Synopsis
The Burning (1981) is a summer-camp slasher you can watch online on iFILM. A mean-spirited caretaker nicknamed Cropsy is the target of a teenage prank with a skull and a candle that goes horribly wrong and turns him into a human torch.
Five years of burn wards and skin grafts leave his face a ruin. When he gets out, Cropsy heads back to the lake with a pair of garden shears and starts cutting his way through the counselors and kids at a nearby camp. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot a young Jason Alexander years before Seinfeld, the screen debut of Fisher Stevens, and a tiny early turn from Holly Hunter. The story came from Harvey Weinstein, at the very start of his career.
What kept this one alive for decades is Tom Savini's makeup work — he passed on Friday the 13th Part 2 to do it. The raft massacre is still held up as a high point of practical gore from the era. Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman scored it, and his chilly synths give the film an odd, jittery pulse. Stream The Burning (1981) online on iFILM.
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