Though the slasher film carries the stigma of being formulaic and overly cliché, productions within this subgenre are quite often fascinatingly creative unless they bare the ominous sequel number after their title. Whether it be inventive kills, a new polish applied upon the venue’s moldy structural framework, or a quirky sense of humor, features such as Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp, and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, defy their typecast reputation as stagnant entries in a rote medium. Such is the superb case for J. Lee Thompson’s little known Happy Birthday to Me.
As a consequence of her mother’s (Sharon Acker) unforeseen death atop experimental brain surgery, Virginia Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson) suffers from amnesia. After the passage of four years, Virginia returns to her hometown where, much to her undoubtedly late mother’s delight, she becomes part of the social elite, the “Top Ten.” However, it would appear that her social shift has finally made Virginia’s sublimated homicidal rage manifest. Yet is Virginia the culprit even though blackouts keep her being able to provide a plausible alibi?
Unlike many of the copycat slashers which arbitrarily incorporate a celebratory theme around an equally gratuitous plotline, Thompson–renowned for his daunting 1962 Cape Fear–casts the most innocuous of actresses–the star of Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Sue Anderson–in what would at first appear to be, even by genre standards, an extremely lethargic slasher film. The film opens with a killer brandishing Argento-esque black gloves as a striped scarf appears on a character immediately following the murder, the exact same one which we caught a fleeting glimpse of during the assault, thus leading the audience to believe that, alas, we know who the killer is and that, sans any effort at suspense, we are now slated for a by-the-numbers bloodbath. Yet, no sooner than our assumptions have been cast, the camera pans to reveal a slew of students, all of which are wearing the iconographic gloves and scarf. Such is the playful, engaging tone of Happy Birthday to Me which, needless to say, validates the presence of its Birthday theme.
We come to realize early into the production that the film is to be more accurately labeled as a giallo rather than a slasher for the work focuses upon the mystery of the killer’s identity as opposed to the narrative being structured around the next murder. Yet, though this epiphany occurs early within the feature, it is not until approximately a quarter of the way into the film that we realize that Thompson is flippantly turning genre cliché upon its head. The filmmaker coyly plays with his audience as he first, alarmingly it would appear, divulges the identity of the killer, one Alfred Morris (Jack Blum), whom Virginia unveils after having entered his home unaware and discovering the head of a missing friend. But, alas and alack, we watch as Alfred plucks a prosthetic eyeball from the incriminating evidence while the camera zooms in to expose a well-made sculpture by the young hobbyist. Playfully, a series of such exchanges takes place until, equally disconcerting, Thompson has Virginia slay a friend, only he doesn’t follow with an in-joke, thus insinuating that the character’s blackouts have veiled Virginia from the fact that she is the murderer.
However, true to the personality of the film, such is not a spoiler any more than the disclosure that we are ultimately greeted, in the most surprising of places–the “serious” horror film–with a Scooby-Doo finale which is almost as shocking as the climax of Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp. It is with this, an engaging narrative which promises to be something more, that Thompson aligns his mocking sense of black humor. For instance, Virginia is instructed to report “All the gory details” after a night in which her father is out on business and having invited Steve Maxwell (Matt Craven) over the for the evening. Of course, this comes after we witness her fatally attacking her suitor. It should come as no surprise however that Thompson also finds the time to tastefully integrate a handful of allusions to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, another feature in which the audience cannot anticipate the impending overture.
Much like the relationship between James Gunn’s Slither and Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps, Kevin Williamson undoubtedly drew “inspiration” from Lee Thompson’s Happy Birthday to Me knowing that few would be familiar with the preceding feature. Yet, like Wes Craven’s Scream, Thompson’s film is a fresh take on a constrictive formula which results in a fun, invigorating outing replete with humor and personality unto itself. In the end, Happy Birthday to Me is an often overlooked little ditty which deserves its long overdue recognition.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
