Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.
Released only a week after Friday the 13th Part 2 in theaters, The Burning didn’t fare well at all. It didn’t help that the plot was similar, or that 1981 was a year in which the slasher boom was riding high in popularity. Within the roughly same month as The Burning’s release, slashers Final Exam, Graduation Day, and Happy Birthday to Me also dropped into theaters, crowding the market. All of this to say, The Burning slipped through the cracks and took many years to earn its reputation as a brutal, obscure gem thanks to home re-release.
Like Friday the 13th Part 2, this slasher also saw a lumbering killer that slaughtered teens at a summer camp in the name of revenge. Unlike Friday the 13th Part 2, The Burning was a fully running camp full of kids, which meant this slasher broke one of the biggest taboos- killing children and teens in the most gruesome fashion. The killer wasn’t some undead entity from the grave, either, but a seriously angry camp caretaker five years removed from the catastrophic prank at the hands of campers that left him severely disfigured from being set on fire. Had it not been for the timing of release, Cropsy’s memorable and unique appearance had the potential to launch another slasher franchise.
His look, as well as the gory kills, were handled by a talented artist well versed in slaughtering teens at the time; special makeup and effects artist Tom Savini. Having already worked on Friday the 13th and Maniac, and work on The Prowler and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter still to come, Savini was seasoned at creating effects that delivered believable, brutal death sequences in slashers. He very nearly worked on Friday the 13th Part 2, but chose The Burning instead.
Had he not taken this project, it’s difficult to imagine what this slasher would be without the shocking event that sets off the final act; the bloody raft massacre. When the counselors and their campers notice their canoes are missing after an overnight stay at Devil’s Creek, they build a raft. Five of the young campers paddle away to seek help and find one of their abandoned canoes. Their moment of elation is quickly deflated by the appearance of Cropsy, who pops up and brings his garden shears down upon each one again and again.
That raft scene further set The Burning apart from the Friday the 13th sequel by earning the film a spot on the Video Nasties list. The gore was heavily trimmed down to an R-rating for decades in both the U.K. and the U.S., which also played a major role in the slasher only gaining popularity when DVD releases in the early 2000s reinstated the uncut gore.
On a basic plot level, The Burning falls in line with many slashers of its era. Summer camp was a popular killing ground for rampaging maniacs with a vendetta. But The Burning is better acted than most, having a number of notable actors making their debut like Fisher Stevens (the most brutalized of the kids on that raft), Holly Hunter, and Jason Alexander. Cropsy isn’t a masked killer, but a disfigured one with a very recent trigger for revenge. But the reason we love slashers so much is for the kills, and The Burning delivers in a satisfying way thanks to Savini’s uncanny talent for gore.
