Happy Birthday to Me
By Sharon Foss
Remember Mary Ingalls, sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder, from the television series Little House on the Prairie in the late 1970s and early 1980s? Apparently Mary, played by Melissa Sue Anderson, had a dark side. Well okay it’s not technically Mary, it’s Anderson herself who stars in the 1981 movie Happy Birthday to Me. But those who only know Anderson as the Ingalls girl who became blind after a bout of Scarlet Fever would never guess that she also was a scream queen in her own right.
From the producers of My Bloody Valentine—the original and 2009 remake—John Dunning and Andre Link, along with director J. Lee Thompson and writer John C.W. Saxton, bring you Happy Birthday to Me, a slasher flick originally brought to the screen in 1981 but released on DVD in 2004.
Virginia, played by Anderson, has repressed memories from an earlier incident involving her mother’s death. While seeking therapy to uncover those memories, friends and fellow students begin dying in gruesome deaths around campus. My particular favorite is dedicated to all those gym rats who live, breathe and coincidentally die working out at the sweat-smelled facilities. The scene involves the buff high school stud lifting weights when the killer walks in. Before you know it, a weight is dropped on his groin, which makes the tanned blonde juicehead drop his heavy bench press on his neck. Love it. Vanity DOES kill. Write that down.
Through Virginia’s memories that come and go when triggered, the flashbacks include her skull being drilled on the operating table and a rainy night during which a car almost drives off a bridge. Between her suspicious behavior and people disappearing, the movie keeps you guessing to figure out what exactly is going on in this school.
As Virginia’s birthday approaches and memories come flooding back about the accident that killed her mother, Ginny’s behavior begins changing. By the end of the movie, you learn the significance of the birthday, but the lesson learned here is that when your mind feels fit to repress memories…let sleeping dogs lie.
While every movie release these days includes a twist at the end, it’s pretty great to see one that was completely unexpected in a 1981 film. It was also great to see Anderson as a true scream queen in Happy Birthday to Me and I was totally impressed by her. However, a scene where Anderson is walking around in a bra makes you think of Mary Ingalls, and watching her take off her panties just feels dirty and wrong. I suppose that’s the tale of the slasher flick though, regardless of who is the star.
(Review by Sharon Foss – Original Post at www.terrortube.com)
