A Surprising Murder Mystery Horror

Let me preface this review by saying that I never bothered seeing this film because of the cover art (alternatively, there is also one with a shish kabob being rammed into a guy's mouth). Because of that, all of these years, I just thought this was just some 1981 B-movie with over-the-top gruesomeness. However, it turns out that I was wrong. Not only does Melissa Sue Anderson (Little House on the Prairie) play the main character, high school senior Virginia, she plays her well. And I couldn't help but be impressed throughout the film with how so NOT B-Movie it was. In fact, there was a lot of professionalism to the camera angles and the plot pacing. Is there horror? Yes, in the way people die. Someone is killing Virginia's friends (an elite group of rich kids) and in a way that is reminiscent of Friday the 13th-type deaths--nothing too gory (aside from one bloody aftermath) and all in surprising and creative ways. But Happy Birthday To Me happens to be much more than a horror movie. There are two major foundational elements: 1) Virginia's flashbacks to when she and her mother were involved in a horrible car accident and her mother died while Virginia required experimental brain surgery; Virginia's doctor is working with her to help her recover some lost memories and she soon believes that she may be responsible for killing her own friends because she experiences black outs, and 2) Virginia is trying to fit in with these rich kids even though they chose to go to a friend Ann's party instead of showing up to Virginia's birthday party four years before (hence the title of the movie). These two facts are pivotal to figuring out the plot. So, each time the killer approaches, just like in Friday the 13th, we don't know who it is but we do know that Virginia's friends do, and they trust whomever it is. But the movie is so complicated that as you are given more clues, you start second-guessing a number of characters. For instance, some of the guy friends seem overtly strange as they spy on Virginia, but then something happens in the last act that shows us who is killing off her friends, so you start to wonder why we need 30 more minutes to finish the act out. What could they possibly do at that point? Yet, it isn't over, and with very good reasons. Yes, reasons. There are so many twists that I literally found myself talking out loud to my husband and going "What?! Wow!". The finale is hugely eccentric and surprising and incredibly eerie. A complicated plot with a memorable ending--that's nice. The only problem I have is with the explanation of the killings; I don't think it makes enough sense or, at the very least, it needs a more layered explanation.

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