The Tooth Fairy

Why do we live in a world where there are 2 slasher movies about the Tooth Fairy? Is there something scary about her that passed me by? Or are we just running out of scary horror villains to feature in movies? Ponder those questions as we watch The Tooth Fairy...and prepare for SPOILERS!

The story begins in a peaceful small town in California, all the way back in 1949. 2 boys, Donny and his anonymous friend....let's call him "Fifi Kittenscrotum", for now...find themselves standing in front of the home of "The Tooth Fairy", a reclusive woman who supposedly gives the local children toys in exchange for their last baby teeth. Kittyscrote is afraid of her, but little Donny really wants the new bike the Tooth Fairy promised him.

When he enters the house, Donny demands to see the bike first. He sees it, and agrees to let her pull his tooth out with a string. He ties the string to his tooth, she yanks it out, and the pain sends him rushing to the door. The Tooth Fairy runs after the boy, and stabs him several times, splashing the door and windows with blood. His friend just runs away.

Now we're in modern times, and we meet a little girl named Pam, and her mother Darcy. They stop for gas, and to ask for directions to the nearest bed-and-breakfast. Both requests somehow provoke the redneck gas jockeys into nearly raping Darcy, and she and her daughter barely escape intact. That makes perfect sense!

Next, a guy named Pete moves some furniture. He hears a car pull up and rushes outside, expecting to see Darcy and Pam. Instead, there's a cab, and a woman named Star Roberts. I wonder if she's any relation to Star Jones. She's supposedly studying to be a vet, but she looks like a hairstylist from Vegas.

Star spots some hummingbirds, and shows off her knowledge about animals. Then a shirtless werewolf named Jacob shows up, and...wait, no, it's a local kid who does odd jobs, and his name is Bobby. Then Darcy pulls up, and she tells Pete about her scary encounter at the gas station, while she, Pete and Pam unpack their stuff.

Pete tells Darcy that the guys who tried to attack her have a personal grudge against him, because he found them living as squatters on the property he brought, and he had them removed via court order. Oh, and now we know them as the Hammonds. Yay!

Out behind the house, Pam finds several dusty antiques, and a little girl named Emma. Emma's a ghost, which is immediately obvious to anyone who has ever seen The Boogeyman, Darkness Falls, or any film since 1931. Pam, of course, remains clueless. But hey, she and Emma bond over the antique bicycle, so it's all good.

In the closest thing this movie has to a plot twist, Bobby puts on a shirt and does some carpentry. The girls ride past him on the fixed bike, and he looks up...but only sees Pam. She and her new dead best friend ride through the woods, and Pam discovers that Emma has never heard of Harry Potter, when they stop the bike at a "haunted" river.

Emma then warns Pam about the legend of the Tooth Fairy. After giving her the bloody details about the killings and the Tooth Fairy's disfigurement, Emma tells Pam that she has to get home before dark. As soon as Pam leaves, Emma fades away. Almost immediately after that, Pam is ambushed by the Tooth Fairy, and falls off of the bike. The fall knocks her last baby tooth out.

She returns home, moments after her parents wonder where she vanished to, and she shows them her tooth. That night, Pam tells her mother about her new friend, and asks her if witches are real. Darcy promises that witches aren't real, but lets Pam sleep with a light on, to make her feel safer.

Star brings one of her textbooks out to the front porch, where she finds shirtless Bobby working out. Her version of flirting involves reading a passage about pigeons to the young man. Bobby reveals that he wants to study electrical engineering when he goes to college. Then they smile and make googly eyes at each other.

The Tooth Fairy sneaks into Pam's room, and the young girl wakes up and screams. Pam runs out of the room, looking for her mother, and goes out to the porch, where she is assaulted again! It's not the witch, it's a kooky neighbor named Mrs. MacDonald. She warns the family that they will all die if they don't leave the house immediately. Then she leaves.

Bobby finds a wood chipper and repairs it, then tests it out with a board. As soon as he finishes, the Tooth Fairy sends him through the shredder, in gory fashion. From the house, Pam hears his screams and wakes up her parents. Pete explores the barn, and finds what's left of Bobby in the wood chipper. He calls the sheriff, while Darcy tries to keep their daughter calm.

Pete admits to Darcy that the death has him re-thinking the plan to run a B'n'B. She gives him a pep talk, but the next morning they find that the car was stolen. They visit the sheriff to report the theft, while Pam wanders away and runs into a certain scary lady wearing a red hood. Does this family have a streak of bad luck, or what?

Anyway, Pam somehow slips past her, and has another encounter with Emma. Emma tells her that she can protect herself from the witch if she can scare her away with her own reflection. Yeah, I'm sure that it'll be that easy.

At the sheriff's office, Pete and Darcy don't get much help. They leave, and miraculously find their car attached to a tow truck owned by the Hammonds. The Hammonds claim that they took the car because Darcy never paid for the gas she pumped, and then mention that the sheriff is related to them.

After a short fight, Pete gets the car back. When he and Darcy arrive back at the house, there's a couple waiting to greet them: Pete's old buddy Cole(a shifty, conniving musician) , and a groupie he's screwing, named  Cherise. They claim that they came to help Pete move in and fix up the place, but Cole later admits that he really just visited to ask for an $800 loan.

Later that same evening, the Hammonds sneak onto the property to steal Pete's car again. They also supposedly hired a female friend to help them by distracting the family during the intrusion. Gee, I wonder if she'll be dressed like a certain Tooth Fairy, and then folks will then die after a series of misunderstandings?

Cherise holds a seance, or a prayer ritual, or whatever the heck she's doing. Behind her, the bedroom door opens, and someone sneaks in. When Cherise finally sees her, she tries to escape through an open window, but the Tooth Fairy pulls her back into the room, then slams her back against a wall. Using a nail gun, TF pins the poor woman's hands to the wall, then nails her feet down as well. She finishes her off by leaving gaping holes where her stomach and face used to be located.

Cole and Pete hear her screams, and find the messy corpse pinned to the wall, At the same time, Pam has a close encounter with the corpse of the fake witch, then is nearly grabbed by the real one. Pam gets on her bike to escape, and screams for Emma to save her.

As she rides out to the woods, her parents try to find her in a truck. Emma appears, and tells Pam that they have to find TF'S tooth collection, to free the spirits of all of her victims. Meanwhile, Pete and Darcy visit the crazy lady next door, who tells them that they must burn the witch twice to permanently kill her.

Then we arrive at what is probably the funniest scene in the film. The Hammonds decide to set their plan in motion, unaware that the Tooth Fairy is lurking somewhere close to them. She castrates and slaughters one of the brothers, and the other one quickly finds him and demands, "What is your dick doing over there?" And then he gets killed as well. And the Oscar goes to...

Emma and Pam arrive at a graveyard, where the graves are filled with kids killed by the Tooth Fairy. She wanders out again, and her parents find her. She takes them to the graveyard, and asks Emma to show herself. The ghost makes a jar move, and tells Pam that adults can't see her. Emma can't move the jar again, but the other ghost-children use their collective power to make the jar move through the air, smashing it and releasing the candle inside. Pam's parents are convinced.

Cole and Star have a heart-to-heart chat, and remain the 2 most useless characters in the film. Cole then sinks lower, by screwing Star after recently discovering his last girlfriend's mangled body. Luckily, the Tooth Fairy decides to intervene. She kills Cole first, by slamming an ax into his neck/shoulder region several times, while pinning him face down on the bed.

Star then re-enters the bedroom, topless, and fails to realize that Cole is dead. She comes closer, lifts a large pillow off of his head, and finds that the pillow was covering just the neck-stump where Cole's head used to be. Then she faints, falling face-first into his bloody shoulders. Heh, that'll be fun to wake up on.

When they return to the house, Pete tells his wife and daughter to rescue the others, while he gets some fuel from the garage to burn the witch. Twice. Because that'll be a piece of cake, of course.

Cole's severed head comes rolling down the stairs, just as Pam and Darcy start to dry out from the heavy downpour of rain outside, Pete rushes in with the gasoline, and finds his friend's corpse, with Star still passed out on top of him. She wakes up and screams like a banshee. Pete tries to calm her down, then they rejoin the others.

The Tooth Fairy enters the house to grab Pam's tooth, and Pam leaps out of the bed holding a mirror in front of her like a shield. The witch runs away, but Pam chases after her, still trying  to hurt her with different mirrors. Then the Tooth Fairy meets Darcy, also holding up a large mirror. They force the witch to chase Pam outside.

As soon as the Tooth Fairy gets onto the front porch, Pete drenches her in gasoline, and then sets her on fire. Pam grabs the tooth collection when she drops it, and the witch chases her, with the flames gradually disappearing. With her face exposed, the witch looks like a cross between one of the hillbillies in the Wrong Turn franchise, and some of the early faces of Jason in the Friday the 13th films. Not terrible, but not very real-looking, either.

Anyway, she corners Pam once again, and Pete pours more fuel on the killer from behind. Pam places the tooth-box on Emma's tombstone, and the witch is set ablaze a second time when she goes to grab her treasure. As the Tooth Fairy burns for a second time, the ghost-children rise up and surround her, beating her body with sticks, and clubs. Then, at Emma's command, each child takes back the tooth that belonged to them, and they ascend to Heaven.

As the family walks away together, Pam runs back to the body one last time, and gets her baby tooth back. After they leave, the monster rises into the air, screams, then flies away. The final scene shows them selling the house, and saying goodbye to Star. They all drive away, and a closeup shot of an upstairs window reveals that the Tooth Fairy still haunts the property. THE END

Well, the kills were entertainingly nasty, I guess. The big flaw in this movie was that they couldn't seem to decide if the Tooth Fairy was a living killer or a supernatural one. I mean, one minute,she's teleporting and floating from place to place...the next moment, she's using the front door and grabbing weapons from the garage to kill folks with. At least with Darkness Falls, the killer was most definitely a vengeful ghost, no matter where she was. Eh, I'd say it's not quite a 3...let's give The Tooth Fairy 2.5 out of 5.

And what did this Tooth Fairy teach me?

-That a monster called The Tooth Fairy prefers to kill most folks in ways that have nothing to do with their legend or name.

-Ghosts just want to socialize.

-Rednecks take forever to plot revenge, then die with incredible ease.

No idea what my next SAW will be. I'm kind of winging it here, so it gets pretty random. See you sometime in the next seven days!

Halloween Night

This week's SAW begins with the 3 most terrifying words you'll ever see at the start of any slasher or general horror film: 'The Asylum Presents'...Yeah, this isn't going to be a fun week. Netflix pushed back the film that I had intended to watch, Don't Go in the Woods, and sent me a "mockbuster" of Halloween, called Halloween Night.  Will it be terrible? Probably. Will I watch it right now? Yup. Will there be SPOILERS beyond this paragraph? Hmmmm....

The movie begins with the nuttiest nutbag in Nuttyville, Chris Vale, as a young boy. He's wearing a white mask and hiding under a bed, as some men rape--and then kill--his mother. After they shoot her once, young Chris somehow manages to escape unseen, and leans against the wall in the next room. His mother makes a sound, so her attackers shoot her again, and the bullet hits a pipe next to Chris, scalding his face with steam and hot water.

Then it's a decade later, and Chris is living on the funny farm. His body was apparently also scarred severely with burns and he went non-verbal, leading the authorities to assume that he killed his own mother. 2 orderlies come to his room with a plain white mask to freak him out, and he rips out the throat of the one wearing the mask. Oh, and he escapes, and sets out to return to his childhood home. Gosh, where have I heard this story before?

Anyway, after the credits reveal that they couldn't even hire a D-List celebrity to do a cameo in this clunker, we meet our cannon fodder. First up is Larry, a scrawny nerd; Todd, a shaggy guy who mumbles and grins...and has zero personality beyond that in his introductory scene; David, the host of a Halloween party that the others are all arriving for; David's clueless girlfriend Shannon; Angela, a strong-willed lesbian(did I really just type out my adolescent fantasy, or was I daydreaming?); her nervous lover Kendall; and, uh, Sleepy, Bashful and Dopey.

As the movie gets bogged down in mumbled greetings, things pick up with a little softcore make out session between Angela and Kendall. Angela removes her lover's bra, but a knock at the door ruins the mood. Kendall gets dressed, and they both leave the room to re-join their friends.

David leaves the house to pick up someone named Darryl at a bus stop. Darryl is some type of musician, and all he wants to know is how many hot women will be at the party. Before we find out anything else about this guy, we then get introduced to Todd and Jeanine, another couple heading to the party. Todd has a big box in the backseat, filled with his costume and an assortment of authentic(and dangerous!) medieval weapons. When Jeanine examines an axe, Todd warns her that it could kill her if they hit a speed bump.

They see traffic gathered at a roadblock up ahead. Todd tells his girlfriend to cover and hide the box of weapons, and a cop saunters up to their vehicle. He tells them about  Chris being on the loose, and shows them a picture. Yum. They promise to be alert, and he lets them drive away.

Then we go back to another session of D&D...David and Darryl, that is. David has his friend duck under the dashboard, and they both quietly get out of the car. David then opens the entrance into the basement, and urges Darryl to get in and pick out a hiding place.

Todd pulls into a gas station to get the car filled up, and to put on his costume. In the restroom he gets murdered by Chris, who shoves a blade through his mouth, and out of the back of his head. Then Chris wears Todd's costume, drives away with Jeanine, and stabs her multiple times with the axe she was examining earlier. After she dies, Chris sees the variety of weapons in the back seat, and it's like the serial killer version of Christmas!

There's some nonsense about answering a riddle to get into the party, then Larry reads an article online about Chris and his recent escape. Since rape and murder are such fun topics, everyone decides to get ready for the bash after Larry finishes the story. This movie deserves a special room in Hell.

The large group moves to head into the house, but "Troll"(the guy asking the riddle at the door) blocks the way. David tells Troll to let the group in, and use the riddle only on folks who arrive late. Then David gives Shannon some jewelry as a romantic gesture. Oh, and Troll gets to ask one guy his riddle, but the late guest answers correctly before he even finishes saying it. As a bonus, the guest is given the option of setting free one of the people who gave a wrong answer. The only 2 "prisoners" are a cute girl and a sad-looking dude, so the cute girl gets to enter the party.

Darryl emerges from the cellar, and some short kid starts bugging him. David intercedes, and sends the kid on a wild goose-chase for an hour or so. Mean, but kind of funny.

Outside, Chris pulls in behind the kid's car, and both step out of their vehicles. Chris shoves the axe into his forehead, then admires his handiwork. Amazingly, no one sees this happen, not even Troll. In what universe does that make any sense?

Darryl sees Kendall standing by the refreshments, and decides to try out his best pick-up lines on her. Since those lines mostly consist of "Durrrrr" and "Uhhhhh", he doesn't get far. Then Angela arrives, and the lesbians put on a little display just to frustrate poor Darryl even further. The guests hear a helicopter flying low, looking for Chris, and he also looks up from his spot outside.

David plays dumb when the lesbians ask him about Darryl being invited, and they wander away. Troll, who is slightly drunk, nearly forgets his own riddle, and a young woman who speaks Spanish inadvertently gives him the correct answer(She says "aqui", and the answer is "a key"), so he lets her in. Oh, and she lets the nerdy zombie guy go with her, by setting him free as well. The zombie gives Troll the finger as they walk away.

Unfortunately, Chris is the next person to approach Troll. He mumbles the riddle, and Chris tries to push past him, so they get into a shoving match. Chris plants a sword into his skull, spins him a few times, then rips his head apart getting the sword back. Kicking down the outer door, as Chris prepares to enter the main section of the house h`e is greeted by Shannon, who mistakes him for Todd. Chris spares her life because she resembles his dead mother, right down to the same necklace.

David also sees Chris at the party, and also greets him. When Chris tries to kill him with the axe, David makes him hide it, and tells him to stay where he is. Geez man, are they all this dumb? Are Chris and Todd even the same height? What about the blood on both the costume and the weapon?

David calls somebody named Mitch, and apparently "it's go time" for whatever prank they have planned. David then walks up to Darryl, and asks him to leave. They pretend not to know each other, and the party stops as they have a fake fight. Chris doesn't know it's a prank though, and attempts to attack Darryl with his bloodstained axe.

Darryl draws a gun, and then the shit gets real, at a rapid rate. Chris drops the axe, but sirens can be heard approaching. Darryl jumps up, and decides to use Chris as a hostage. Yeah, I'm calling it...this is still part of the prank, I'd bet money on it. It has to be.

A cop shows up, and he tries to calm Darryl down. Darryl takes his weapon as well, then also gets his keys and makes a getaway with Chris as a hostage. After several seconds, the officer gets David to give him his car keys, and announces that he's going to pursue them. Shannon hugs her boyfriend, worried about what will happen.

...and that's when a second cop pulls up. Shannon starts to tell him what went down, and David is forced to admit that it was an elaborate joke. Shannon slaps him, and the real cop shuts the party down. The majority leave immediately, and barely notice Troll's corpse, assuming it's just part of the joke.

Darryl pulls the car over, and starts to congratulate Chris on his "role" in the prank. Chris tries to shoot him with the fake gun from the cop costume, then settles on choking Darryl with a seatbelt strap instead. Chris finishes him off by dragging him out of the car, and driving the sword into his chest.

Back inside the house, Shannon and David argue about the prank. He tries to compare it to a roller coaster, but she insists that it was stupid and childish. She walks away, and David just sits there and sulks. Nope, nothing childish about that!

The fake cop finds his car, but it's locked. Chris appears, and the actor asks for his keys back, but gets a blade through the chest instead. What is it with this guy and torso wounds? Chop off a random arm or a leg...variety is the spice of life, right?

Shannon gets to her car, just as some of David's friends return and offer to stay the night, to cheer him up. Shannon sees the killer walk by, but he ignores her to go after some random couple having sex in David's basement. Chris removes his mask, and swiftly drives the axe into the young woman's back. The guy makes Chris chase him a little, then also gets stabbed in the back.

Shannon finds Chris cleaning up after his latest kills, and still thinks he's Todd. Chris attacks her, but only lets her pass out, rather than killing her. Oh, and he kind of gives her a hug. Have YOU hugged YOUR local maniac today?

Hey, look, more lesbian porn! They both go wild with the stripping, and the kissing, and the writhing. Then I fainted from the pressure of having to get my cheap thrills from a stupid Asylum movie. I am filled with shame and self-loathing now.

Shannon wakes up, and discovers herself handcuffed next to a corpse. She screams, but Chris gags her and takes the dead person somewhere else. As he decides to leave the basement, we see some random shots of a woman eating while taking a bubble bath. Well, NOW it all makes sense!

Larry is back on the computer. He reads some more articles about Chris Vale, then scares the Bubblebath Girl by walking in on her to tell her about Vale. She tells him to leave, and to close the door when he does. Faster than you can say "Larry's a goner!", Chris sneaks up on him, and plunges a knife through the top of his head. The he takes care of Bubbles after she traps herself with him, by slitting her throat.

David tries to call Shannon's cell, but she obviously can't reach it. He finds Bubbles, but at first he thinks that she and Larry are pranking him. When he sees her neck, he realizes that there's a real killer in the house, and he tries to warn Angela and Kendall that they might be in danger. They dismiss it as Halloween hijinks, until Chris actually appears.

Kendall runs away, screaming for assistance from David, while Angela fights off the attacker. Kendall and David run into each other outside, and he re-enters the house to try to save the day. Angela gives Chris quite a beating, considering that he has none of his weapons nearby. He spots a hanger, and kills Angela with it, by shoving one end into her eye repeatedly.

David grabs a handgun, and tries to rescue Shannon. Instead, he gets to be the character who discovers the bodies of his friends. When he finally succeeds at finding his girlfriend, Chris easily knocks him out from behind. Chris then blindfolds Shannon, but can't seem to bring himself to kill her. Instead, he traces the knife over her face, then has flashbacks about the night his mother was killed. The memories reveal that the mother was never found, because his father stashed her behind a secret panel he had built, right before he killed himself. Chris reunites with his Mommy, who smells funny.

After waiting for awhile, Shannon removes her blindfold, and grabs a gun on the floor. Freeing herself from captivity, she finds and shoots Chris 2 times. When the authorities arrive, Shannon sees the body on the stretcher sit up, so she shoots him a third time. Then she sees that the figure in the costume is actually David. Then Chris is seen getting away, hitching a ride with a friendly stranger.  THE END...?

Okay, so the kills were brutal, if a little bit redundant. Still, by Asylum standards, this is probably the closest they'll ever get to "good". Now, if they could just find actual actors, they could really make a bearable movie. 2 out of 5, with 1 of those points going to the effects.

And what did I learn from Halloween Night?

-When you don't have a script, just use a lot of swears instead.

-Killers hate having to be creative.

-When you can't write anything exciting or scary, just add in some quick porn.

Hopefully, my next movie will be better. It almost has to be! TTFN

The Burning

Y'know, a ton of actors got their big break by starring in slasher films. Right off the top of my head: Darryl Hannah was in The Final Terror; Kevin Bacon costarred in the original Friday the 13th; Tom Hanks even had an appearance in a slasher flick early in his career. So when I started hearing about this slasher film that co-starred Fisher Stevens and Jason Alexander, I was pretty psyched. That movie is The Burning, and get ready for SPOILERS a-plenty.

The film opens with a scene at Camp Blackfoot. I guess Camp Greenfinger was off-limits that year. A group of kids are about to play a late-night prank on Cropsy, their mean-spirited camp janitor/handyman/whatever. There's Jamie, a nerd who apparently stole Sally Jesse Raphael's glasses before filming started; Billy, a guy who looks like a younger, goofier Bradley Cooper; and 2 other guys whose names I missed because the ringleader apparently couldn't master the art of a "stage whisper". Anyway, the guys devise a prank that involves lighting a candle and placing it near his face. Oh, and did I mention that the candle is in a human skull?

When he sees the thing, Cropsy freaks out and knocks it onto his bed with a clumsy hand. This sets off a chain of events where Cropsy sets the bed on fire, spills gasoline all over himself, and sets the cabin on fire before stumbling outside and throwing himself into a nearby body of water. Amazing that he didn't burn the entire camp to the ground.

The very next scene shows a new doctor speaking with a younger aide. The young guy is trying to intimidate him with hospital horror stories, and leads him to Cropsy's room on the Burn Ward. As the new doctor waits at the door, the other guy looks past the curtain around Cropsy's bed and grimaces. As the new guy nervously steps closer to the bed, Cropsy's arm shoots out, and he grabs the aide by the wrist. Cropsy's arm is missing patches of skin and is blackened all around, so the 2 men are understandably surprised. As the aide freaks out, the new doctor runs out the door.

Anyway, the opening credits roll. They must've been pretty damn long, because when the movie resumes, 5 years have passed since the previous scene. Cropsy has had many not-very-successful skin treatments, a lot of counseling, and is now ready to re-enter society. He wraps himself up in a dark jacket, pulls a wide-brimmed hat down to conceal his face, and goes home with a hooker. That makes perfect sense.

She invites him in, then starts making fun of him. Pretty ballsy for a lady whose face looks like a Yeti's afterbirth. She asks him to close the door and take off his clothes, and ol' Cropsy moves across the apartment until she can get a good look at his face. Needless to say, her poker face needs some work. As she keeps giving him the stink-eye, Cropsy approaches the hooker, and starts choking her. That doesn't keep her from flopping around like a goldfish, so he finishes her off by stabbing her in the midsection with a pair of scissors. Then he puts her head through a window. I remember this being a whole lot funnier in Pretty Woman.

The next scene shows a serene lake. It's Camp Stonewater, according to the subtitle that pops up. What happened to Camp Blackfoot??? Is the movie going to keep switching camps on me every 15 minutes or so? Well, whatever the name of the camp, let's meet our new victims: there's Eddie, a vulgar guy who thinks he's God's gift to women; Tiger, a girl who looks like she auditioned for the Molly Ringwald role in "The Facts of Life", but lost out on fame and fortune; Karen, Eddie's nervous, innocent girlfriend; Sally, a cute blond who has a shower scene seconds after we meet her; Alfred, a young pervert; Dave, played by Jason Alexander; Todd, one of the head counselors on the boys' side of the camp; and Glazer, a bully who thinks he runs the place. There are many, many others as well, but fuck if I can tell you any of their names. This has to be the first slasher film in history with a cast of a billion or so. It's like an Altman film, except I'm interested in it.

Anyway, there are a few fake scares right off the bat: Tiger runs into the woods during a friendly game of softball, and Cropsy lurks nearby. He even raises a very dangerous-looking pair of shears over his head, but does nothing to the girl. Then, we get Alfred's aforementioned peepshow in the shower, followed by Glazer threatening his life, both of which also go nowhere. So far this movie's about as thrilling as an Amish porno.

The next day, Alfred is hanging out with his buddies, who include Jason Alexander(with HAIR!!) and a very young-looking Fisher Stevens in an early film role, playing a guy named Woodstock. As his buddies all go swimming, Alfred lingers behind and watches jealously as they flirt with the girls. Glazer rushes up behind him and shoves Alfred off the dock, not realizing that Alfred can't swim. His buddies rescue him while Glazer meets up with the girls.

Shaken by nearly drowning, Alfred perks up at the mention of revenge. He and his buddies get their hands on a pellet gun, and fire it at Glazer's ass. He gets all bent out of shape as both guys and girls laugh at him. When the guys moon him, Glazer then gets shoved into the water by the girls. Wait, is this The Burning or Meatballs???

That night, Dave delivers porn mags to all the guys. He also bought condoms for Glazer, but Glazer refuses to reimburse him. While all of this is going on, Cropsy lingers outside the cabin, and Alfred catches a glimpse of his burnt face. Alfie freaks out, but no one else sees the face. As Glazer accuses him of lying, Todd arrives to get them all together for dinner in the mess hall. Woodstock leaves to get a vitamin. Exciting stuff.

The head of the camp stands up to make some announcements. The biggie is basically that most of the folks we've met so far are going to be canoeing down a body of water called Devil's Creek, and will be gone for 3 days. Gosh, nothing ominous about that.

Woodstock gets back to the cabin and starts looking for his pills. As he finds them, a noise startles him. He sees a figure enter the cabin, and when the person gets next to him, Woodstock turns his flashlight back on. It's only Todd, who escorts Woodstock back to dinner. Nobody dies.

All right, I'm starting to get a little pissed here....Is this thing even a slasher flick? I mean, yeah, there was the hooker...but she was making fun of a burn victim. Why hasn't Cropsy killed anyone else yet? Why didn't he go after the group who hurt him in the first place? If these idiots don't start dying in the next 10 minutes or so, I'm declaring this a non-slasher and watching Friday the 13th Part 6 instead.

So where were we? Oh right, the big friggin' canoe trip. 5-6 canoes of campers and counselors take off, to the tune of banjo music. Fantastic. They all start splashing each other with the oars. Anyway, that night, Todd tells them all the story of Cropsy and Camp Blackfoot. He claims that Cropsy's downfall was his temper, and that his mean nature was what led to the prank that disfigured him. He also says that Cropsy vowed revenge for the prank, right before vanishing. As he's telling the tale, Todd distracts them enough for one of the counselors to spring up from behind. dressed in a black robe, waving a knife around, and wearing a mask. Yet again, no one dies.

In the next scene, Karen and Eddie wander off together for some time alone. When Eddie makes a move on her, she backs off. Despite this, the couple wind up skinny-dipping. They kiss, but start fighting. Karen goes back to get dressed, only to find that her clothes have been taken. She realizes that the thief left them on tree branches, and starts to follow the trail, plucking one item at a time. After Karen gets her shirt back, Cropsy cuts her throat, and leaves her to die. FINALLY!! After about an hour, we have a dead hooker and a dead skinny-dipper. At a rate of 2 kills an hour, this thing should satisfy me at around the 7-hour mark.

The next morning, Eddie is accused of harming Karen. After she failed to return to camp, bystanders reported that she had been last seen going towards the lake with Eddie. Todd and his girlfriend, Michelle imply that they think Eddie raped Karen, but before he can defend himself, a group of girls run up and yell that the canoes have vanished. Todd and Michele assume that Karen took one to go back to the main campground, but disagree over whether or not she had anything to do with the other boats disappearing.

In the very next scene, the group discusses their dire situation. Glazer implies that he believes Alfred to be the prankster, but no one sides with him on that one. Oh, and there's a close-up of a girl who looks like Holly Hunter. Weird. One scene. Anyway, Michelle suggests walking back, but Todd quickly shoots down that plan, claiming that the forest is too dense to hike through for such a long distance. Instead, they all agree to break off into groups and search for the missing canoes.

Alone after the pow-wow, Todd and Michelle discuss their unease over both Karen's disappearance and the missing canoes, and agree that they seem related somehow. Incredibly, they somehow avoid fighting over it. Man, the only thing more tedious than this would be a scene involving Fisher Stevens, Jason Alexander, and some other kid looking for the canoes while engaged in pointless, unfunny banter.

Aw damn. Well, while they're wasting precious killing time, let's see what's on TV....Oh, hey, it's the episode of "Family Guy" where Brian becomes a drug-sniffing dog, and eventually gets addicted to cocaine. Is the stupid scene over yet? It is? A girl suggested making a milk carton into a raft? SHEESH.

Okay, so Glazer tries making a move on another girl, but it goes nowhere. I know the feeling. The campers finally gather enough wood to start building a raft, and decide that a small group should use it, and send help for the rest when they return to Camp Stonewater or Firecrotch or whatever the hell it's called. Dude, I stopped caring about 15 minutes into this turkey.

Oh good, Cropsy's back. He's apparently sneaking up on Glazer and Sally, the girl who showed off her acting talents in the shower scene earlier in the film. Also watching them is Alfred. Man, wouldn't it be a riot if HE killed everyone before Cropsy got the chance?

Ah well, no one died in that scene either. I swear, this movie is like a slasher flick conceived by Gandhi. Luckily, I think it's nearly over. Sweet relief, I can almost see the light! The raft launches, and the group includes Woodstock and Eddie. There's also a girl who looks like Shrek, the other generic male kid I keep forgetting the name of, and some pouty brunette chick. In other words, nobody we could give 2 shits about. Yay.

They spot one of the canoes in the water, and start paddling toward it. Awesome scene coming up, so get ready. As they row closer to the drifting canoe, they all get pretty jazzed up. They get close enough to touch it, and that's when Cropsy leaps up, shears raised over his head.(Incidentally, the scenes of him killing people always seem to show this same shot, regardless of time of day, the position of the victim, or even the placement of Cropsy himself. Nice continuity, movie.)

Anyway, Cropsy gets them all. He starts with the generic boy, stabbing him first in the shoulder, then in the stomach. He slices through pouty brunette's shirt, presumably stabbing her in either the chest or stomach, before slicing off Woodstock's fingers. Eddie gets it pretty fast, with the shears going into his neck just under the chin, and Shrekella gets a lobotomy as the shears slice through her forehead in one rapid motion. As blood drips into the water, the screen fades to red. Nice touch.

They follow up the raft massacre with another scene featuring Todd and Michelle. They're holding hands, kissing, discussing their future together...geez, throw in a long walk on a beach and it's an ad for feminine hygiene products! Hey movie, can you show us a less-boring couple?

Glazer and Sally? Really? Oh, fine. They just finished screwing like bunnies, and Sally seems kind of bored. When Glazer seems hurt by her non-gasm, she offers to let him try again. Before they do it again, Glazer decides to go find some matches, so he can build a fire. He gets up, and Cropsy gets an eyeful of his ass. The nanosecond that he leaves, Cropsy attacks Sally. The scene ends before we see what happens.

Glazer steals the matches right in front of Alfred, who pretends to be asleep, then follows Glazer. At one point, Glazer even looks back at him, which HAS to be a blooper. Anyway, Glazer kneels beside Sally's sleeping bag, assuming that she's asleep. She's not...and Cropsy leaps out of the sleeping bag to embed his weapon into Glazer's neck. He then lifts Glazer off his feet and sticks him to a tree.

Alfred runs back to camp, and wakes up Todd. Todd doesn't buy his story entirely, but agrees to go with him to check it out. They find Glazer, and Todd gets hit in the side of the head by Cropsy, which sends Alfred running again. While Alfred tries hiding, Todd wakes up. He looks around.

The raft drifts back to the remaining stranded campers, and they start to get excited. Todd returns to the camp just in time to see Michelle swimming out to retrieve the raft. As he watches in horror, she reaches the raft and a bloody arm falls toward her face. She dodges it, and Woodstock's corpse smacks into her. Pretty much everyone starts screaming like banshees.

Amid all the sobbing and shocked expressions, nobody seems to notice that Sally, Alfred and Glazer are all absent. Albert's still running and hiding fromn Cropsy, and he chooses a large formation of rocks to hide beneath so that he can catch his breath. Sadly, he fails to realize that Cropsy is standing on top of the rock, right over his head. Oops. Alfred starts to stagger away, and Cropsy lets him go. Weird.

The rest of the campers embark on the raft, on a magical journey of wonder, and learn a ton of valuable life-lessons along the way. Nahhhhh, I'm just messing with ya, but they do all travel on the blood-soaked Death Raft. When Tiger complains that the paddling is hurting her arms, Michelle tells them that stopping will basically sign their death warrants. Nice.

Todd stays behind to try and save Alfred, who is now lost in the woods. Both are running at a pretty good clip, so I'm sure that Cropsy will hear all the noise and kill at least one of them. IHOPEIHOPEIHOPE.....

Back at Camp Bongwater, the raft finally comes ashore. As all of the traumatized kids get back on dry land, the camp director demands to know why they didn't come back in the canoes. When Michelle tells him about the massacre, he accuses them of pulling some kind of prank, until she lashes out at him.

Alfred finds an abandoned campground, and pauses there to rest again. He still doesn't realize that the killer is watching his every move. I detected something behind him moving, but it must have been just some wind, because the scene ends without anything else happening to poor Albert. Briefly, we see Michelle worrying that the authorities won't make it in time to find Alfred and Todd before the killer does.

Curious, Alfred decides to start exploring the abandoned site he found. He ducks around walls, creeps and peers through cracks...he thinks he's a Nerd Ninja, I swear. The exact moment he decides it's safe, Cropsy reaches around a wall and grabs him up by the neck. Todd hears them, but can't pinpoint their location.

Cropsy gags Albert's mouth, then begins torturing him. He starts by opening a pair of shears and uses them to pin the boy's arm to the wall. The teenager's screams of pain draw Todd to the abandoned campsite, and he quickly starts exploring the buildings. When he finds the rusty door where Albert was dragged, he enters.

Inside, it's very dark and dusty. Todd holds his axe close and searches the building slowly, trying not to alert Cropsy. He finds some mining equipment and carts, and when he turns his back, one of the carts rolls downhill, right at him. Todd gets thrown off his feet and crashes through a wall into another room, where he comes face to face with a bloody female corpse.

Cropsy lights a flamethrower, and starts hunting for Todd. Then, as the two start to come face to face, there's a flashback to the night Cropsy was set on fire. It turns out that Todd the Counselor was once Todd the Camper, and was one of the boys responsible for what happened to Cropsy.

Before they meet again, Cropsy turns off the flamethrower. Todd emerges from his hiding spot and searches for the disfigured maniac, while Albert tries in vain to get loose and tell Todd where he is being kept. Todd explores some more, and literally bumps into Cropsy, whose face makes Sloth from The Goonies look like a major stud.

Sloth--Uh, I mean "Cropsy", re-lights his weapon. He and Todd have a duel right in front of Alfred, complete with lightsaber sound effects. I shit you not, their weapons whoosh and hum while they fight. Cropsy makes Todd drop the axe, and waves the flamethrower in a menacing sweep as the idiot realizes how far up Shit Creek he really is. Albert finally gets the shears off of his arm and stabs Cropsy with them, making the killer drop the flamethrower.

The rescue helicopter arrives, and Todd and Albert start to leave the deserted campground. Cropsy leaps at them out of nowhere, and throws himself at Albert, so Todd buries the hatchet squarely in Cropsy's deformed forehead. Albert then seals the deal by burning Cropsy's body. They watch Cropsy get engulfed in the flames. then leave to try and get rescued.

The final scene shows that the whole thing was being told around a campfire. The storyteller claims that Cropsy's charred remains were never found. Every summer, he supposedly finds a different summer camp to lurk at, and picks new victims. As the counselor wraps up his tale, there's an implication that Cropsy is in the woods, watching the campers. THE END

Not great, but better than I expected it to be. If The Burning ever gets remade, hopefully they can work on the pacing of the kills a bit better. On the plus side, it was cool to see so many familiar actors in a film looong before there careers went anywhere. It was similar to Madman and Friday the 13th, but I still enjoyed the cheesiness of everything in it. 3 and a half killer trees out of 5 for The Burning.

Oh, and what have I learned from this week's slasherfest?
-Burn victims get stronger the more they get burnt.
-All you need to do to name a campground is choose a color and a body part, and VOILA!, you have a camp! I'm starting Camp PurpleAss right after I post this.
-Hookers have standards. I'm screwed, if that's the case.

Next up: Friday the 13th 6: Jason Lives, which was the first one I ever saw in a theatre. Ah, sweet memories of my youth...See ya next week!