(1981)
Dir - Tony Maylam
Overall: WOOF
As one of the many, many slasher films emerging at the turn of the 80s, Tony Maylam's The Burning is as trite and obnoxious as any. The premise of a bunch of horny teenagers in peril at a summer camp is already textbook and lazy, emerging only a year after Friday the 13th came out. The Weinstein brothers, (particularly everyone's "favorite" sexual predator Harvey), were heavily involved in the production and presumably conceived of this film before the 13th came out, but it was also deliberately re-written to heed to as many trendy cliches as possible and boy does it show. A completely inconsequential prostitute murder early on seems thrown in there just to distract from the rest of the body count not starting until more than halfway into the film. Tom Savini did the make-up, Rick Wakeman did the score, and several very young, future-famous, (Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter) or "Hey, I know that guy/girl" character actors make up the cast, which brings a tiny bit of enjoyment to the proceedings. Everywhere else though, (from the POV killer shots equipped with scary and dated keyboard music every single time, bait and switch "somebody's gonna get killed...oh never mind they're not" scenes, a mind-numbingly predictable plot, inexplicable super powers granted to the killer, awful day for night shots, teenage bullies vs teenage dorks), The Burning represents absolutely everything scornful about slasher movies.
(1981)
Dir - Gary Sherman
Overall: MEH
There are some provocative moments in Gary Sherman's Dead and Buried to be sure. Particularly the opening scene which takes a very left turn and sets everything in motion in an intriguing way as many excellent horror films have done before. Once we are brought into this uncomfortably odd world, several more dark and mystifying set pieces play out and many of them are nice and uncomfortably grisly. Horror movies and their ability to wrap up of their mystery at the end more often than not proves a difficult undertaking though and this one is regrettably no exception. One is left scratching their head and running the film back in their brain afterwards, getting increasingly let down in how sloppy the script was ultimately put together even though it was mostly entertaining to see played out. The great Dan O'Bannon's gets a screenwriting credit, but according to him, he was either gracious enough to throw it on there so his Alien co-writer friend Ronald Shusett could use it for more clout or he was embarrassed with the turn out and just made that anecdote up to distance himself from the finished product. Still, Stan Winston's involvement and an eccentric and creepy performance from Jack Albertson further provide some commendable moments.
(1987)
Dir - Kathryn Bigelow
Overall: MEH
Vampire films were plentiful and mostly excellent in the 80s and early 90s and Mrs. Ex-James Cameron Kathyrn Bigelow's Near Dark has gone on to be recognized as one of the best of them, if not the best. With others such as Vamp, The Lost Boys, and Fright Night coming out within two years of this one, the prominent comedic leanings of those are replaced by gruff, dark Western aesthetics here. Though Bill Paxton is a natural treasure at this point and he was never more Bill Paxtony than here, (saying something), the majority of the "Yee-haw I'm a badass", one-liner shtick of the undead family as a whole is groan inducing and very, very forced. All at the same time, it rides a thin line of being too ridiculous to be entertaining in fitting with the intended tone. Bigelow and Eric Red's script is equipped with plot holes and idiotic "people in horror movies" behavior, which comes to a head with a disappointingly illogical ending. The editing is a problem as well, with several scenes playing out as if pieces are missing and other scenes ending up rather predictably foreshadowed. None of this makes Near Dark anything like a trainwreck and it follows movie structure to a tee, but outside of its visual appealing genre blending and a handful of fun, popcorn crowd-pleasing moments, it is too underdeveloped everywhere else to fairly consider exceptional.
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