This Day in Horror History: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME Was Unleashed in 1981
On this day in horror history, Cape Fear director J. Lee Thompson’s slasher Happy Birthday to Me with Melissa Sue Anderson and Glenn Ford was unleashed in 1981.
TRIVIA:
- The brain surgery was performed by a real neurosurgeon on a fake brain.
- Anderson took time off from Little House on the Prairie to do this movie.
- Producers André Link and John Dunning also made My Bloody Valentine.
- The original ending for the film had Virginia revealed as the film’s killer being periodically possessed by the spirit of her dead mother while committing the murders, which explained her frequent blackouts. However, the filmmakers felt the ending was all too predictable and rewrote it into a far more twisted revelation.
- The film was submitted to the MPAA numerous times and kept getting an X rating due to the gruesome murders like Amelia (Lisa Langlois) getting an ax to the head.
- While not prosecuted, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic.
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It stars Melissa Sue Anderson as Virginia Wainwright, a spirited young woman who has returned to a private school having survived a deadly accident and regenerative brain surgery. She is proud that she belongs to the Top Ten – the school’s inner circle with the best students – and attempts to resume a normal life. But her friends are falling prey to a grueling series of murders, and soon there will be no one left to attend her 18th birthday party. Could it be her? Striving to rekindle the memory of her nightmarish accident, Virginia suffers from memory loss and traumatic blackouts. We soon learn the horrible truth behind her accident…
Anderson and Ford’s co-stars include Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker, Frances Hyland, Tracey E. Bregman, Jack Blum, Matt Craven, Lenore Zann, David Eisner, Michel-René Labelle, Richard Rebiere, Lesleh Donaldson, and Lisa Langlois.
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