Taglines: Pray you’re not invited to the party.
Happy Birthday To Me movie storyline. Virginia Wainwright is a spirited young woman who has returned to a private school having survived a deadly accident and regenerative brain surgery. She is proud that she belongs to the Top Ten – the school’s inner circle with the best students – and attempts to resume a normal life.
But her friends are falling prey to a grueling series of murders, and soon there will be no one left to attend her 18th birthday party. Could it be her? Striving to rekindle the memory of her nightmarish accident, Virginia suffers from memory loss and traumatic blackouts. We soon learn the horrible truth behind her accident and what is going on before her birthday party.
Happy Birthday to Me is a 1981 Canadian-American psychological slasher film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker, Frances Hyland, Tracey Bregman, Lisa Langlois, Lesleh Donaldson, Earl Pennington and Matt Craven. Its plot revolves around six brutal murders occurring around a popular high school senior’s birthday.
Filmed primarily in Canada and upstate New York, Happy Birthday to Me was distributed by Columbia Pictures, and released theatrically in North America on 15 May 1981. While reception was generally negative, it has since achieved a cult following. While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic.
About the Production
Happy Birthday to Me began production in early July 1980. At the helm was the British director J. Lee Thompson, famous for the classic Cape Fear (1962). Thompson had also been a dialogue coach to Alfred Hitchcock years before. Thompson had actively been looking to direct a thriller, and became attached to Happy Birthday to Me.
In the press pack he stated, “What attracted me to this script was that the young people stood out as vivid, individual characters. The difference between a good chiller and exploitative junk, at least in my opinion, is whether or not you care about the victims.” Jack Blum, who played Alfred in the film, said that Thompson took the film seriously. Thompson would later direct the Charles Bronson thriller 10 to Midnight (1983), which featured more exploitative material than Happy Birthday to Me.
Hollywood actor Glenn Ford, who played Jonathan Kent in Richard Donner’s Superman (1978), was less-than-thrilled to be in a slasher film. Apparently Ford was unpleasant on the set. The film’s make-up effects were done by special effects guru Tom Burman (who replaced Stéphan Dupuis just three weeks before the cameras were due to start rolling). Dupuis later did the duties on another bigger budget Canadian slasher, Visiting Hours (1982), but left the production for undisclosed reasons. Ironically, in an issue of Fangoria from 1981, Burman criticizes the level of gore in films at that time.
Happy Birthday to Me finished filming in September 1980 (five months after the release of Friday the 13th). Much of it was shot in and around Loyola College in Montreal, while the drawbridge scenes were actually filmed in Phoenix, New York, just outside Syracuse. The producers found it difficult to find the right bridge closer to the main production, as the expansion of the Highway system had made them increasingly rare. The whole town of Phoenix came to watch the dangerous stunts, where a total of fifteen cars were junked, and one stunt driver was hospitalized with two broken ankles. The bridge itself has since been removed and replaced by a bridge further to the north. Additional photography occurred on the campuses of Concordia University and McGill University.
Director Thompson became known for tossing buckets of blood about on the set of the film to increase the on-screen gore; according to producer John Dunning, with the assistance of special effects man Tom Burman, Thompson “would be splashing blood all over the place. The film’s ending was changed to hide the fact that the script was being rewritten so late in production. Bo Harwood and Lance Rubin provided the film’s score. Syreeta, one-time wife of Stevie Wonder, provided the eerie closing track, composed by Lance Rubin that plays over the credits.
Happy Birthday To Me (1981)
Directed by: J. Lee Thompson
Starring: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker, Frances Hyland, Tracey Bregman, Lisa Langlois, Lesleh Donaldson, Earl Pennington, Matt Craven
Screenplay by: Timothy Bond, Peter Jobin, John Saxton, John Beaird
Production Design by: Earl G. Preston
Cinematography by: Miklos Lente
Film Editing by: Debra Karen
Costume Design by: Huguette Gagné
Music by: Bo Harwood, Lance Rubin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: May 15, 1981
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