#71. Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

DVD Synopsis: Welcome to upscale Crawford Academy, where everyone – especially new student Ginny (Melissa Sue Anderson) – wants to be part of the school’s most popular clique. But now somebody has begun butchering the group's members. Could a deadly accident from Ginny's past be connected to the brutal killings? And as her 18th birthday approaches, will Ginny be the guest of honor at the most horrific party of all?

Happy Birthday to Me was a real mixed bag, a movie with a number of excellent kill scenes that’s ultimately ruined by as lousy a twist ending as I’ve ever encountered.  

First off, the good; there are two or three pretty gruesome kills in Happy Birthday to Me, the best (or worst) of which involves a weight set (I was cringing through this entire scene, mostly because I knew what was going to happen.  And no, that didn’t make it any easier to watch).  

As far as the ending goes, it’s more than a mere head-scratcher; the final twist is so out of left field, so ridiculously thrown together that it actually pissed me off.  With a running time of over an hour and fifty minutes, Happy Birthday to Me is longer than most slasher films.  Were any of those extra minutes dedicated to setting up this ending?  Yeah…maybe 2 of them; which are two more than the filmmakers spent thinking it through.