Bloody Birthday (1981)

Bloody Birthday is bloody brilliant. Directed by Ed Hunt, who co-wrote the script with Barry Pearson (is it just me or do those two sound like typical used car salesmen?), the movie is a hugely entertaining slasher that delivers the goods and keeps you smirking in all the right ways. The premise is preposterous but it's all played out in such an enjoyably cheeky way that it gets away with everything.

Horror fans will rub their hands with glee when they realise that this is a movie all about killer kids. Three children were born during an eclipse and this means, of course, that they are born with something missing. It's all to do with the moon and the sun blocking Saturn. The kids are psychopaths ot sociopaths or something-paths. Basically, they're little shits who spend as much time as possible killing people and often making the deaths look like freak accidents.

A few of the leads are just fine in their roles (Lori Lethin is the older girl who starts to put the pieces together and K. C. Martel is her younger brother, also suspicious of the killer kids) but the most fun is had while watching Elizabeth Hoy, Billy Jayne and Andy Freeman be so obviously evil in almost every scene. Melinda Cordell and Bert Kramer play a very unfortunate mother and father, Julie Brown is the older sister of one of the evil kids and spends a lot of time dancing in front of her mirror while getting dressed, oblivious to the fact that her little sister is charging small boys a fee to peep through from her room to see what an '80s woman looks like in the altogether. Jose Ferrer plays a doctor and Susan Strasberg is a strict teacher who puts the little killers in a bad mood.

It starts off as pretty far-fetched and gets more and more implausible as it continues but Bloody Birthday just wouldn't be half as much fun if it tried to make itself a serious look at children with murderous thoughts. The fact that I haven't heard much praise for the film before now is quite shocking, considering just how deliriously entertaining it is from start to finish.

Deaths range from strangulation with skipping rope to someone shot with a bow and arrow, there's fun with a birthday cake and a big bottle marked "Ant Poison" and the very last scene is as twisted and funny as anything else in the film. I recommend this as essential viewing for anyone with a love of '80s horror.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Birthday-Lori-Lethin/dp/B004VQRCJG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353412221&sr=8-1&keywords=bloody+birthday

Just One Of The Guys (1985).

A light, high concept comedy from the 80s, Just One Of The Guys still has some fans to this day and it’s certainly miles away from the worst that the decade ever gave us.

 

Joyce Hyser plays Terry Griffith, a girl with everything. She does well at school, she has a prize catch of a fella, she is popular and she doesn’t really want for anything. Except for a way to have her journalism taken seriously. When her article is passed over in favour of others, Terry starts to consider that she is not being taken seriously because she’s a girl. To prove this, she masquerades as a boy, with the inevitable complications that ensue.

 

Just One Of The Guys is one of many, many mildly amusing comedies from the 80s that is as forgettable as it is passable. Directed by Lisa Gottlieb, and written by Dennis Feldman and Jeff Franklin, it has nothing to make it a movie that would ever be anyone’s favourite.

 

The cast are all good enough. Hyser may not convince when wearing her male disguise but she’s sweet and easy to root for. Billy Jayne gets a lot of great little moments as the annoying younger brother revelling in his sister’s complicated fraud. Clayton Rohner is acceptable as the nice guy oblivious to Terry’s growing feelings for him and William Zabka is a great bully, easy to loathe from his first moment onscreen.

 

While the whole movie centres around Terry’s charade it actually doesn’t make the most of the premise (with one scene in the school gymnasium changing rooms proving to be the best when it comes to mixing the awkwardness of the situation with the comedy) and plays out, for the most part, like any other 80s teen movie featuring two friends who have to tough things out when one falls for the other.

 

There’s a surprisingly gentle approach when it comes to mixing the bawdy in with the more rom-com moments and that’s a bonus, particularly for a movie from this era, but it’s just not enough to elevate it above the average. Okay, maybe it’s just ever so slightly above average.

6/10. 

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share