Happy Horror-day! Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

Ok here is the second instalment of my challenge to watch a Holiday-themed horror movie on each holiday/festivity of the year! Not ACTUALLY something the populace celebrate (I have reservations about celebrating it myself!) but.... today is my Birthday so I thought I would include it. So today I watched a Birthday related slasher released when I was only 3... 

Happy Birthday to Me is a 1981 Canadian slasher from director J. Lee Thompson and stars Melissa Sue Anderson as Virginia Wainwright a popular high school senior at Crawford Academy, who is part of the elite clique of privileged and popular students who are killed off one by one by an off screen killer during the length of the movie using gruesome means, one of which with a shish kebab skewer (not a spoiler as this death featured on the poster!). Glenn Ford also stars as Dr. David Faraday, Virginia’s Doctor trying to help her when she starts to suspect that she might be the one murdering her friends during a series of blackouts, which slowly explain the murderer’s motives before closing with a twist ending.  This movie has achieved a cult following over the years, helped largely by being included on the Section 3 Obscene Publications Act in Britain during the video nasty ‘panic’ and so an interesting flick that’s worth your time. If I had to find fault in it, I found a group of privileged spoilt teenagers difficult to like and so I was never really sure who I was ‘rooting’ for, I didn’t like the kids so perhaps the killer? But then the movie sometimes suggests it might be one of the kids, so...  anyway check it out and I will see you again on St Valentine’s Day!

Happy Birthday (to me)

© Arfon Jones 2019. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Happy Horror- day! New Year’s Evil (1980)

Happy New Year to you all! I've set myself a new challenge for 2019 I call it, Happy Horror- day! The success of Halloween in 1978 gave rise to the holiday based horror movie genre and that is why I, Arfon Jones will attempt to watch a Holiday-themed horror film for each holiday/festivity of the year! I must have (Subconsciously) got the idea from Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn but my only requirement is that the movie takes place during a specific holiday/occasion playing a central theme (images/ motifs from the holidays featuring throughout) and a movie that features a killer wearing a costume associated with that celebration will most definitely meet the criteria!  Each movie will then be documented on this blog. So first up...

Directed by Emmett Alston New Year’s Evil takes place during (you guessed it) New Year's Eve (and New Year's Day hence why I thought I should start the challenge/ year with this one first) during a live televised show called, Blaze’s Countdown which celebrates the music of that year with callers, calling in the Hollywood Hotline nominating their favorite songs (Think Top of the Pops meets Telethon) the show features various punk/ new wave groups and their fans dancing to their hits, (personally I would rather watch this show than Jools Holland’s Hootenanny!) and features such bands as Shadow and Made in Japan (Shadow play the title song New Year’s Evil twice!). The show’s punk rock presenter Blaze (played by Diane Sullivan) receives a phone call from man calling himself Evil disguises his voice with a “Voice Processor” announces that each time the clock strikes midnight in each time zone, a "Naughty Girl" will be killed declaring that Diane herself will be the last Naughty Girl to be punished. The studio calls in Lieutenant Ed Clayton (Chris Wallace) a man who doesn’t care much for the punk/new wave scene who rather unsympathetically resents having to “pick a phone freak from this bunch!” but agrees to tighten security never the less as, Evil delivers on his promise and starts killing women on the hour (playing tapes of the killings over the phone to taunt Blaze) building up to the climax of the film, which I will not spoil for you.   

While researching this film I read that movie critic, Gene Siskel called it "a hideously ugly motion picture” I must disagree with that, although perhaps not the most original concepts the movie does do one thing differently by showing us the killer right from the start, instead hiding his identity and motive from us which is revealed as a twist at the end, in my opinion the film could (almost) pass as a Thriller, If it hadn’t been for the Friday the 13^th style "chi chi chi ha ha ha..." effect, set up for a sequel and use of a Stan Laurel mask which is genuinely creepy! It’s not brilliant, but it’s not bad. It’s just a good old fashioned slasher that's worth a look. 

Happy New Year!

© Arfon Jones 2019. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.