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| Columbia Pictures Corporation | Release Date: May 15, 1981 |
Starring:
David Eisner, Frances Hyland, Glenn Ford, Jack Blum, Lawrence Dane, Lenore Zann, Matt Craven, Melissa Sue Anderson, Sharon Acker, Tracey E. Bregman
Summary:
At the snobby Crawford Academy, Virginia's group of friends start to go missing years after horrible events that happened to her as a child around her birthday.
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This film will be a treat for those to whom the highlight of the dramatic season so far was "Friday the 13th, Part 2." [15 May 1981, p.19]
Happy Birthday to Me is a cheesy tease from the outset. The opening sequence entraps the first victim, then allows her to escape, then entraps her again and allows her to escape again. By the time the filmmakers get around to making a murder scene stick, you're already fed up with their methodology and wondering why the movie wasn't called something like "The Coed With Nine Lives." [15 May 1981, p.F4]
As written by a gang of three totally confused writers and directed, without apparent style, by J. Lee Thompson, it's a mystery-horror movie with a fatal flaw - the denouement, in which a half-dozen grisly murders are explained, requires almost as much footage as the murders themselves.
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Certainly, there’s nothing to be said for the acting, direction or story, which is monumentally stupid, dependant throughout on a frail girl to kill and carry the bodies away so they can’t be found, taking time out along the way to dog up a casket and haul away the contents. In her film debut, Melissa Sue Anderson clumsily carries the suspense of whether she is or isn’t the killer, with director J. Lee Thompson helping her with clouds of confusion that just get dumber and dumber until the fitful finale.
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Feb 15, 2022
Nothing really to gripe about, nothing too exciting either. Typical eighties. Forgettable and unoriginal. Doesn't add anything to the genre. Mildly entertaining eighties horror. Certainly not the worst.
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