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Small town USA, 1970, day of the solar eclipse - and one of those rare
ones where sun and moon also block out Saturn: 3 babies are born, Debbie
(Elizabeth Hoy), Curtis (Billy Jacobi) and Steven (Andrew Freeman).
The same small town, 1980: One night, when wanting to make out on the
graveyard, a couple actually gets buried alive, and all the circumstances
suggest that this was a brutal murder. A few days later, the local sheriff
(Bert Kramer) investigating the case dies in a freak accident, too. And it
soon becomes apparent that a psycho is roaming the neighbourhood.
Timmy (K.C. Martell) is best friends with above-mentioned Debbie,
Curtis and Steven, but of late the games they play get more and more out
of hand and violent, like when they lock Timmy into a fridge at the local
junkyard and then leave, so he gradually backs away from them - and not a
moment too soon, as soon enough they shoot dead their teacher (Susan
Strasberg) and plot a few more murders. Now Timmy and his sister
teenagedJoyce (Lori Lethin) soon grow wise on them - but what to do,
they're kids, and you can't really blame kids for murder. But the kids are
growing wise on Timmy and Joyce growing wise on them, and they sure are
lethal ...
Bloody Birthday might not exactly try to reinvent
cinema, but it's a nice little example of the horror kids subgenre that's
(for budget reasons at least in parts) miles away from the flashiness of
the then very recent The Omen, but it does manage to deliver the
scares on a smaller scale just the same, thanks to a very engaging script,
well-placed shocks and a solid cast. Very watchable, and not only for fans
of vintage horror.
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