This is one of my favourite horror films, and I think it is one of the best.  As a horror fan, that takes a lot to do.  I have sat through the best and the worst horror films, and this sticks with me the most.  The premise is easily a rip-off of "Friday the 13th", but that is a rip-off of "Bay of Blood".  So I don't let that influence me.  The film has too many defining moments and is very well made.  If you are shown something or someone for a reason, it will be used or killed later on at one point or another.  One of the best moments is in the hospital, where the killer goes after the burning he receives.  All the gore hounds want to see him, they need to see the charred flesh, and normally that would be left until the end, but not in this film, the doctors discuss his disfigurements like he is a carnival freak " he is like a fuckin' big mac....overdone!"  A pair of doctors rather unwisely decide to catch a peek, but to kick start the film, he grabs one of their arms, and you are treated to a loving close up of the arm, black, discoloured, and charred.  Beautiful.  It made everyone jump.  Everyone!  Because it was not expected, and that is the way the whole film works, the shock factor is huge.  A normal film may have about three good scares.  This has more than twenty, and most are your imagination.

The storyline, though very "Friday the 13th", is good.  The nasty caretaker of a summer camp has a prank pulled on him, it goes wrong, and he is burned.  Presumed dead, he comes back five years later to kill and kill and kill.  What is a shock is the way the film exceeds "Friday the 13th".  The gore, suspense, anticipation, shocks, and acting are all better.  Take the gore.  Tom Savini does it to perfection.  It is believable.  It is that good.  Throats are hacked open, heads cleaved apart, fingers snipped off, heads hacked into, and bodies pinned to trees through the neck.  Most are in the dark, but it is so grisly, it only amplifies the horror.  It is such a shame that most copies of this film are cut, the uncut version is best.  It is also a shame that people could find both "Friday the 13th" and "The Burning" and go with the first because of the familiarity of the name.  That is the biggest disappointment.  I recommend this as the horror fan's best friend.

[WEBMASTER'S TRIVIA: This film was one of the first feature films produced by Bob & Harvey Weinstein, the founders of Miramax Film Corporation!]