The Burning (1981) on Netflix
Campers at Camp Blackfoot prank their caretaker, Cropsy, with a worm-infested skull and candles, setting him on fire by accident. Five years later, scarred, he heads for a nearby summer camp.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb6.2/1025,536 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
The caretaker at Camp Blackfoot, Cropsy, is the target of a prank by campers who leave a worm-infested skull with candles burning in its eye sockets beside his bed. A knock at his window makes him jump, the skull lands on his bedding, and flames reach a gas tank that engulfs him and the cabin. He survives his injuries, and five years later he leaves the hospital still scarred after failed skin grafts, covering his disfigurement with a coat and hat. Armed with pruning shears, he travels to Stonewater, another summer camp, where a camper narrowly avoids him during a softball game. Alfred, a boy the others bully, sees Cropsy outside the boys' cabin that night, but no one believes him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Burning (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Tony Maylam says he played the killer Cropsy himself for about 90% of The Burning, because he could not get anyone else to hold the shears the way he wanted to perfect the gleam off the metal.
- Fearing the slasher craze would fizzle out, the producers rushed The Burning into production, and the screenplay by Peter Lawrence and Bob Weinstein included a murder every ten minutes.
- Make-up artist Tom Savini had only three or four days to create the Cropsy make-up, building the mask in his dressing room and basing the look on a burnt beggar he had seen as a child in Pittsburgh.
- Thorn EMI accidentally released The Burning uncut on British video, making the tape liable to seizure and prosecution under the Obscene Publications Acts as an unwitting "video nasty"; the original uncut release is worth a great deal of money today.
- The climactic battle between Cropsy and Todd was moved from a camp boathouse to a copper mine after the filmmakers found bats roosting in the boathouse and considered it unsafe.
- Producer Harvey Weinstein had heard stories about the Cropsy legend as a young camper in upstate New York, and brought the idea to producing partner Michael Cohl, who loved it.
- The rest of the cast was hired through auditions, and for future stars Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens, The Burning was their first big-screen appearance.
