Editorials
[Butcher Block] Tom Savini Delivers More Summer Camp Brutality in ‘The Burning’
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.
In a recent interview, filmmaker Christopher Nolan explained that he’s always been interested in directing a bona fide horror movie, with the award-winning director going so far as to praise genre creators for their continued risk-taking on the big screen.
If you’ve seen Nolan’s recently released The Odyssey, you’re likely aware that a scary movie helmed by the legendary director could be a very good idea.
After all, Nolan insisted on making use of old-fashioned movie magic and in-camera practical effects when shooting his adaptation of Homer’s epic. This retro approach made Odysseus’ encounters with mythological beings such as the giant cyclops that much more terrifying. By now, fans are undoubtedly aware that the massive creature was partially brought to life by an enormous puppet enhanced with near-invisible CGI, but there were also plenty of forced perspective shots where actor Bill Irwin actually chomped on disturbingly realistic replicas of Ithican soldiers.
As you can see in the below behind-the-scenes test footage shared by the Los Angeles-based Hamer FX, Irwin was given an assortment of latex dolls filled with fake blood and breakable skeletons that he could tear apart on camera. The darkness of Polyphemus’ cave covers up most of the gore in the finished film, but the moment remains a terrifying highlight in a movie that has a lot to say about the horrors of war.
Nolan actually requested these tiny edible soldiers for the flick because his vision for the iconic cyclops encounter was partially inspired by Francisco Goya’s disturbing mural of Saturn Devouring His Son. This mysterious piece is actually one of the artist’s infamous “Black Paintings,” which were found painted directly onto the walls of his old house near Madrid before a French baron ordered that the collection be transferred to canvas and assigned names for public viewing.
Details like these are what make me think that Nolan could pull off a genuinely scary horror picture if he came across the right idea. That being said, between the Fear Gas sequences in Batman Begins and Circe using body horror magic to transform men into pigs in The Odyssey, one might argue that he’s been preparing for such a task throughout his entire career.
The Odyssey is currently playing in theaters everywhere, though it’s definitely worth seeking out an IMAX screening if you can find one near you.
View this post on Instagram
You must be logged in to post a comment.