Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Happy (Bloody) Birthday to Me

On this Best Day Ever, we kick off The Deadly Doll's House's First (Maybe) Annual February of the Vertically Challenged Villains with...



As I crash into the final year of my twenties, it dawns on my Aquarian mind that there’s really only one way to celebrate my birthday: call my fellow February 1st buddies (Michael C. Hall, Pauly Shore) and have a weeklong murder spree, documenting all our kills-that-look-nothing-like-accidents-until-we-tell-the-world-they-were-accidents-and-they’ll-totally-believe-us in a baby blue scrapbook and bam! 29.
When, dear readers, was the last time you watched Bloody Birthday? If a slowly stretching smile isn’t painting your face at the very mention of Debbie, Curtis, and Steven, then the answer is simply, too long.
Quick Plot: In the small town of Meadowvale, three babies are born in the midst of a lunar eclipse. This causes them to grow up into bloodthirsty sociopaths, coming into their full ambitious evil on their tenth birthday.

Really, there’s not much more you need to know about Bloody Birthday. The fact that no mention is made of the millions of other babies born during the two minute eclipse across the world, who presumably did NOT turn into mini Henry Lee Lucases (because otherwise, there would be NO SURVIVORS LEFT ON THE PLANET) is simply fine. That these children are able to successfully call bizarre death after bizarre death an ‘accident’ is like a cupcake. 
There’s a small attempt to create some kind of plot in the form of Joyce and Timmy, a brother/sister team who are somehow the only townspeople with a pea of a brain to suspect the trio of KILLING EVERYTHING IN THEIR PATH. Young Italian stallion-in-the-making Timmy has some inkling because a) they lock him in a junkyard refrigerator during an innocent round of playtime b) he spots them smiling over Debbie’s dead dad with a bloody baseball bat and c) Curtis (future Parker Lewis Can’t Lose best pal and Just One of the Guys little brother Billy Jayne) keeps threatening to shoot him. As in, every single time they run into each other on the street, Curtis threatens to shoot him. 

Yeah, nothing suspicious about that.
But nobody really thinks of the sweet big sis (with dreams of being an uneducated reporter) when they think back on Bloody Birthday. It’s the soon-to-be ten-year-olds that make us grin, or, for some, the OTHER big sis’s daily stripteases performed in front of her mirror, feather boa in place and red bra (allllllllways a red bra) quickly removed. 
A fact that I just realized: Nympho big sis is played by Earth Girls Are Easy’s Julie Brown, that sparky redhead (sometimes) who had what, to my 7-year-old mind, was an absolutely hilarious variety show on MTV back in the late 80s.

Well that made MY day, and I haven’t even been sung to yet!
There’s also a fatal graveyard makeout and a don’t-come-a-knocking rocking van sex scene, ensuring anybody with an appreciation of the female form gets their fill. For those more like me (i.e., people who have their own boobs and prefer to watch children shooting arrows into eyeballs), there are plenty of arrows being shot into eyeballs. 
In other words, everybody’s a winner.
High Points
Little Debbie might well be one of the most underrated shorties in horror. Played by Elizabeth Hoy like a softer Tracy Flick, she easily steals the film as the true sociopath amongst the gang, a pretty little girl who can turn on the tears or a sweet teacher-friendly smile just as easily as she can take out a bow and arrow and shoot her sister in the eyeball.

Shoot her sister. In. The. Eyeball.
Low Points
Oh fiddles. Are we really going to talk about the stupidity of every character that wasn’t born during the eclipse, the out-of-nowhere bloodthirst displayed by our leads, the utter sleaziness of every frame or--

Nah. None of that ever happened.
Lessons Learned
Homework is more important than a party. Keep telling yourself that, marked-for-death schoolteacher
1980s era blonds were allergic to bras
Self-respecting reporters don’t need to take no silly classes
Rent/Bury/Buy
Bloody Birthday is a special film, one made during an era where it was totally okay to have a little girl charging quarters for her sociopathic playmates to peep into her sister’s bedroom while the high school student dances naked. It’s the kind of film that has children shooting their fourth-grade teachers, beating parents to death with baseball bats, and burying horny teenagers alive. The style is sleazy. The classiness, nil. 

If such a description doesn’t make you want to go to your local video store and score yourself a copy, then perhaps you should not have RSVP’d to my birthday party.

12 comments:

  1. im 29 today as well, i guess this is all some kind of sign that i must see this movie

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  2. Happy Birthday Emily! And what a great slice of sleazy b-day cake you've chosen here. I love this move, and not just for Julie Brown's (frankly amazing) boobs. In addition to those recommendations and the ones you detail above, you've also got a clearly drunk José Ferrer as the town doc who delivered the three-pack of evil to the world, and a "slumming down the slippery slope of her career path" Susan Strasberg ("Sorry Dad, but a girl's gotta eat!") as the mean ol' teacher. I had a blast with this one all the way through, and actually got a little nervous during the "poisoned cake" episode. Good stuff!

    And how creepy is this image?
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aOQLE4Fqk3w/SjaS7vBcaCI/AAAAAAAAC50/J0W0pcwdohA/s1600-h/vlcsnap-00086.jpg

    Can't wait for the rest of the Month of Horror Shorties! I hope to get an entry of my own going ,Lord willing and the creeks don't rise. ;)

    Happy bloody birthday!

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  3. Yay Seth! Happy birthday to you, me, Michael C. Hall, Pauly Shore, Lisa Marie Presley, and Sherman Hemsley (if he's still alive).

    Funny, I watched The Manitou the other day which also had Susan I Need a Paycheck Strasberg. Hard-working gal eh? And yes, that image is horrifying!

    And by the way, you BETTER get a shorty post up this month! Otherwise you can expect a black devil doll from hell sent your way...

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  4. Ahem, no where near 29, but a Happy Birthday to you. And why have I not seen this flick before? Hmm...

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  5. Get on it Wings! It's barely 70 minutes long, but all 70 of them are AMAZING!

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  6. Happy Birthday Emily! I am also a fellow Aquarian- my birthday is coming up on the 17th. I must try to get a copy of this before my b-day and watch that as a double feature with Happy Birthday to Me- it'll make it the greatest day ever. Killer kids = Happiness

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  7. Throw my birthday wishs in as well Emily. I hope you have a great day!! Save some cake for us lol.

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  8. Yay Emily! Power to Aquariemilies with good taste in movies!

    And thanks Miss Heather. You can have some cake, but the nachos are all mine.

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  9. Happy Birthday Emily! What better way to spend it than with a malevolent munchkin or two..

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  10. Nothing short of brilliant. I havent seen this movie but it's right up my alley. Love how it's always the girl that's more menacing.

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  11. Oh Ashlee, I think you will adore Bloody Birthday.

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