The Burning (1981) Review

Gather Around The Campfire To Die!

Yes, gather round indeed. The Burning is about a prank that goes wrong back at old Camp Blackfoot. A few boys try to prank a weird camp caretaker by putting an old rotted skull that's lit up near his bed. They bang on the window and whoops old Cropsy accidently knocks the skull onto his bed. He than gets up and runs outside where he is covered in flames.The next scene is in a hospital and the film informs us that 5 years later he is released. Wait... 5 years? Wouldn't they take him out of the hospital and move him somewhere else? Well it's a horror movie so I'll let it slide. Moving on. Cropsy is than shown walking down some random city street. He follows some hooker home and she freaks out about his face and he kills her.

Now we go back to Camp Blackfoot and guess what, Baseball scene! Yes! and Jason Alexander. I love baseball scenes in camping horror movies. Just like when I used to go to camp. Anyways, a lot of the movie revolves around this one kid Alfred who is a huge creeper. He watches some girl while she's in the shower and gets yelled at for it. Todd, the head camp counselor tries to help him out since Alfred is a loner and has no friends. Some good and fun camp mooning happens down by the lake with the other campers. There's a guy named Glazer that keeps picking on Alfred. He looks like a weird James Franco.

A bunch of the campers and counselors than go on a journey to the another part of camp that is farther up the lake in a bunch of canoes. Banjo music is played. It's a race to the other side. They make it and soon it's nightfall. Todd is telling a story by the fire about Cropsy. Todd tells how Cropsy would carry garden shears around everywhere he went and that he was also a huge drunk. He says how Cropsy followed one kid around and than says how that same kid got back at him by pranking Cropsy with his friends. He says how while Cropsy was on fire he yelled out, "I wil return, I will have my revenge" and no one ever found his body. Someone than pops out wearing a mask and the campers get scared. Two characters named Eddy and Karen go off to skinny dip. Karen doesn't want to have sex with Eddy so she gets out. Her clothes are thrown about the woods and Cropsy kills her.

The next morning all the campers and counselors notice Karen is missing and so are their canoes. All the campers go looking for the canoes. Todd and his counselor friends start making a raft so that they can go back to the camp to try to find Karen. They finish it within a few hours which is quite amazing. So some of the campers and Eddy make their way back to camp. While heading back to they find a lone canoe which leads to the infamous raft massacre scene and Cropsy. Needless to say, they all die. Back to the other campers, Blazer and this girl Sally are doing it in woods. Blazer goes off into the woods after to go find matches to build a fire. Sally is left alone and Cropsy gets her. Alfred follows Blazer back because he's a creeper and wants to watch them do it. He hides behind a tree while Blazer is killed. Alfred runs back to where the rest of the campers are and wakes up Todd. Todd thinks he's joking but follows him anyways. Todd and Alfred go back to where Blazer was murdered, Todd is in shock. Cropsy appears and Todd gets slapped in the head with Cropsy's shears. Now begins the running scene. Alfred just starts running. oh to where you ask? just off into the woods.

The other campers see that the raft is floating back up stream and they think the campers on the raft are playing a game (of course). So one of the counselors swims out and finds out they're all dead and everyone starts crying. Oh yeah and Todd is okay and runs off to find Alfred. The rest of the remaining campers and counselors head back to the original camp they came from.

Alfred ends up making it to an abandoned temple that looks like something straight out of Legends of the Hidden Temple. What's it's doing there is a mystery. Todd starts running through the woods. More running scenes occur. Meanwhile, the rest of the campers make it back safely to camp and call the police. Two of the main counselors are shown going back to where Alfred and Todd are to go help out. Hooray! Back to the temple, Alfred gets snagged by Cropsy and is pulled inside a building where he is gaged and somewhat tortured. Todd finds the hidden temple and there's a bunch of shots of him just looking around. Eventually, he finds the entrance where he than goes searching for Alfred. He gets knocked down by a random mine cart and notices one of the camps who was murdered and gagged which just looks like a photo that is cropped. There is a flashback which shows us that Todd was one of the campers that played the prank on ol' Cropsy back in the day. He finally runs into Cropsy who is carrying

a flame thrower. Cropsy's face is finally shown. Alfred gets out of his situation and stabs Cropsy. Oh no, Cropsy gets back up and this time Todd axes him right in the head and if that wasn't bad enough he gets set on fire. Again. The counselors make it to around where Todd and Alfred are. They than signal a helicopter. The end shows another counselor telling the tale and says how they never found Cropsy's body.

The End.

I did enjoy this film even though it sounds like I'm making fun of it. It's a good campy 80s horror film and you can't go wrong with those.