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Late To The Party: THE BURNING (1981)

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Hello again, readers, for another fashionably Late To The Party entry! This week, I’ll be discussing perhaps an underrated, yet quintessential Summer-time slasher movie just in time for the dog days of summer; The Burning! Featuring the most iconic portrayal of the New York boogeyman and urban legend known as Cropsy. I had heard of this one for a long, long time, yet I simply never had the opportunity to watch. Something I’ve been kicking myself over as I have a soft spot for good Summer Camp based terror. Having gone to a sleepaway camp for several years when I was a kid, nothing beat telling ghost stories around the fire, and the adrenaline of being surrounded by the forbidding woods, making The Burning a perfect film for me!

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As the story goes (like so many do) a group of campers at Camp Blackfoot have had enough of the abusive, drunkard caretaker by the name of Cropsy. Deciding to give the boozer the scare of his life involving a rotting skull with burning eyes… things don’t end so swell for Cropsy when he accidentally sets himself on fire. Burned beyond recognition, left for dead, the former caretaker has only one thing on his mind after being let out of the hospital after all these years… vengeance! Hedgeclippers in hand, he simply wishes to murder everyone in sight.

I was fortunate enough to catch this one at a revival screening a couple weeks back, and I am overjoyed that my first brush with The Burning was on a big screen in glorious 35mm! The film still captures a lot of tension that many modern slashers miss. Strengthened by a fantastic cast and sympathetic campsite of characters. I was pleasantly surprised to see Jason Alexander of all people play the comic relief, delivering the kind of quips he’d be more known for. Not to mention debuting Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter.

The rest genuinely feel like atypical teens and counselors simply wishing to have a fun summertime experience… when the murders happen. Which is key in making a Summer Camp based horror film that many imitators miss. We need a bunch of victims, sure, but we also need them to at least somewhat feel like actual campers. The best even feel more like Summer Camp Comedies like Meatballs with a masked maniac thrown into the mix. I was further surprised by some of the crew involved as well. Harvey and Bob Weinstein, of The Weinstein Brothers Hollywood filmmakers, produced and co-wrote the story, and the melodic soundtrack was composed by Yes member Rick Wakeman. Making for a beautiful and eerie synthesized score that sets the scenes and the kills perfectly.

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Speaking of, Cropsy still stands as a terrifying slasher. Disfigured beyond comprehension by the prank gone wrong, and already a pretty rotten guy, he doesn’t have anything to lose in going after his young quarry. The most interesting thing I found was the heavy Giallo influence of the film. The slasher movie certainly owes a lot to the Giallo genre, even serving as an evolution, and The Burning wears that influence proudly on it’s crispy sleeves. Cropsy covers his disgusting form in a burly trench-coat, black leather gloves, and at one point, hat. Not to mention his signature weapon, a super strong and super sharp pair of hedgeclippers. Which make for some great kills and great visuals, especially for the infamous “Raft Massacre” scene that originally gave the film a notorious “X” rating.

Needless to say, I picked up the special-edition blu-ray from Scream Factory right after seeing The Burning in theaters. Much like in the movie, this is a horror story that will live on by campfire or by the light of a screen forever… Thanks for reading, and join us next week when Landon sees what all the buzz was about with David Cronenberg’s The Fly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTMkCN7MKh4

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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