mystery killer is by blaming each other. But unlike the energetic teens in Scream (or even Friday the 13th), the ones in Bloody Murder are so devoid of personality they blend together; the only way of telling them apart is by the clothes they’re wearing. Despite its title, the film features a substantial lack of blood, which isn’t even the worst aspect of Bloody Murder—it’s deathly dull. D
THE BURNING (1981) The campers of Camp Stonewater fall victim to a sadistic killer who wields a pair of extra-large hedge shears and has an insatiable appetite for young blood. The madman (a former camp custodian who, years earlier, was hideously scarred by fire as the result of a teen prank gone awry) isn’t unmasked until the final five minutes, but his deformity is the gruesome creation of Tom Savini and won’t disappoint splatter fans. Up until then, the killer (Lou David) hacks up the majority of the cast, including soon-to-be famous Fisher Stevens, Holly Hunter, and Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame (Stevens gets it the worst by having his fingers severed and his throat sliced open). In typical slasher fashion, David gets his in the end when the hero slams an axe into his head, then lights the guy on fire for the second time. What sets The Burning apart from other Friday the 13th clones is that it’s actually good—a fact that has kept the film a fan favorite since the eighties. The Burning was ignored during its original release because its direct competitor, Friday the 13th Part 2, opened the week before. The movie is now considered a genre classic. Atmospheric and genuinely scary—a must-see for the slasher completist. B+
RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR (1984) (AKA: The Rats) I can only assume the makers of this doomsday bloodbath are fans of The Road Warrior and Escape from New York since the majority of their characters are leather-clad survivalists living in a post-apocalyptic world. Unfortunately for the viewer, the filmmakers (Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso) are not George Miller or John Carpenter—Mattei and Fragasso previously collaborated on the disposable Romero ripoff, Hell of the Living Dead (1980)—and Rats: Night of Terror, while admittedly fun, is far removed from quality storytelling. A small group of bandits in 225 A.B. (After the Bomb) discover an abandoned laboratory crawling with flesh-eating rats. One rat chews its way into a woman, and to the horror of her friends emerges from inside her mouth. Another has his face clawed to a bloody pulp and is set afire by a flamethrower. But the best gag comes in the form of a walking corpse the rats use as a marionette before exploding out of the dead guy’s back, a nice touch to this dumb but entertaining European trash epic. B–