Editorials
19 Things We Learned from ‘The Burning’ Commentary
This month marks the 45th anniversary of 1981’s The Burning, a summer camp slasher made to cash in on the previous year’s success of Friday the 13th. The film was critically drubbed but generally well-received by horror fans, and it’s only grown in its reputation since.
The talent roster on the film is pretty remarkable for a slasher, and it’s the feature debut for actors like Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Brian Backer. Tom Savini did the practical gore effects, and editor Jack Sholder would go on to direct his own genre bangers, including Alone in the Dark and The Hidden.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
The Burning (1981)
Commentators: Tony Maylam (director), Alan Jones (film journalist)
1. There aren’t a lot of American slashers directed by British filmmakers, and Maylam credits his own journey towards that dream to a sexual predator named Harvey Weinstein. The creep saw an early concert film that Maylam made about Genesis and asked if he’d like to make a movie for him. “He was manic,” says Maylam about the prick. (Okay, I got that out of my system.)
2. The initial story idea was called The Cropsey Maniac about a summer camp killer. It was very loosely inspired by an urban legend known around the New York area that’s explored further in 2009’s Cropsey. They don’t mention it here, but the film’s core premise regarding Cropsey and a summer camp was reportedly conceived before the release of Friday the 13th. Also, Madman was heading into production around the same time with a similar Cropsey premise and decided to change it up some to avoid feeling identical.
3. Weinstein’s mother and father were named Mira (Miriam) and Max, respectively. We’ll probably never know if that had any bearing on the name of the Weinsteins’ production company.
4. The early murder of the prostitute doesn’t seem to fit the narrative of Cropsey (Lou David) being fixated on killing folks at a summer camp, but Maylam recalls a certain producer not wanting to wait too long for a kill.
5. Tiger is played by Shelley Bruce, who was starring as Annie on Broadway at the time (possibly as an understudy?) but left the show to do this film. It’s her only feature film credit. She also apparently hung out with Maylam’s fourteen-year-old son and brought him to nightclubs during the film’s production.
6. Cropsey’s choice of garden shears as a weapon was Maylam’s idea.
7. Jones asks why Maylam never worked with the Weinsteins again, especially seeing as this was their first feature, and he helped put them on the road to success. The director says they’re all still friends (as of this recording back in 2007, just over a decade before Harvey Weinstein was arrested for numerous assaults), but the right project never really came along.
8. He says that while the story was conceived by Weinstein, it was Peter Lawrence who wrote the bulk of the actual script, with minor contributions from himself and Bob Weinstein. Maylam doesn’t know why Brad Grey is given a story credit on the film. “Brad was the manager of the camp’s superintendent and was basically a manager of comedians at the time,” and he worked very closely with Weinstein as the man’s gofer. He ultimately went on to become CEO of Paramount Pictures.
9. The story goes that Savini turned down working on Friday the 13th Part 2, “because he was so in love with this script,” but Maylam doesn’t quite confirm that. “We flew to Pittsburgh and went to his home. He liked the script very much, and he was on board, simple as that.”
10. Maylam suggests that the burn makeup effects in 1996’s Academy Award-winning The English Patient are pretty poor. He adds that looking back at The Burning, it would have been “much more sexy” if they had Cropsey’s burnt facial skin peeling off.
11. The original ending was meant to unfold in a big cave, but they discovered it was home to a high number of bats, so they squashed the idea. Cowards. They went with an old copper mine instead, and Maylam spent the next two months coughing up red dust.
12. The mask used to scare campers at the campfire was designed by Savini.
13. The “massacre on the raft” scene is the main one that caused the film issues with censors, particularly in the UK. Maylam considers it one of the best scenes in the film, and he giddily recalls handling the blood pump for the finger-cutting beat.
14. Maylam’s also standing in as the silhouetted Cropsey with the shears and is even the one holding the shears for 90 percent of the killer’s POV shots. He says it’s because he couldn’t get anyone in the crew to do it exactly right.
15. There are two times where the film fades to red, and Maylam thinks he maybe used the gag two times too many.
16. This is the slightly uncommon slasher that eschews the traditional “final girl” ending and has male characters defeat Cropsey instead. Jones references that as if to ask why they went that route, but Maylam says only that female characters give you “more vulnerability” before going silent for ten seconds.
17. He’s not aware of any thoughts on rebooting The Burning, but Maylam says there was brief interest in a possible sequel that ultimately went nowhere. He seems okay with that, in part because a sequel would have to go the supernatural route if they wanted to bring back Cropsey.
18. There’s a weird stinger at 1:21:45 where one of our final boys, Todd (Brian Matthews), sees a dead woman with a neck impalement. The camera seems to zoom in on a still photograph instead of being an actual filmed moment, and Maylam says the Weinsteins added it on their own in the editing room. “I don’t know why it was put in.”
19. There’s an end credit listing nine people as Special Business Advisors, and Maylam adds that they were all “Harvey’s friends.”
Quotes Without Context
“You bump into Bob or Harvey [Weinstein] in a hotel room, and we have a chat.”
“There’s nothing particularly innovative about this film at all.”
“Here’s Brad Grey’s plant again. I’ve never seen him since.”
“Look darling, we’ve all seen naked women for goodness sake, just get on with it.”
“The superhuman strength of these maniacs is always quite amazing.”
“You really hate this guy.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
After fifty years of continuous writing, Stephen King has become a genre unto himself.
The unrivaled Master of Horror made a splash in 1974 with his debut novel Carrie and has been terrifying readers ever since. Two years later, Brian De Palma brought this shocking story to the screen with an equally electrifying horror film that remains a genre classic and a prototypical example of “Good For Her” horror. This dual debut seemed to open the floodgates, unleashing endless waves of Stephen King films.
From the highs of Misery, Cujo, and The Shawshank Redemption to the schlocky fun of Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, and Children of the Corn, the last five decades have seen just about every notable horror creator take a stab at the author’s massive collection.
In recent years, this singular subgenre has begun to burst at the seams, expanding to include Stephen King-esque fare. In 2016, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer debuted Stranger Things, a sci-fi series heavily inspired by two of King’s most famous books. The Netflix series remixes Firestarter and It by following a little girl with psychic powers and an intrepid group of kids on bikes who must battle an otherworldly foe and a sinister government agency. With its clever blend of modern effects and comforting nostalgia, this gateway horror series paved the way for Andy Muschietti’s It adaptation which remains the highest grossing horror film of all time.
Four years later, Mike Flanagan would create Midnight Mass, a spiritual adaptation of King’s second novel Salem’s Lot. Published in 1975, the book sees a tiny New England town torn apart by a centuries-old vampire. Though Flanagan’s story is perhaps more tender, both iterations of the classic horror tale follow close-knit communities shaken to their core by the presence of an ancient evil.
In addition to these recent hits, 2025 was a banner year for the Master of Horror. Audiences delighted in six mainstream adaptations, including the massively popular It: Welcome to Derry which chronicles earlier cycles of the titular clown’s reign. With this boost to King’s cultural cache, it’s no surprise that we’ve begun to see more unofficial adaptations of the author’s work and horror creators who build their own unique castles in King’s creative sandbox.
So what defines a Stephen King-esque story?
For the past fifty years, the prolific author has dipped his toes in nearly every subgenre from supernatural stories and grisly gore to western fantasy and science fiction. Including his vast catalogue of short fiction, King has tackled ghosts, demons, werewolves, zombies, aliens, mutants, and self-driving cars, not to mention bizarre monsters of his own creation. But what truly unites this vast array of horror is King’s focus on relatable characters. In his 2000 memoir/instructional text On Writing, the prolific author describes the amusement he finds in writing disparate characters, placing them in horrific scenarios, then exploring the ways they try to survive.
An unofficial Stephen King adaptation may take place in the author’s native New England — bonus points if it’s set in Maine — and reference his well-known heroes and villains. But what makes the King connection unbreakable is a character-driven story about average people who band together in the face of abject terror.
Weapons Captures Small Town Stephen King
Following his 2022 shocker Barbarian, Zach Cregger returned with Weapons, a sprawling story that begins in a doomed elementary school. On an otherwise ordinary day, Justine (Julia Garner) arrives at her desk to find that all but one of her students have disappeared. As the mystery grows increasingly violent, Justine and Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of a missing boy, find their way to the home of Alex (Cary Christopher), the class’ only surviving student. In some ways reminiscent of Salem’s Lot, Weapons swings wildly through the unfortunate town, introducing us to its flawed inhabitants as we watch their lives fall apart.
Cregger’s setup nods to a pair of King short stories. Both “Suffer the Little Children” and “Here There Be Tygers” tackle monstrous presences in elementary schools, but as Weapons reaches its final act, Constant Readers may remember another Stephen King tale. Featured in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, “Gramma” introduces us to George, a little boy tormented by an aging witch. On an afternoon alone with his sickly grandmother, the frightened child gradually realizes that the imposing old woman has been waiting for an opportunity to cast a spell that will extend her own life by possessing his body.
Alex finds himself similarly tortured by his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), a garish witch who orchestrates a desperate plot to sustain her own strength. Transforming humans into mindless weapons, Gladys has taken over Alex’s family home and lured his classmates to the basement. Holding them in a comatose state, she syphons off their energy to extend her own supernatural life.
Vastly different in many ways, both “Gramma” and Weapons hinge on a sinister witch who uses horrific magical spells to sacrifice the bodies of her vulnerable prey.
Hokum Echoes The Shining and 1408
It’s nearly impossible to watch a film about a haunted hotel without thinking of King’s third novel, The Shining. This icy story follows Jack Torrance, an angry writer struggling with his sobriety and a shameful incident haunting his past. Accompanied by his wife and young son, Jack has taken a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook, a haunted hotel situated high in the Rocky Mountains. Snowed in, Jack finds himself tormented by dangerous ghosts who amplify his greatest fears.
Damian McCarthy’s Hokum follows a similarly troubled figure. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a surly writer who travels to the Bilberry Woods Hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. Haunted by his own tragic past, Ohm finds himself trapped in the honeymoon suite, a decaying room that’s been permanently closed to protect visitors from a dangerous witch trapped within its walls. Visual nods to King’s text abound with woodcut figurines and an animated clock, mirroring ominous descriptions found in King’s text.
Another terrifying sequence sees Ohm staring with horror at a closed door, the only thing separating him from the approaching witch. As the door knob slowly turns, Constant Readers remember Jack’s narrow escape from the ghostly woman in room 217. And Ohm’s popular Conquistador books directly reference King’s long-running fantasy series The Dark Tower which follows a gunslinger named Roland Deschain tasked with protecting the nexus of the universe.
In addition to these thematic comparisons, Hokum bears striking resemblance to King’s terrifying short story “1408.” Collected in 2002’s Everything’s Eventual, the terrifying story follows Mike Enslin, a dejected writer who’s risen to fame penning essays about his adventures in haunted locations. Mike arrives at the Hotel Dolphin and bullies his way into the titular room, despite the manager’s dire warnings. McCarthy nods to this story with an ominously misplaced hotel room door, reminiscent of King’s entry to 1408, an unsuspecting portal that appears to move each time Mike looks away.
However, McCarthy’s most direct reference lies in a minicorder Ohm uses to capture notes. Trapped inside the dreaded honeymoon suite, this device offers well-timed messages while sitting next to a decomposing corpse. Mike records his time in 1408 with his own trusty minicorder. Described for the reader, his tape has captured the man’s slow descent into madness as the room prepares to swallow him whole. With conclusions that differ wildly in tone, both Ohm and Mike find their lives irrevocably changed by encounters with the supernatural realm.
Widow’s Bay Builds Its Own Version of Castle Rock
Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay has taken the idea of an unofficial King adaptation and turned it into an art form. The Apple TV series sees the residents of the titular island plagued by a curse that dates back centuries. Not only does the picturesque hamlet not accommodate wifi connections, those born on the island face certain death should they ever try to leave. Desperate to modernize the tiny town, Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) draws in waves of tourists just as a new cycle of terror begins.
Blending horror with deft comedy, Dippold makes cheeky references to King’s body of work. Tom warns that, “there’s something in the fog,” reminding readers of King’s 1980 novella The Mist. And Loftis’ own stay in the town’s haunted hotel sees him tormented by the ghost of a murderous clown. We even spy a vintage King hardback peeking out of a local book trade box.
In many ways Widow’s Bay feels like a new iteration of the author’s Little Tall Island, a tiny village off the coast of Maine. In addition to the 1992 novel Dolores Claiborne and a handful of harrowing short stories, this quaint fishing village is also the setting for King’s 1999 teleplay Storm of the Century. Premiering on ABC primetime, this tragic tale follows a terrified group of islanders who batten down the hatches for a dangerous Nor’easter only to find a more sinister threat lurking within.
Constant Readers may also be reminded of Castle Rock, the author’s favorite fictional town.
First introduced in the 1981 novel Cujo, the charming village becomes the star of Needful Things, King’s satire about consumerism. After several Castle Rock stories, we’re reintroduced to its residents as they gossip about the arrival of Leland Gaunt and the grand opening of his curio shop. Anything their hearts desire can be found in his varied inventory, so long as they’re willing to pay the price. Pitting cantankerous neighbors against each other, Gaunt ignites a wave of grisly violence by exploiting long-held resentments and feuds.
The town’s only defense against this supernatural threat is beleaguered sheriff Alan Pangborn. Still grieving the deaths of his wife and younger son, Alan struggles to connect with his older child and pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Also a widower, Loftis struggles to raise his own restless son and explain the strange details of his wife’s tragic death. Attempting to unravel the island’s dark secrets, Tom is aided by quirky residents including a surly fisherman named Wyck (Stephen Root) and Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), an earnest Town Hall employee. King’s own novels feature many of these proactive alliances with disparate characters combining their strengths to overcome insurmountable odds.
With Widow’s Bay renewed for a second season and Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series on the horizon, the future seems bright for new King adaptations, both spiritual and directly pulled from his catalogue. The prolific author also shows no signs of slowing down with two publications nearing release. His upcoming novel, Other Worlds Than These, is the long-awaited third Talisman book which teases direct ties to his Dark Tower world. Holly Forever will be a new installment of his crime series, offering a different kind of genre fare.
This embarrassment of riches spawning multiple worlds seems ripe for spiritual adaptation and will likely inspire horror creators for decades to come.
Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root and Matthew Rhys in “Widow’s Bay,” now streaming on Apple TV.
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