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There’s a lot to stress out about during an election year. Misinformation, families divided by politics, the future of democracy and then some. Another reason I have a tough time with election year is Stephen King’s Twitter/X account. That’s not a comment on his political stance whatsoever, but the world’s most famous horror author tends to moonlight in politics a little more than usual during times like these. I can’t say I blame him. If I had a platform the size of his, I’d be putting it to work too. But this means the master of macabre has less time to post scary movie and series recommendations for me to take advantage of.
Well, it’s a good thing I still check in regularly to see what the King of Horror has to say about my upcoming watch queue. Just yesterday King simply retweeted a post by one GrannieMandie who took online to remind us all about the classic early slasher gem The Burning. This is a 1981 genre staple that was made before the peak of the slasher phenomenon. For whatever reason, it never saw the same commercial or cult success as its peers. And it’s a shame, but at the same time, it’s also kind of nice to know that the horror genre is still able to hold onto some secrets.
To A Crisp
Inspired by the urban legends surrounding the New York State Cropsey maniac, The Burning is a treasure of early-80s brutality and practical effects. An obvious hijacking of Halloween, but moreso Friday the 13th, the movie saw a nastily deformed (and therefore masked) killer grab onto a pair of gigantic gardening shears as he revisits the same overnight camp that led to his grotesque injuries. And he doesn’t put those shears down for a good 90 minutes. That said, it’s not really the story or conception of The Burning that makes it special. It’s the scares … and the gore effects … that take this charming and frightening vintage slasher to the next level.
The reason its effects are so excellent is because gore guru Tom Savini took the project on instead of returning for Friday the 13th Part 2. The master of nasty didn’t return to the Friday series since he was understandably confused about the sequels timeline and how Jason was suddenly a full-grown adult murderer. This was long before the series became the camp (excuse the pun) treasure and cultural touchstone that is today. After just one film, a little bit of continuity wasn’t too much to request.
Stephen King Lights the Spark
Shame on me, but I actually had never made the effort to check out The Burning until King shared the tweet on his timeline. And I’m so glad that this inspired me to give it a go, since it’s streaming so accessibly on Prime Video. I can now say with confidence that is a brutal and expertly made entry into a sub-genre that’s so difficult to reinvent these days. Sure, I would have loved it so much when I was twelve, but I still appreciated it to hell and back last night too.
While it may be streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video platform for the time being, these finicky digital places seem to be holding onto their content for less and less time nowadays. Make sure to watch this classic as soon as you can, and there’s definitely no better time than the dog days of summer for some sunburnt brutally like this.
The Burning trailer:
Are you going to be giving The Burning a spin on Prime Video before the summer is up? Let us know your thoughts on this underrated slasher classic on Twitter/X via @DreadCentral. We are always around to chat about all things Stephen King!
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