This charmingly simplistic early-80's slasher entry concerns a disgruntled group of summer campers scheming an ambitious prank on their camp's abrasive, alcoholic groundskeeper, known only as "Cropsy." On the night of the prank a rotting skull (sporting candles in its hollowed out sockets) is placed adjacent to Cropsy's slumbering frame. Hoping only for his frightful rude awakening, the campers get a good amount more than they bargained for, and their plan literally backfires. Frantically swatting the skull away, Cropsy's bed is soon aflame, and he too is soon engulfed in flames. Soon hospitalized, he swears revenge on those who horribly disfigured him. Five years later, a vengeful Cropsy (armed with his gardening shears) prunes his way to vengeance.

Mimetic of practically all the classic "slasher" institutions, THE BURNING is, despite itself, a rollicking good time for genre fans. It is both a delightfully empty-skulled exercise in horror exploitation and a poignant reminiscence of a by-gone era of no-strings-attached horror. A shameless carbon copy of America's first true taste of the "body count" genre, Sean Cunningham's FRIDAY THE 13th (itself a shameful rip-off of Mario Bava's trend setting bloodbath BAY OF BLOOD), comparisons can't help but be drawn. Both films feature gory fx work by famed makeup artist Tom Savini, both films are obviously set at a summer camp (THE BURNING's "Camp Blackfoot" might as well be FRIDAY's "Camp Crystal Lake"), both feature similar "build-up pacing" (which the uninitiated may find slow-going, but the gradual build up to shocks is a slasher film's form which stimulates the function), and both films suggest an unsettling correlation between adolescent sexual encounters and certain death.

But at least THE BURNING is aware of its formula and the audience is destined to have more fun because of it. One can't help but smile at a scene where a group of male campers (bursting to the gills with sexual tension) gawk at the forbidden fruit of a Playboy or Hustler, when all the while a killer lurks just outside their cabin (his view, of course, in POV). Equally lighthearted are the myriad "fake out" cheap shocks, such as the almost archetypal shower scene, in which a nubile female camper suspects (as does the gullible viewer) something is amiss, courtesy of snapping twigs heard just in earshot. The lurid tackiness of the music (by Rick Wakeman) punctuates this faux suspense sequence, which produces not a grotesquely burned killer, but an excited male camper playing voyeur.

The gore scenes effectively buoy the film, keeping the sundry vignettes from sinking the horror. Some scenes (especially the murder of a prostitute early on in the film) are quite nasty, gloriously showcasing Savini's prowess over everything visceral. The prostitute's murder may be the most "influential" (by that meaning the one paying homage to other groundbreakers in the field of horror) of all of THE BURNING's slayings. The sequence leading up to the murder, where Cropsy walks the seedy runway of the New York streets, is quite evocative of Abel Ferrara's similar attention to urban chaos and disintegration (not to mention a similar "stalk and slash" sequence in the big city in Romano Scavolini's scum opus NIGHTMARE). The murder itself also smacks quite acridly with another visionary of cinematic horror: Dario Argento. Fans of Argento's will instantly recognize the similarity of the sequence where the prostitute has her head smashed through the window, and Argento's recurring "shatter dead" fetish (such as Fiore Argento's demise in PHENOMENA). But THE BURNING sports a few inspired scenes of terror all its own. Most memorable is the wholesale slaughter of a gaggle of campers by the sheared one. The film's most lasting image-that of Cropsy grasping his shears before plunging into the unlucky camper's flesh-is at least as powerful as any found in the FRIDAY series (so powerful, in fact, it found its way onto many theatrical posters and foreign video covers). Thankfully, THE BURNING leaves very little to the imagination, easily trumping the average FRIDAY entry in viscera. The slaughter of the campers is gruesome indeed, fingers fly, arteries gush, and heads are sliced. Most suspenseful, however, is the final showdown between Cropsy and Todd (one of the original pranksters). This final battle manages to brew up some suspenseful juice, thanks to tight editing and taut, if pedestrian, direction.

The most interest THE BURNING will elicit is the surprising quotient of future stars, who found their auspicious debut here. Holly Hunter (of RAISING ARIZONA fame) turns in her first performance here as a camper (Sophie), and Jason Alexander (SEINFELD's George Castanza) turns in a raucous performance as Dave, a rambunctious counselor. If that weren't enough, Jack Sholder (who went on to direct the excellent 1987 film THE HIDDEN and also created the titles for the US release of THE STREETFIGHTER) edited the film.

It isn't surprising that a fair amount of future talent was on board for THE BURNING. The 1981 film could very well have dithered, as many slasher films of the eighties did, in the shadow of better, more influential films. THE BURNING ultimately succeeds because it answers the nagging question "does the world really need another slasher flick?" If they're as good and as much unabashed fun as this one, than the answer is a resounding yes.