The Burning
Encyclopedia
The Burning is a 1981 slasher film
directed by Tony Maylam
, with music by Rick Wakeman
. It tells the story of a cruel, alcoholic
, sadistic caretaker at a summer camp (nicknamed Cropsy
, after the huge garden shears he carries) who falls victim to a prank that went out of control and leaves him horribly burned and disfigured. Following his release from hospital, he returns to his old stomping ground and begins a murder spree.
The film was one of the first from Miramax Films
: Harvey Weinstein
produced the film and Bob Weinstein
was a co-writer.
, during the middle of the night. They sneak into his cabin and set a rotting skull on fire, only to have Cropsy wake up and accidentally knock the skull onto his gas tank, causing flames to spread all over the cabin. The horrified boys then watch as Cropsy, engulfed in flames, stumbles out and falls down a ravine into a river, putting out the flames. Five years later, Cropsy is released from hospital, wearing a heavy coat, sunglasses and hat to hide his deformities. Out of rage, he murders a female prostitute. He then sets out to another summer camp named "Camp Stonewater".
The camp is populated with many characters, who are each going through their own situations: Eddy wants to get it on with the shy hottie Karen, Todd struggles as head counselor and seeks to find time to be with his girlfriend Michelle, eccentric and shy Alfred is trying to make friends with Dave, Woodstock and Fish, who are all trying to get back at cocky, cruel Glazer, who lusts for cutie Sally.
Cropsy makes it to the camp as everyone is playing baseball, and almost kills a female camper, but hesitates too long. The next morning, Sally goes to take a shower, senses that someone is inside the showers, and pulls back the curtain, exposing a shocked Alfred, who runs out of the shower. Sally's screams bring Karen, Michelle, Todd and Eddy, who catch Alfred, who Michelle insists should be thrown out, but Todd takes him to have a stern talking-to instead. During this conversation, Todd learns that Alfred does not have any friends, and was just trying to pull a prank on Sally to make her laugh. After the discussion, Glazer attacks Alfred and warns him to stay away from Sally, but Todd breaks them up, telling Glazer to cool off, and lets Alfred go and apologize to Sally.
Night rolls around, and Alfred spots Cropsy outside his window, but no one believes him, so he, Dave, Fish, and Woodstock go to the mess hall with everyone else. While everyone is eating, Karen tells Michelle that she and Eddy are going to spend the night together, and that she should be back before morning. After supper, everyone then goes to sleep, except for Karen and Eddy who sneak off into the woods by another lake, to skinny-dip. They begin to fool around in the lake, while someone takes Karen's clothes. Just as Eddy and Karen are about to have sex, Karen decides she's not ready, upsetting Eddy who tries to force himself on her, making her slap him. Eddy is outraged and orders her to leave him, which she does, only to discover that her clothes have been strewn all over the woods. She begins to collect them all, until she reaches her last article of clothing on a tree, where she is grabbed by Cropsy and has her throat viciously slashed.
The next morning, Michelle finds that Karen has not returned, and she and Todd go out and find Eddy, who tells them she left. They take him and go back to camp, only to discover that the canoes have been cut loose and are floating adrift in the lake that surrounds the island the summer camp is located on. Michelle does not believe Karen would do this, so she has all the campers fix up a raft for them to go on and collect the canoes, while other campers and counselors go out to find wood. Eddy, Fish and Woodstock finish the raft and board it, along with two female campers, who then set off to find the canoes. Alfred feels that something is wrong, and begins to explore, while Todd reassures Michelle, that Karen is okay. Eddy and the campers spot a canoe and begin to paddle towards it, only to have Cropsy pop up with his shears and kill them all.
Michelle begins to worry when the raft does not return, but keeps the kids busy, while Todd takes Dave, Alfred, and a few other campers out on a camp out. Night falls, and Glazer finally has sex with Sally, pre-ejaculating inside her, so he decides to make it up to her, and goes to get matches to start them a fire, and spark things back up. While he's gone, Cropsy appears behind Sally, and begins to shove the shears into Sally's chest, as she begs for him to stop. Alfred finds the spot where Glazer and Sally were, and watches as Glazer returns, thinking the now deceased Sally is asleep, and uncovering Cropsy, who pops up from the sleeping bag, and rams the shears through Glazer's neck, pinning him to a tree. Alfred sees this and tries to make his way back to Todd and the others, finding them at sunrise the next morning. He awakens Todd, and tells him to go over to the site, and Todd manages to get there, not believing Alfred until he finds the dead bodies. He is then attacked by Cropsy, who hits him in the face with the shears, knocking him out, and begins to chase Alfred.
Alfred is chased all through the woods, becoming extremely dirty, and cut up, while Todd regains himself and chases after Cropsy, finding an ax before following Alfred and Cropsy's footsteps. Everyone else has awakened, and are waiting for the raft to return, and after a while spot it floating towards them, but no one is moving. Dave thinks it's a joke and tries to swim in towards it, only to have a worried Michelle do it instead, who, upon reaching the raft is bombarded with blood and the dead bodies, sending her screaming and swimming back. Once back on the island, she has the kids Todd took out camping grab a canoe that is floating nearby, and begins to row them back towards the campsite. Meanwhile, Cropsy has captured Alfred, in a rocky hill, by forcefully dragging him by the throat towards an abandoned mineshaft. Todd follows nearby, and hears Alfred's screams, finally tracking him down to the mineshaft, where Alfred has the garden shears embedded into his arm, pinning him to the wall.
Michelle makes it back to land with the campers, and calls the police to come by helicopter to save the kids, and anyone else still alive. Todd looks through the mine opening for Cropsy and Alfred. When he steps across a piece of track, a mine car up on a raft suddenly rolls down towards him, causing him to fall back. He runs into a wall and falls through it, where he discovers Karen's body, hanging from the ceiling. Then he and Cropsy struggle, and Cropsy's disfigured face is shown, making Todd remember back to when he and his friends set Cropsy on fire by accident. Alfred is able to take the shears out, and finds Cropsy and Todd, stabbing the shears into Cropsy's back, while Todd makes him fall onto them. The police arrive by helicopter, while Michelle travels by boat to find Todd and Alfred. While Todd and Alfred are walking away, Cropsy pops back up, and attacks them, resulting in a struggle, which ends with Alfred igniting Cropsy's clothes, and Todd hitting him in the head with the ax. Afterward, Alfred and Todd make their way out to Michelle, who brings them to the helicopter and to the hospital.
One televised version has a crossfade at this point which brings the storyline back to Todd, sitting at a campfire with all his friends and the camp kids, concluding the tale of Cropsy as if the entire movie had been a campfire ghost story.
Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Oscar winner Holly Hunter all made their motion picture debuts in this film.
run by Harvey Weinstein
and his brother Bob Weinstein
. Harvey wrote and produced while Bob co-wrote the screenplay. Brad Grey
, who later became Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures
, was another of the film's writers.
With a budget of $1,500,000, they set out to capitalize on the booming slasher film
craze that was soon to fizzle out. They also hired makeup effects maestro Tom Savini
who turned down a job for Friday the 13th Part 2
to do The Burning. Savini has stated that he was only given three days to design Cropsy's makeup, which is why the murderer doesn't look like a burn victim, but rather it appears that his features have "melted". The movie didn't fare well with the MPAA, which demanded several scenes cut to receive an R rating; one of these scenes being the notorious "Raft Massacre" scene in which Cropsy leaps out of an abandoned canoe and dismembers five children in rapid succession
.
Principal photography
occurred in Western New York
during the summer of 1980. However, extras casting agent and location scout Mary Casilio Powell reports that the camp and river scenes in the movie were shot at various camps in Olean
and Franklinville, New York while the infamous concrete ruins scene was shot in Model City, a small town near Lewiston, New York
and the scene with the prostitute was shot in downtown Buffalo
. The film's climax was originally set in a cave system, but this idea was ultimately scrapped. Maylam and Savini give differing reason for this; Savini stated that there was a cave-in shortly before filming was to commence, while Maylam states that the cave was found to be heavily infested with bats. Whatever the reason, the filmmakers instead shot the climax in an abandoned copper mine.
A soundtrack
album featuring Rick Wakeman's score
was released on LP
in 1981 in Germany
and shortly after in the United States
and Japan
. It includes music from the film and rock band arrangements by Wakeman, known as The Wakeman Variations, as well as selections from the score written by Alan Brewer and Anna Pepper. Alan Brewer was Musical Director for the film and Co-producer of the score and soundtrack album with Rick Wakeman.
On February 26, 2007, the soundtrack was released in the United Kingdom
, for the first time on CD
.
Track list
theatrically in the United States
by Filmways Pictures beginning in May 1981. Various re-releases over the next year and a half under different titles including Cropsey led to little success as the film grossed $707,770 total at the box office.
. The tapes were impounded under the Obscene Publications Act
, and The Burning was added to the video nasties
list. The two major scenes of contention were Cropsy's frantic mass-murder spree in the "raft massacre" sequence, and the sight of a pair of scissors piercing a woman's flesh in the post-title sequence.
Vipco released a truncated version in the early 1990s, missing about thirty seconds' worth of Savini's gore effects, but by 2001 the censor board was ready to pass the uncut version.
accidentally released an uncut version on VHS. It was released on DVD
in North America
for the first time ever on September 11, 2007 by MGM
. The DVD contains several extras, including a commentary by director Tony Maylam, a featurette covering Savini's make-up effects, a stills gallery and the theatrical trailer. Despite the DVD cover displaying the 'R' rating, the print used is the full uncut version.
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
directed by Tony Maylam
Tony Maylam
Tony Maylam is an English-born filmmaker for cinema and television.- Biography :Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career as an actor and then television presenter for ZDF Bermuda and the UK’s ITV , before concentrating solely on filmmaking...
, with music by Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
. It tells the story of a cruel, alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, sadistic caretaker at a summer camp (nicknamed Cropsy
Cropsy (The Burning)
Cropsy is a fictional character and main antagonist of the 1981 horror film The Burning. He was created by Harvey Weinstein and Tom Savini, and was based on the urban legend "The Cropsy Maniac".-Backstory:Cropsy is an alcoholic and an implied pedophile...
, after the huge garden shears he carries) who falls victim to a prank that went out of control and leaves him horribly burned and disfigured. Following his release from hospital, he returns to his old stomping ground and begins a murder spree.
The film was one of the first from Miramax Films
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
: Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein, CBE is an American film producer and movie studio chairman. He is best known as co-founder of Miramax Films. He and his brother Bob have been co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, their film production company, since 2005...
produced the film and Bob Weinstein
Bob Weinstein
Robert "Bob" Weinstein is an American film and theatre producer, the founder and head of Dimension Films, former co-chairman of Miramax Films, and current head, with his brother Harvey Weinstein, of The Weinstein Company.-Career:...
was a co-writer.
Plot
In a summer camp named "Camp Blackfoot", a group of boys are planning to pull a prank on the weird, alcoholic, masochistic caretaker, CropsyCropsy (The Burning)
Cropsy is a fictional character and main antagonist of the 1981 horror film The Burning. He was created by Harvey Weinstein and Tom Savini, and was based on the urban legend "The Cropsy Maniac".-Backstory:Cropsy is an alcoholic and an implied pedophile...
, during the middle of the night. They sneak into his cabin and set a rotting skull on fire, only to have Cropsy wake up and accidentally knock the skull onto his gas tank, causing flames to spread all over the cabin. The horrified boys then watch as Cropsy, engulfed in flames, stumbles out and falls down a ravine into a river, putting out the flames. Five years later, Cropsy is released from hospital, wearing a heavy coat, sunglasses and hat to hide his deformities. Out of rage, he murders a female prostitute. He then sets out to another summer camp named "Camp Stonewater".
The camp is populated with many characters, who are each going through their own situations: Eddy wants to get it on with the shy hottie Karen, Todd struggles as head counselor and seeks to find time to be with his girlfriend Michelle, eccentric and shy Alfred is trying to make friends with Dave, Woodstock and Fish, who are all trying to get back at cocky, cruel Glazer, who lusts for cutie Sally.
Cropsy makes it to the camp as everyone is playing baseball, and almost kills a female camper, but hesitates too long. The next morning, Sally goes to take a shower, senses that someone is inside the showers, and pulls back the curtain, exposing a shocked Alfred, who runs out of the shower. Sally's screams bring Karen, Michelle, Todd and Eddy, who catch Alfred, who Michelle insists should be thrown out, but Todd takes him to have a stern talking-to instead. During this conversation, Todd learns that Alfred does not have any friends, and was just trying to pull a prank on Sally to make her laugh. After the discussion, Glazer attacks Alfred and warns him to stay away from Sally, but Todd breaks them up, telling Glazer to cool off, and lets Alfred go and apologize to Sally.
Night rolls around, and Alfred spots Cropsy outside his window, but no one believes him, so he, Dave, Fish, and Woodstock go to the mess hall with everyone else. While everyone is eating, Karen tells Michelle that she and Eddy are going to spend the night together, and that she should be back before morning. After supper, everyone then goes to sleep, except for Karen and Eddy who sneak off into the woods by another lake, to skinny-dip. They begin to fool around in the lake, while someone takes Karen's clothes. Just as Eddy and Karen are about to have sex, Karen decides she's not ready, upsetting Eddy who tries to force himself on her, making her slap him. Eddy is outraged and orders her to leave him, which she does, only to discover that her clothes have been strewn all over the woods. She begins to collect them all, until she reaches her last article of clothing on a tree, where she is grabbed by Cropsy and has her throat viciously slashed.
The next morning, Michelle finds that Karen has not returned, and she and Todd go out and find Eddy, who tells them she left. They take him and go back to camp, only to discover that the canoes have been cut loose and are floating adrift in the lake that surrounds the island the summer camp is located on. Michelle does not believe Karen would do this, so she has all the campers fix up a raft for them to go on and collect the canoes, while other campers and counselors go out to find wood. Eddy, Fish and Woodstock finish the raft and board it, along with two female campers, who then set off to find the canoes. Alfred feels that something is wrong, and begins to explore, while Todd reassures Michelle, that Karen is okay. Eddy and the campers spot a canoe and begin to paddle towards it, only to have Cropsy pop up with his shears and kill them all.
Michelle begins to worry when the raft does not return, but keeps the kids busy, while Todd takes Dave, Alfred, and a few other campers out on a camp out. Night falls, and Glazer finally has sex with Sally, pre-ejaculating inside her, so he decides to make it up to her, and goes to get matches to start them a fire, and spark things back up. While he's gone, Cropsy appears behind Sally, and begins to shove the shears into Sally's chest, as she begs for him to stop. Alfred finds the spot where Glazer and Sally were, and watches as Glazer returns, thinking the now deceased Sally is asleep, and uncovering Cropsy, who pops up from the sleeping bag, and rams the shears through Glazer's neck, pinning him to a tree. Alfred sees this and tries to make his way back to Todd and the others, finding them at sunrise the next morning. He awakens Todd, and tells him to go over to the site, and Todd manages to get there, not believing Alfred until he finds the dead bodies. He is then attacked by Cropsy, who hits him in the face with the shears, knocking him out, and begins to chase Alfred.
Alfred is chased all through the woods, becoming extremely dirty, and cut up, while Todd regains himself and chases after Cropsy, finding an ax before following Alfred and Cropsy's footsteps. Everyone else has awakened, and are waiting for the raft to return, and after a while spot it floating towards them, but no one is moving. Dave thinks it's a joke and tries to swim in towards it, only to have a worried Michelle do it instead, who, upon reaching the raft is bombarded with blood and the dead bodies, sending her screaming and swimming back. Once back on the island, she has the kids Todd took out camping grab a canoe that is floating nearby, and begins to row them back towards the campsite. Meanwhile, Cropsy has captured Alfred, in a rocky hill, by forcefully dragging him by the throat towards an abandoned mineshaft. Todd follows nearby, and hears Alfred's screams, finally tracking him down to the mineshaft, where Alfred has the garden shears embedded into his arm, pinning him to the wall.
Michelle makes it back to land with the campers, and calls the police to come by helicopter to save the kids, and anyone else still alive. Todd looks through the mine opening for Cropsy and Alfred. When he steps across a piece of track, a mine car up on a raft suddenly rolls down towards him, causing him to fall back. He runs into a wall and falls through it, where he discovers Karen's body, hanging from the ceiling. Then he and Cropsy struggle, and Cropsy's disfigured face is shown, making Todd remember back to when he and his friends set Cropsy on fire by accident. Alfred is able to take the shears out, and finds Cropsy and Todd, stabbing the shears into Cropsy's back, while Todd makes him fall onto them. The police arrive by helicopter, while Michelle travels by boat to find Todd and Alfred. While Todd and Alfred are walking away, Cropsy pops back up, and attacks them, resulting in a struggle, which ends with Alfred igniting Cropsy's clothes, and Todd hitting him in the head with the ax. Afterward, Alfred and Todd make their way out to Michelle, who brings them to the helicopter and to the hospital.
One televised version has a crossfade at this point which brings the storyline back to Todd, sitting at a campfire with all his friends and the camp kids, concluding the tale of Cropsy as if the entire movie had been a campfire ghost story.
Cast
- Brian MatthewsBrian MatthewsBrian Matthews is an actor, best known for acting in daytime soap operas in the 1980s.Matthews and co-stars Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander, and Fisher Stevens all made their film debuts in The Burning . He then played Eric Garrison on the soap opera The Young and the Restless from 1983-1985...
as Todd - Leah AyresLeah AyresLeah Ayres is an American actress who played Valerie Bryson on the daytime serial, The Edge of Night, in the early 1980s. Ayres is well known for her role in Bloodsport, alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme...
as Michelle - Brian BackerBrian BackerBrian Backer is an American actor who has starred in film and on television. He is best known for his role in the 1982 hit comedy film Fast Times at Ridgemont High as shy teenager Mark "Rat" Ratner...
as Alfred - Larry JoshuaLarry JoshuaLarry Joshua is an American actor who has appeared in over 50 productions since 1981.Some of his more famous films include The Burning , Sea of Love , Quick Change , A Midnight Clear , Romeo is Bleeding , The X Files , For Love of the Game and Spider-Man...
as Glazer - Jason AlexanderJason AlexanderJay Scott Greenspan , better known by his professional name of Jason Alexander, is an American actor, writer, comedian, television director, producer, and singer. He is best known for his role as George Costanza on the television series Seinfeld, appearing in the sitcom from 1989 to 1998...
as Dave - Ned EisenbergNed EisenbergNed Eisenberg is an American actor known for his recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Roger Kressler....
as Eddy - Carrick Glenn as Sally
- Carolyn HoulihanCarolyn HoulihanCarolyn Houlihan is an American actress who starred in the 1981 horror film The Burning as Karen, appearing totally nude right before her death scene. She also appeared in the 1982 comedy A Little Sex as "Bathing suit model"....
as Karen - Fisher StevensFisher StevensFisher Stevens is an American actor, director and producer. His most recent successes include the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for his film The Cove and 2008 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature for his film Crazy Love...
as Woodstock - Lou David as CropsyCropsy (The Burning)Cropsy is a fictional character and main antagonist of the 1981 horror film The Burning. He was created by Harvey Weinstein and Tom Savini, and was based on the urban legend "The Cropsy Maniac".-Backstory:Cropsy is an alcoholic and an implied pedophile...
- Shelley Bruce as Tiger
Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Oscar winner Holly Hunter all made their motion picture debuts in this film.
Production
The movie was produced by the then new company Miramax FilmsMiramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
run by Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein, CBE is an American film producer and movie studio chairman. He is best known as co-founder of Miramax Films. He and his brother Bob have been co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, their film production company, since 2005...
and his brother Bob Weinstein
Bob Weinstein
Robert "Bob" Weinstein is an American film and theatre producer, the founder and head of Dimension Films, former co-chairman of Miramax Films, and current head, with his brother Harvey Weinstein, of The Weinstein Company.-Career:...
. Harvey wrote and produced while Bob co-wrote the screenplay. Brad Grey
Brad Grey
Brad Alan Grey is the Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, a position he has held since 2005. Under Grey’s leadership, Paramount has finished No.2 in market share in 2008, 2009 and 2010 despite releasing significantly fewer films than its competitors.Since arriving at Paramount in 2005,...
, who later became Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, was another of the film's writers.
With a budget of $1,500,000, they set out to capitalize on the booming slasher film
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
craze that was soon to fizzle out. They also hired makeup effects maestro Tom Savini
Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent "Tom" Savini is an American actor, stuntman, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990...
who turned down a job for Friday the 13th Part 2
Friday the 13th Part 2
Friday the 13th Part II is a 1981 slasher film directed by Steve Miner, who also directed its sequel, Friday the 13th Part III and several other popular horror films. A sequel to Friday the 13th , it is the second film in the Friday the 13th film series. It was a moderate box-office hit, opening on...
to do The Burning. Savini has stated that he was only given three days to design Cropsy's makeup, which is why the murderer doesn't look like a burn victim, but rather it appears that his features have "melted". The movie didn't fare well with the MPAA, which demanded several scenes cut to receive an R rating; one of these scenes being the notorious "Raft Massacre" scene in which Cropsy leaps out of an abandoned canoe and dismembers five children in rapid succession
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
.
Principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
occurred in Western New York
Western New York
Western New York is the westernmost region of the state of New York. It includes the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara Falls, the surrounding suburbs, as well as the outlying rural areas of the Great Lakes lowlands, the Genesee Valley, and the Southern Tier. Some historians, scholars and others...
during the summer of 1980. However, extras casting agent and location scout Mary Casilio Powell reports that the camp and river scenes in the movie were shot at various camps in Olean
Olean, New York
Olean is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. Olean is the largest city in Cattaraugus County, and serves as the financial, business, transportation and entertainment center of the county. It is one of the principal cities of the Southern Tier region of New York.The city is...
and Franklinville, New York while the infamous concrete ruins scene was shot in Model City, a small town near Lewiston, New York
Lewiston, New York
Lewiston is a village in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 2,781 at the 2000 census. The village is named after Morgan Lewis, an early 19th-century governor of New York. It is part of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area.The Village of Lewiston,...
and the scene with the prostitute was shot in downtown Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
. The film's climax was originally set in a cave system, but this idea was ultimately scrapped. Maylam and Savini give differing reason for this; Savini stated that there was a cave-in shortly before filming was to commence, while Maylam states that the cave was found to be heavily infested with bats. Whatever the reason, the filmmakers instead shot the climax in an abandoned copper mine.
Soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
album featuring Rick Wakeman's score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
was released on LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
in 1981 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and shortly after in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. It includes music from the film and rock band arrangements by Wakeman, known as The Wakeman Variations, as well as selections from the score written by Alan Brewer and Anna Pepper. Alan Brewer was Musical Director for the film and Co-producer of the score and soundtrack album with Rick Wakeman.
On February 26, 2007, the soundtrack was released in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, for the first time on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
.
Track list
- Theme From The Burning (3:33)
- The Chase Continues (Po's Plane) (3:53)
- Variations On The Fire (5:13)
- Shear Terror and More (4:34)
- The Burning (End Title Theme) (2:01)
- Campfire Story (3:09)
- The Fire (3:25)
- Doin' It (2:42)
- Devil's Creek Breakdown (2:21)
- The Chase (2:02)
- Shear Terror (2:43)
Release and censorship
The Burning was given a limited releaseLimited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
theatrically in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Filmways Pictures beginning in May 1981. Various re-releases over the next year and a half under different titles including Cropsey led to little success as the film grossed $707,770 total at the box office.
United Kingdom
The Burning found itself at the center of some controversy in the early 1980s, when the uncut version of the film was released on videotape by the British video label Thorn-EMI; the company was supposed to release the slightly trimmed version passed by the British Board of Film ClassificationBritish Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
. The tapes were impounded under the Obscene Publications Act
Obscene Publications Act
Since 1857, a series of obscenity laws known as the Obscene Publications Acts have governed what can be published in England and Wales. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt," stated in 1868 by John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge.There have been...
, and The Burning was added to the video nasties
Video nasty
"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
list. The two major scenes of contention were Cropsy's frantic mass-murder spree in the "raft massacre" sequence, and the sight of a pair of scissors piercing a woman's flesh in the post-title sequence.
Vipco released a truncated version in the early 1990s, missing about thirty seconds' worth of Savini's gore effects, but by 2001 the censor board was ready to pass the uncut version.
United States
Amazon.comAmazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
accidentally released an uncut version on VHS. It was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
for the first time ever on September 11, 2007 by MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
. The DVD contains several extras, including a commentary by director Tony Maylam, a featurette covering Savini's make-up effects, a stills gallery and the theatrical trailer. Despite the DVD cover displaying the 'R' rating, the print used is the full uncut version.