Happy Birthday To Me

1981

8 kills
First Kill - 5 minutes

OK, let's start with the tagline... "Six of the most bizarre murders you will ever see!" Now, that would be like Motley Crue printing "12 of the best damn songs that will ever be recorded!" on their records. That's kind of setting your audience up for a let down, isn't it? Well, we had some good kills here, but I think they could've kept the superlatives down a little.

The other problem here is simple: too much plot. Guess what? We don't care. We're not here for plot. We want the least amount of plot. Figure out how much plot you need just to call it a "movie" and back it off a little. No horror movie should exceed 90-93 minutes. This one is nearly 2 hours long.

Nevertheless, it is my job to explain, and I shall. Virginia was in an accident when she was little. After some serious brain surgery (which they show us... ewwwww) she tries for years to get her life together. Now she is in high school and she's a genius or something. She hangs out with all of the other school geniuses and things are grand. But her friends keep getting killed and she keeps passing out. Is she killing them? Hmmm... Have fun trying to figure it out. The guy who made this film is a tricky sort of fella. For example, everyone wears black gloves! Not just the killer. See? Smart guy.

"Screw that stuff," I know you're saying, "I want to know about the kills!" I will describe each kill for you, as best as I can remember, and you can decide for yourself if you think it'd be one of the "most bizarre murders you'll ever see."

• Not a real kill, but better than a lot of "kills" we've seen in the past. These guys are trying to cross the bridge before it goes up. It's the whole group of them in like 3 or 4 separate cars. Well the first 2 make it, with some damage, but the bridge is going up quickly now. I think (sorry if I'm wrong here...) the driver of the 3rd car chickens out because he knows there's no way. But the driver of the last car decides to do it, and when his car lands..... BAM!! They show the car crashing into the ground 4 times, like a slow-motion replay, but you'll still be rewinding a few times. It's a classic scene.
• First real kill: Knife to the throat. Real freaking bizarre.
• The killer throws this guy's scarf (which he's wearing) into the spokes of his motorcycle. Pretty good kill.
• Free-weight to the balls. The best kill of the movie. Girls will want to rewind. Guys will want to leave the room.
• Knife to the stomach. Bizarre, man.
• Shish-k-bob through the head! Very good, but given away on the box.
• Girl in the bathtub... I don't remember exactly how she dies. Bathtub kills always suck anyway.
• Fire poker to the head. Good enough.
• Knife to the throat. Yeah.

One other note... be sure to watch when the car falls off of the bridge. They show it around 4 different times. The first few seem fine. But then, the last replay, the car hits at a completely different angle! Someone really messed up on this one...

Anyway, this movie's worth seeing for the 2 great kills, the 2 or 3 OK kills, and the car crashes (1 into the ground, 1 into the water). It will get boring, so make sure you have brownies to eat or something. Or you could have a "guess-the-killer" pool. The chance of winning money might keep you awake.

-- Coolio

Shut Up!