CJG THE HATCHET MAN Movie Dissection — HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, 1981. 45 Years of Shish Kebabs, Giallo and being the Proto-SCREAM!

*I made a makeshift fan subway poster; the kind I remembered having to see when I was 8 years old. Credit still goes to Sony and Columbia Pictures for searing this f*king nightmare fuel in my head for 45 years.

Welcome back to CJG THE HATCHET MAN — your ultimate dissector of all things eerie, spooky, and occasionally bloody! Let me take you back to Brooklyn NY, 1981. Ronald Reagan sucked a! VHS and Betamax were making a splash! Blondie was on the radio for the last time! An epidemic affecting gay men began! MTV was about to launch and also, a sick-ass movie poster that would haunt my collective consciousness for years to come! Splatter Movie Central — yes, Virginia, this is a guilty pleasure!**

Happy Birthday to Me (1981 — Original Theatrical Trailer) — YouTube

So, as a curious 8-year-old in NYC, I travelled on the subway trains often with my mom in the early 1980s. At this point, a seismic pop culture shift was occurring in 1980–81. TV was becoming grittier; music on the radio began a rock shift after disco and MTV was just inches away from changing the pop/rock music landscape. Also x 2, horror movies were shifting. Gone the all-too-cool Vincent Price and Christopher Lee movies of yore and in their place — masked killers were popping up everywhere cutting up nubile, sinful teenagers to bits and pieces.

John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN began the assembly-line of slasher movie clones and they themselves began to take the shape of holidays and major life events — all cranked out by major studios like Fox, Columbia, Universal and Paramount.

Titles like FRIDAY THE 13TH, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, NEW YEARS EVIL, GRADUATION DAY, PROM NIGHT, THE BURNING, THE PROWLER, TERROR TRAIN, HALLOWEEN II, and CHRISTMAS EVIL to name a few, and while DRESSED TO KILL, MANIAC and even, BLOW OUT, were the more artsy-arthouse offerings we saw pop up in marquee screens in our very dark early 1980s. But, in the news, John Lennon’s shocking death in December 1980 and even Ronald Reagan’s near assassination would also raise strong awareness that many didn't want this new wave of nightmare fuel.

Title scene of 1981 movie trailer.

However, one movie poster dared me to defy all conventional slasher movie marketing — featured, was an absolutely terrified college-aged man about to be killed with a loaded shish kebab thrust through his mouth/throat — his bulging eyes wide with the knowledge of his impending death (see main poster above — an actual reproduction I made in college to effectively recall the actual subway poster marketed roughly in Mar/April of 1981).

The late UK filmmaker, J. Lee Thompson who directed many genre films, but was also known for directing the original CAPE FEAR in 1962. His first real thriller.

Was HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME the First SCREAM? O You Betcha! Read On!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME was released on May 15, 1981, to little fanfare — but proved that slasher movie mania had reached its creative peak. The poster hyperbolically gloated about having “Six of the Most Bizarre Murders” where truthfully, there were only three truly bizarre deaths that deserved to be called carnage candy — and oddly enough — not a single birthday cake in sight on the poster; that was left for the movie’s trailer.

Star Melissa Sue Anderson and off-screen star, Glenn Ford, sharing a creepy moment together. Courtesy of Sony/Columbia Pictures.

The movie centered on a snobby, clique-y group of schoolkids from a fictional prep school called Crawford Academy — an exclusively posh institution made up of mostly rich, white, trust fund kids. They’re smart, ambitious and yes, very callous and oblivious to real world problems. However, nearing one of the clique member’s 18th birthday party— they’re all being systematically murdered by an unseen killer who sports the same uniform — poofy scarves and “giallo” style gloves.

A title card for Mario Bava’s A BAY OF BLOOD.

This blood-soaked dress code would be the hallmark of one Mario Bava — a famous Italian “giallo” filmmaker who would have the killer hide his/her identity in gloves or trenchcoats and of course, buckets of blood would pour out of the victims — hence the “bizarre murders” that HBTM tried gloating about. The word “giallo” in Italian is a literal translation for “yellow” but alludes to deep mystery in noir and thriller genres in general. As for the murders themselves — this, attributing to Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO — the murders are inventive, graphic and the blood is free-flowing. HBTM overstated those alleged “bizarre” murders mostly resorting to the basic razor blade and garden shears, but offered strong inspiration by using barbell weights, motorcycle spokes and of course, the shish kebab skewer.

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE star Melissa Sue Anderson played Virginia ‘Ginny’ Wainwright, the high school senior socialite at the center of the slasher mystery.

The “plot” if that’s what it’s called has a fun Scooby-Doo aesthetic. Little House on the Prairie TV star, Melissa Sue Anderson, broke out of her goody-girl-next-door image playing Virginia “Ginny” Wainwright, a traumatized teen socialite who's either The Killer, or set up to be The Killer, or might be something else entirely. It all ties to a super-warped 18th birthday celebration where the only way to be invited is to be a corpse-in-waiting— a darkly comic premise the film plays with surprising commitment.

Happy Birthday to Me (1981) Official Trailer HD — video Dailymotion

Now, I finally got around to seeing it, on channel 9 in NYC in 1990… at f*king 4 a.m. in the morning! I thought I had a stroke. It was so bad, bad, BAD! (Not MJ levels, but so Ed Wood levels of bad!) I mean, it was directed by UK/Hollywood auteur, J. Lee Thompson, responsible for classic movies like the 1962 noir thriller, CAPE FEAR (aka PSYCHO-lite), THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, MCKENNA’S GOLD, 10 TO MIDNIGHT, THE EVIL THAT MEN DO and a host of other Charleton Heston/Charles Bronson films. This was his first and only slasher horror film and at the time — my brain pivoted as how not scary it was, let alone how the kebab kill was an utter gyp! It also didn’t help that it was Ginny who administered the fatal kill to Steve and not “John” as promised in the poster! Talk about false advertising! Also also, the bloody aftermath was little more than a knee scrape! I was robbed — who cares if it was edited for television! Blood, goddamnit, blood*!!

Ginny in the aftermath of the now iconic shish kebab skewer murder.

On the plus column — Anderson’s Ginny is a pretty grounded character amid the carnage, which is so rare for a horror/slasher film. The other Crawford students are also pretty complex, dimensional and interesting despite being lambs for the slaughter. I also loved the late Frances Hyland as Headmistress Patterson, a headstrong woman who’s no-nonsense when it comes to the entitled fold. She’s far from a cliché and brings real authority and gravitas rather than just be a paper-thin cardboard caricature.

Also, there’s an interesting flip on the slasher narrative where the girls were always hot props — but, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME decided to flip that script where the guys or men were very…for lack of a better word, “letchy”. Etienne (Michel-René Labelle), a French exchange student jock sneaks in her bedroom to swipe her underwear as a trophy piece. Glenn Ford’s psychiatrist character was far too loose and fawning too much over his “patient” (huh?) and Ginny’s father (stepfather, perhaps), Hal Wainwright (the late Canadian character actor, Lawrence Dane, who was in a CHUCKY movie; you go! RIP) seems to almost drip too sexually over his very pretty and blond daughter — ecch! Make what you will of that.

Etienne (Michel-Rene Labelle), a foreign exchange student jock, gets his scarf slipped into his motorcycle spokes by the killer.

Dimwit gambler Steve Maxwell (Matt Craven) is the actual kebab victim; not the proposed “John”.

Here are a few of the flaws (so many of them), the movie ran longer than your usual slasher — clocking in a hefty 110 minutes. Most clock in under 90 minutes. The poster misdirected us in that Steven (venerable character actor Matt Craven: JACOB’S LADDER, A FEW GOOD MEN, CRIMSON TIDE) took the fatal kebab— not the pictured “John” who in my humble opinion looked more like a clique member named Rudi, played by David Eisner; one of the more colorful and petulant of the Top Ten crew.

Actor David Eisner who played Rudi Van Der Pool in HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

“John” on the HBTM advertising who looks just like Eisner— am I wrong?

So, this is where the film raises the batsh*t question: is Ginny killing off her clique-mates for one main reason — for missing her birthday party three years ago causing her alcoholic socialite mother (a wonderfully unhinged Sharon Acker, RIP) to go whacky-nuts and make her die in a car/bridge accident also causing Ginny to have brain trauma — or something else? Well, the screenplay and story would lead you to believe that from the get-go. So, is it?

Actress Tracey E. Bregman as Ann Thomerson — the key to the big mystery surrounding the murders at Crawford Academy.

The Big…Twist??? Spoilers.

No, turns out it was Top Ten member Ann Thomerson, played by daytime television queen, Tracey E. Bregman. Posing as her best friend who also has too close an eye on her from the start. She’s her half-sister who was responsible for not inviting Ginny to her party, causing the main conflict that caused the car accident killing Ginny’s mother and causing Ginny’s head injury, causing her to get multiple brain surgeries and be at the constant creepy surveillance of her psychiatrist, Dr. David Farady (reportedly a very petulant and drunk Glenn Ford who seemed phoning it in due to being too big a star being reduced to a movie party favor) and thanks to such a brilliant latex mask-masking clique member (Jack Blum in a nod to Anthony Perkins in PSYCHO — your first SCREAM clue), was able to fool her victims into thinking she’s Ginny. All the students were killed to frame Ginny and for revenge for Ann’s father and town floozy, Estelle, having an affair — making them half-sisters. Are you with me still? Good.

Apparently, this hackneyed ending was tacked on because as the original script had Ginny be the real killer possessed by the evil spirit of her mother wanting revenge, which feedback came back as too “generic” and “predictable”. Umm-kay.

The SCREAM Connection — For Real This Time!

My rediscovery of HBTM came in the form of SCREAM 30 years ago. Wes Craven, fresh off the failure that was VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN with Eddie Murphy and already facing the beginning-of-the-end of his career, directed this meta-slasher from a whip smart script by first-timer, Kevin Williamson. Slasher movies were going the way of the dodo and then, shocker — Drew Barrymore and a host of then-up-and-coming 1990s stars, including already established star, Courtney Cox from FRIENDS were in a scary (maybe funny) slasher flick.

Original poster of the OG SCREAM by the late Wes Craven. Released in December 1996.

From the Drew Barrymore, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS-inspired opening, to introducing us to final girl, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell, from TV star to horror movie royalty), to the meta callbacks to movies like HALLOWEEN, PROM NIGHT, THE HOWLING, BASIC INSTINCT, THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, and of course, the great grandad of them all — PSYCHO, SCREAM seemed to be having fun being a “greatest hits” of slasher movie tropes and I ate it up! Saw the movie eight times in its theatrical run and went into Blockbuster Video a week later (ahh yes, the guud ol’ days of VHS rentals) and saw the infamous “John Gets Kebabed” HBTM box. I rented it and popped into my VCR. An amazing thing happened!

I actually loved it this time — even the batsh*t ending! Why?! Because it was basically an early prototype of SCREAM!

Don’t believe me? Follow me here!

The VHS Box Cover from the now defunct Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment.

Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich in an interesting variation of the twist ending in HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME ending by way of SCREAM.

1. Whodunit and How — Even Why?

Both SCREAM/HBTM set up mysteries from the start. A masked killer named Ghostface in SCREAM; a giallo gloved/scarved unseen killer in HBTM and yes, both are known by their respective social circles. Identity is the key to solving the mystery here and it’s not just the violence that attracts attention, it’s the misdirection and red herrings that keep us guessing for both movies.

2. Teen Social Hierarchies and WHAT They Know/Don’t Know.

In SCREAM, we have the Woodsboro High School clique where they discuss movies, their tropes, killer’s motivations and even namedrop movie stars. HBTM has the elite Top Ten who are almost blissfully aware that they’re in a slasher movie. To cite a line: “Maybe we should all put in $20 and the last one left takes all.” Steve Maxwell quips blasely before eating his words through a kebab skewer (he lost, hehe).

3. Brutal Violence and Grand Guignol aka Bizarre and Outlandish.

HBTM promised us “Six Bizarre Murders”, but we only got about three or so, but it was still a box office hit due to the misdirection marketing. SCREAM opens with open viscera setting the tone and even uses garage doors, televisions sets and yes, even gunshot taps to the head. Both wanted audience reactions — not just gore — and got them successfully. Oddly enough, it would be MY BLOODY VALENTINE; the other slasher movie from 1981 and made by the same producers as HBTM (John Dunning and Andre Link) that bombed — becoming the bigger cult classic due to graphic murder scenes reinstated years later.

4. Trauma — Not Just for Prestige Horror.

SCREAM effectively dealt with the trauma of loss and in its own weird and funky way, so did HBTM — unheard of in a slasher movie; although FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN and even PROM NIGHT also added those effective beats in their plots. And in both films, the death of the family/matricide were the main motivators. Ginny with her mom, Ann with her family collapsing and Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) dealing with abandonment issues due to Sidney’s mother’s/his father’s infidelity proving mama’s boys did exist. BFF Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) just chalked it up to peer pressure. Sure, Jan.

5. The Big Twist — One That Worked While the Other…

SCREAM gave us an absolute killer or should I say, Double Killer Twist! Two killers not done in any slasher films (to my knowledge at least), but HBTM gave us the ultimate bonkers latex masked killer twist that defied all logic and common sense! But — that has always been a staple of Italian giallo horror films — so, bravo! I take back my initial “you suck” review, but that kebab kill should’ve been a gusher! PS: word was scenes like this were massively trimmed for its R-rating.

6. Genre Awareness/Knowledge and Intertextuality.

SCREAM was direct meta while HBTM was the clear blueprint that SCREAM borrowed from — acknowledged or not — and HBTM was itself lifting off other movies like PSYCHO, A BAY OF BLOOD, even SUSPIRIA in its purposeful loopiness.

7. Strong Final Girl/Female Lead Trailblazing.

SCREAM had Neve Campbell who made us care about her plight. HBTM gave us Melissa Sue Anderson, who was also a strong female presence and not just an eye candy prop — and yes, that was intentional and I liked that!

8. Macabre Ending — Who Did it Best?

HBTM had the blood-soaked Top Ten corpses “celebrating” Ginny’s birthday which admittedly was ghoulish and still is to this day. SCREAM had a defy-curfew party that ends in a bloodbath. Who did it best? Do I need to answer? Gale takin’ care o’ bidness! Moving on!

9. The ‘X’ Marked the Spot or Plagued the Movie.

Both SCREAM/HBTM were penalized heavily by the MPAA for some very bloody kills scenes that needed serious trimming and editing, as I mentioned with the kebab kill. HBTM was notorious for having J. Lee Thompson pour gallons of blood on the set, affecting camera equipment — and actress/Top Ten-er Lisa Langlois would’ve had an axe to her head if we had gotten the MPAA to give it a straight up ‘R’. Trust me — I’ve seen R-rated movies with more gore than all three TERRIFIER movies combined.

Newspaper ad from 5/15/81.

Another one.

And a SCREAM ad from December 1996.

CONCLUSION — Get Out Your Cake Knife and Candles; It’s Finally Over!

Yes, SCREAM polished up the slasher thriller by adding meta-commentary, humor and social beats and it went on to spawn a franchise with Wes Craven directing the first four before his death in 2015 (RIP) and then, Radio Silence doing the reboot/quels in 2022 and 2023 and yes, the now most-hated/polarized 2026 7th entry directed by series creator, Kevin Williamson. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, had just one film, no sequels, no plans for a remake to my knowledge (kind of glad about that) and has been largely buried in the consciousness of the horror/slasher pantheon — but it does have cult status and fans like me. Even horror mavens like John Carpenter, Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino sing its praises to this day.

So, despite my initial reaction to it as well as its now infamous Artemisia Gentileschi-inspired “kebab” kill artwork, it’s still a worthy entry in the horror slasher genre that should’ve have gotten more love and even a nice callback from the SCREAM makers. But… this comparison should give you a nice side-by-side comparison double-feature watch. I’m done. I’m gonna grab me some cake, blow out some candles and brandish a large sharp knife in its honor.

The final corpse-ridden birthday party. Time to light the candles and sing!

NEXT FILM DISSECTION — “PSYCHO” 1960 — A Shower Scene is Where it All Began!

Janet Leigh in the iconic shower scene. Courtesy of Universal/Comcast.