happy birthday to me (1981)

yeah that's what watching this movie felt like

the "is it worth watching this for lawrence dane" rating: 1/5

in short, no. this movie is........interesting. the closest comparison i can think of is the 1982 horror movie "pieces". they both have wildly uneven acting, a sincerity that enters camp territory, and bizarre twist endings out of fucking nowhere. watching it just for lawrence dane was not worth it, though, since he only has four scenes totaling less than 30 minutes. he had third billing so i felt let down, but hopefully that means he got a good paycheck for this trainwreck.

the plot: lmao what plot. look up any review of it and you'll see people talking about how the people involved re-wrote the ending well into production so the result is a disjointed mess. i don't watch horror movies to ooh and ahh over how creative the murders are or whatever so like..... let's put it this way. if i'd gone into this wanting to watch a shitty horror movie for the sake of watching a shitty movie, not for a specific actor, i probably would have enjoyed this more. especially in the last third of the movie where it starts being really campy. all three of the reviews i linked above are from people who liked it and, to be fair, it's not the worst movie i've seen. but if the criteria is "was this worth it for lawrence dane" then prepare to be disappointed.

i was very confused as to what we were supposed to think of dane's character; were we supposed to be sympathetic towards him as a father trying to save/protect his daughter? were we supposed to blame him for everything that happened since apparently the catalyst for all this bullshit was him being out of town on a business trip during his daughter's birthday some years ago? both??? it was weird and i got the feeling there was more filmed that'd explain things but it got left on the cutting room floor lol.

highlight: wet and making a face like he's getting a blowjob.... nice

none of the following screencaps have been altered. warning for some gore

( at least he's still cute in this one )

 

 

so.... that was "happy birthday to me" lol. not worth it for dane, but if you get drunk and/or high to watch this you'll probably have a great time

(no subject)

i'm still working on the second half of my rituals post but i didn't have much to say about happy birthday so that was faster lol. and i've been getting a little writing done for personal pleasure - a windows update a few weeks ago somehow managed to wipe a folder from my desktop where i kept a bunch of wips, so i lost like 10k worth of writing.................. months of work down the drain. so i decided i'd try writing smth very indulgent to try and comfort myself haha and i'm having a lot of fun with it so far! when i'm done i'll post it as part of that "untranslatable words" bingo. i also started on the sakura exchange fic and i just need to decide which direction to take with it then the rest should be easy.

i learned my lesson: always back up your work, and never update your computer. ever. don't do it.