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.