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The Burning: Friday the 13th Ripoff or 80’s Slasher Classic?


Let’s face it. As much as Halloween really began the slasher craze, the EIGHTIES slasher craze was actually pushed into full force by a little movie called Friday the 13th in 1980. This is where the blood, the gore, and the sex became a popular staple of what 80’s slashers would be defined by. Don’t forget that Friday the 13th was also the inception of many other summer camp movies to come down the pike as well.

So we get to The Burning which was released in 1981. This was one year after the release of Friday the 13th. Jason Voorhees was not yet the slasher icon that he would later become. In fact, this was the first year that he himself would draw first blood as his mother, Mrs. Voorhees, was the original killer at Crystal Lake. Friday the 13th Part 2 of course spawned Jason’s massive killing spree.

Many people may pop in The Burning and feel that they’re watching one in another long line of Friday the 13th ripoffs. Is that a fair assessment of this movie? Well, Harvey Weinstein (who would later become an acclaimed producer) claims that he actually wrote this film before the release of Friday the 13th in 1980. In fact, the concept of the film is based on a campfire story told at summer camps in and around New Jersey and upstate New York. Supposedly that story is still in circulation to this very day.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, critics of the movie still claim this movie to be nothing but another Friday the 13th copycat. Is it? It’s really hard to say, objectively. One might compare the setting, kill style, and effects (Tom Savini did the effects on Friday the 13th AND The Burning, afterall) from The Burning to Friday the 13th, it’s hard to say that Cropsy himself could be based on Jason Voorhees when Voorhees had not yet gained notoriety when this movie was released. In many ways, Cropsy was more similar to Freddy Krueger than he was Jason Voorhees (burnt serial killer who had a grudge against children). Also, it’s interesting to note that Tom Savini passed up a chance to do the effects on Friday the 13th Part 2 for the opportunity to work on Cropsy in The Burning. This led to the creation of one of the most horrific murder scenes in the history of film (“The Raft Scene”) where an entire group of campers were butchered by the garden sheer-wielding Cropsy.

If the sole basis of the criticism of this movie is that it takes the camp atmosphere from Friday the 13th and uses it as its own, then Sleepaway Camp and many others would have to be given the same exact critical eye. The Burning may never shake the comparisons to Friday the 13th because of the iconic position that Friday the 13th has among fans and the general public alike. To answer the question posed by this article…is The Burning an 80’s slasher classic or is it a Friday the 13th ripoff? It’s likely somewhere in the middle as most things are when put to the test of being one thing or another. Time will tell if this movie will continue on as a quality product of its time or a forgotten gem in the archives of 80’s slashers.

I give the movie 3 Machetes out of 4.