Chad

TheBigDave

I haven't seen this movie since the early 80's. The only thing I remember about it, is that I preferred the other birthday movie (Happy Birthday To Me).

So I wasn't looking forward to it. But it surprised me. I enjoyed it this time around. It had a 70's drive-in cult/exploitation vibe to it. Is kidsploitation a sub-genre?

Undeadcow

Bloody Birthday has some of the most bizarrely lurid promotional material ever (even if it is nonsensical). It's interesting how from the opening segment the film dispenses with any mystery and instead plays for shocks. They even manage to squeeze in irrelevant nudity with the peep hole scene and other voyeur stuff. I really liked how mean spirited and direct it was from the get go. After watching several methodically drawn out slashers earlier this month it's a nice change of pace to dispense with the pretense of 'whodunit.'

I think the lack of emotion from the kids is suppose to be 'shocking' but instead it just makes it seem wooden or poorly acted at times. At the sister Beverly's funeral the actress playing the girl killer looks like she's really crying (?).

Bloody Birthday is a surprisingly smart movie. The scene with the 'ant poison' was very clever - it seemed so cartoonish that I was going to turn this crap off if people start dying from ant poison but it brilliantly toyed with preconceptions when it twisted the lack of subtly into a ruse. Also the peephole later serving a role in one of the murders is genius - I had initially dismissed it as a cheap justification for sleaze.

Down with crackpot astrology explanations!Kidsploitation should be a subgenre. I like the menacing kids in the near classic 'Who Can Kill a Child?' more but this is better than 'Devils Times Five.' After the mess that was Sinister 2 I 'needed' to see a killer kid movie done right.

cwileyy

Yeah, the posters for this movie are bizarre. It's not even the same kids on the poster Undeadcow posted!

This is the second time I have seen the movie, and I still find it to be incredibly enjoyable. It's probably my second favorite Killer Kids movie, after the incredible Who Can Kill a Child? What makes this one so fun is that it really goes all out with the idea of these kids being killers. As mentioned by Undeadcow, there's no mystery, it just goes straight into the thick of it, which shows some pretty graphic scenes of violence being perpetuated by children, which makes it both shocking and unique.

Of course, the movie is a bit cheesy, but it all plays well and makes for a movie I plan to watch again.

One critique, I watched this movie on blu-ray and found the sound to be pretty weak and muffled. Anyone have better experiences with other formats? Severin's BD's usually are pretty great, so I would have to imagine the existing elements were not in the best shape, which is understandable. Still, it didn't take away from my enjoyment.

numbercrunch

love this film. a gem from 1981. here are the "slasher totals" in joe bob briggs fashion

1 1 baseball bat to the head
1 1 rope strangulation
1 shovel to the face
1 locked kid in a junkyard freezer cabinet
1 bare breasted girl dancing in front of a mirror
1 muffled gunshot blast to the back
1 junkyard car chase
1 bare breasted girl in a van
1 gunblast to the forehead
1 spiked cake with ant poison
-1 bogus jump scare
2 arrow through a peephole into the eyeball
1 garden hose strangling
1 for using the van halen poster for target practice
1 hogg tied kid
14

mrcellophane

I expected this to be terrible based on an Internet video that covered it negatively. However, I sorta, kinda liked it. That liking comes with a bunch of caveats about continuity errors and disjointed storytelling, but in the end I thought the film delivered a fun premise as well as some unintentional laughs. Example, there's a couple times when Debbie's mom doesn't hear a murder because she's showered or using a blender, and this struck me as pretty amusing. This poor woman has the worst luck!

Two of the evil kids (Debbie and Curtis) were actually pretty good, and I wondered if the other one got his lines cut since he seemed to just stand about. Debbie had one of my favorite moments: when her attempt to strangle Joyce fails, she gives this exasperated face that was right out of a 90s sitcom.

mrcellophane

Awesome list! I would add: 1 kid stuffed in a trunk. That made me laugh!

WillieMLF

This made me laugh too! 'Yeah, I'll let you out just as soon as the cops get here. '

'What are you, a little ghoulie?'

rbrown498

I didn't particularly like Bloody Birthday, but I was never bored. Even though I noticed her name in the credits at the beginning of the film, it took me about an hour to realize that the girl that the kids were spying on through the hole in the closet wall was Julie Brown, of The "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" and Earth Girls are Easy fame. She was everywhere in the '80s!

Bloody Birthday:




"The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun":




Earth Girls are Easy:

cwileyy

I actually laughed out loud at this part! It was so ridiculous.

I wondered the same thing. The third kid really didn't have anything to do (except for the trunk scene) and if there had only been two kids instead of three, I think the movie would not have been that much different.

DaveyJoe

Bloody Birthday (1981)

Bloody Birthday, the film that makes you want to murder children. Ten years ago, three children are born during a solar eclipse. They grow up as inseparable friends, but something is off about them, and as their 10th birthday approaches, they get increasingly violent and downright murderous. I suppose its a testament to the director and actors, but the evil children in this movie really make my skin crawl and my blood boil. I'm all ready pretty uncomfortable with kids, so when movies revolve around evil children, it really gets to me. And in this movie, it's not just that the kids are killing innocent people, but they are also so damn smug about it. So the movie was effective, but I was feeling pretty conflicted about wanted to throttle some kids in a movie.

Perhaps it was a different time, but it's kind of funny how freely some of the kids are allowed to wander around, even waving a gun that the adults assume is just a toy. The kids rampage is pretty cruel, targeting nasty teachers, strict parents, and even some of their friends. The kids just love killing people, and I'm not sure why they decided to escalate things on their 10th birthday, but astrology plays a pretty big part in the movie. I loved the ending, and especially loved a scene featuring Julie Brown dancing naked in front of a mirror. I remember her with red hair on MTV, but she looks even better with natural, curly, 80s hair. Anyway, the most important thing I learned from Bloody Birthday is that if I decide to become a serial killer, don't keep a scrapbook of my victims.

Spiderbite

I wasn't expecting to like this one but I enjoyed it as well. The kids were great in their cold-blooded ruthlessness. They just didn't give a fuck. It didn't matter if the person crossed them or not. They would just kill anyone. Even The Omen kid had a reason to commit his kills. These kids are scarier because they didn't need a reason...just the opportunity. That made this film feel fresh.

I am not usually a fan of killer kid movies because I just don't find children very threatening. I get spooked out by ghostly kids but not killer kids for some odd reason.

Anyway...love all the nudity. Julie Brown had a nice pair on her. The scene in the van is so gratuitous (both in nudity and violence) that it made the movie even better. Nice to see that Buddy from Just One Of The Guys was still a pervert even as a kid. It's sad he didn't have a brighter career. He always cracks me up whenever he pops up in 80's movies or TV shows.

Anyone notice that the little girl was the one that John Belushi wanted to buy in The Blues Brothers? I thought she was really good and looked her up on the IMDB but she didn't do anything in movies as an adult or teen. The other little boy looks at the camera several times so I guess he kept fucking up so they put him more to the side.

The lesson I learned is don't make out in a dug out grave in a graveyard. Now excuse me while I go and "play ambulance."

clckworang

I've seen this movie at least a couple of times before. It has it's fair share of problems, but it's a very enjoyable watch. There's a lot of humor in it. The girl charging to use the peep hole was especially funny. I know this movie is very well known for the Julie Brown nude scene. I remember her from her MTV days.

This is one of those movies that I don't think could be done today. The one character having a gun as his weapon of choice seems especially unlikely given today's climate.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I knew her first from her MTV show, Just Say Julie.

I'd seen this before but couldn't remember any details until I saw the evil girl, then I knew she was the leader and then bits and pieces came back as I watched it. It wasn't perfect but it's not bad to watch once in awhile.