Perhaps no movie genre has been wrung out so badly as the slasher movie. Happy Birthday to Me came out at a time when the concept was still fresh, and everyone was looking for a good follow up to Halloween.It's got a good cast with Melissa Sue Anderson in the lead as a teenager recovering from a horrible accident. Just as she's trying to get re-acquainted with life, someone starts murdering her upper crust, preppy classmates in bizarre and grisly fashion. It's really a murder mystery. Did her accident turn her into a blood thirsty psychopath, or is it someone else entirely? There's no supernatural Jason or Michael Meyers at work here.I remember this movie got a big build up prior to release. The trailers ran for a long time in the theaters, and they even spent money on some major market TV spots for it. The one I saw had this ominous close in shot of a birthday cake that finally gets an axe right through the middle of it. These were all heavy duty horror movies back then, but this one almost looks quaint by today's standards.

My friends and I just recently watched this film, so this review is coming from a 30 year-old millennial! Spoilers may happen. The movie takes awhile to get going, and guessing who the killer is early on in the film is a moot point. The film runs longer than the usual slasher film, so it involves quite a few twists and turns, well worth the wait!There will be a lot of confusion, but if you are patient, you will enjoy Happy Birthday To Me. My only spoiler: Why is Amelia standing in the rain!?!?! Seriously, things like this don't usually bother me, but the stuff was hitting the fan and she stands out in the rain dumbfounded. Minus 1 star for that!

Veteran director J. Lee Thompson was unusually fond of stepping into the gutter once in a while, so this gory slasher-flick wasn't just a case of an esteemed filmmaker cashing a paycheck. Thompson gets good work from top-billed Melissa Sue Anderson as a traumatized teen who may or may not be responsible for the elaborate slayings of several of her classmates at an elite academy--but the picture goes on and on for a seat-numbing 110 minutes, and one good performance isn't enough to carry the load. The screenplay by John Saxton, Peter Jobin and Timothy Bond, from Saxton's original story, appears to have been worked over many times by too many writers, and the whole bloody mess collapses under the weight of throat slashings, false scares, brain surgery and a double-twist ending that makes no sense. Glenn Ford's obtuse role as Anderson's doctor is also a puzzler--but no matter, he's trashed right along with most of the cast. Canadian-made thriller has very few thrills, however cinematographer Miklos Lente gives the final scenes an eerie sheen and Thompson stages a suspenseful game of chicken near the beginning. *1/2 from ****

Now, I LOVE twists. Try the one at the end of Arlington Road, or for a more popular example The Sixth Sense. A good twist can turn an average movie-going experience into a satisfying one, and cause you reevaluate the whole film. On the other hand, there are the obvious ones, the endings you see coming from a mile off that expect you to be shocked by a revelation you saw half an hour in. This is bad, but nowhere near as damaging as the conclusions where everything is a complex and convoluted mess, where the abrupt slapdashery of everything makes the feeling of dissatisfaction palpable.Which brings me neatly to Happy Birthday To Me, a perfectly serviceable slasher for the most part, but will forever be remembered by the reviewer for one of the stupidly complicated last scene explanations in history. It's not so much I didn't understand what was happening, it was more down to everything seemingly being forced into a 'big reveal' when one really wasn't necessary. Was the director contractly obliged to shoehorn in this daft finale? Sometimes, it's best to go for the easy route, rather than attempt to be clever and fall flat on your face.There are some nice deaths, that'll make you wince, and the standard of acting is better than usual for the genre. The air of mystery that permeates the air keeps you watching, the atmosphere is tense and you hold your breath... only for you to be rewarded by a load of cobblers. I'm sorry, I'm trying to change the subject, but I keep returning to an image in my head of some dumb writers, high-fiving each other about how cool and clever they are, when really all they've done is painted a moustache on the Mona Lisa. It would have been a lot better with 5 minutes chopped off before the credits... trust me. 4/10