Bloody Birthday

Thriller / Horror

Rereleased by Severin Films

Region 0

The kiddies-as-killers horror films don’t seem to be as popular as the zombie genre but they are still out there. Severin has re-released Bloody Birthday, one of the best of its kind. It dates back to 1981 and was something of a budget film. To look at it today we can see some of the rough bits but it is still a long way ahead its modern competition. Severin has produced the DVD from the original master print and the quality of the transfer is well up to their usual high standard. Sound and picture are as good as you could get for a thirty year old film.

The film is mostly played as a thriller. The horror element comes from little kids plotting murder then looking angelic at the funerals of their victims. How could little kids possibly be like this? In the film it is put down to an astrological conjunction on the day of their simultaneous birth. Saturn was occluded or some such and this has left the kids with something missing from their personalities. Like knowing the difference between right and wrong.

Although the kids are only ten years old they already have some impressive talents. Curtis is the technical type who can hotwire a car or zero out a house alarm system. He is a murderous little boy whose favourite weapon is a revolver. He is the one most likely to become a demented gun-crazy psychopath if he lives long enough.

Steven prefers a knife. Steven is perhaps the most easily led, but he is just as evil as the other two.

But it’s the sweet little girl Debbie who is the most dangerous. She is the instigator and organiser of many of the murders, but who could suspect a little girl of such crimes? She is wise beyond her years. She has drilled a hole through the wall into her sister Beverley’s bedroom and lets the boys spy on Beverley as she undresses. For money. Curtis asks “But what if she catches us?” and Debbie replies “No way. Her brains are all in her bra”.

The three set out on a rampage of gratuitous murder. A schoolteacher who is a bit strict for their liking. A couple having a grope in the cemetery. Debbie’s dad, the town Sheriff (that’s where Curtis gets his gun). Debbie’s sister Beverley. The death toll mounts and some of the townspeople are finally becoming suspicious that the kids may have an involvement. Finally one of the kids’ plans goes wrong and all hell breaks loose in an orgy of shooting and strangulation. How will they get out of this?

Undoubtedly the best actors are the kids themselves and it is their credibility that carries the film from simple slasher to true horror. We get an all-too-brief gratuitous striptease from that veteran of horror and slasher films Julie Brown as the well-displayed Beverley. Lori Lethin plays Joyce, one of the potential victims who has strong suspicions about the kids, as the heroine who first senses something is wrong. There is an entertaining interview with her in the extras. Although the kids are played as simply people who don’t know right from wrong, the actors manage sly little smiles when a killing goes off or they meet at a funeral. They may be amoral but you get the impression that deep down they may know exactly what they are doing and actually enjoy their power.

The film could so easily have fallen into the unbelievable schlock field but quality acting and good production have turned it into a cult classic that belies its budget origins.

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