The Burning
The Burning is a 1981 film from Canada and the USA, directed by Tony Maylam, running 91 minutes. reelscum files it under video nasty and slasher.
- Year
- 1981 · 1980s films
- Runtime
- 91 min
- Director
- Tony Maylam
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- known (24/100)
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Video nasty, Slasher
A prosecuted DPP video nasty; the BBFC cut Tom Savini's shears massacre and kept it trimmed for years.
The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.
A summer-camp slasher elevated by two things: Tom Savini's effects and the raft massacre, one of the best-staged kills in the entire cycle, in which a caretaker with garden shears dispatches a canoe of teenagers in broad daylight in seconds. The rest is standard, but that sequence is a genre high point.
Produced by a young Harvey Weinstein and featuring early roles for Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter, it rode the post-Friday-the-13th wave with more craft than most. The revenge-of-the-disfigured setup is by-the-numbers; the payoff is not.
Worth it for the raft scene alone.
Trailer
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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The cycle in depth
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
- The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
On these lists
- Nastiest of the nasties
The tapes the DPP put on its seize-on-sight list. Prosecuting them in a country with ferries to France was the best advertising any of them ever got.
Filed alongside
Maniac
Savini's effects, Spinell's performance, and a very bleak little film.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Almost bloodless, and still the most upsetting film here. The heat is the horror.
My Bloody Valentine
Canadian, mine-set, unusually well shot. The censored cut ruined it for decades.
Happy Birthday to Me
A prestige director slumming in the glut, and a poster more famous than the film.
Cannibal Ferox
Lenzi chasing Deodato with none of the argument. Real animal deaths, no defence.
City of the Living Dead
The drill scene. Otherwise thin, but the atmosphere is thick.
Mountain of the Cannibal God
The cannibal cycle in a dinner jacket, ex-Bond girl and real animal deaths included.
Silent Night, Deadly Night
The killer-Santa movie that got itself run out of cinemas in a week.
Sleepaway Camp
Ninety minutes of nothing, then an ending nobody who has seen it forgets.
The Prowler
A killer in WWII combat gear stalks a graduation dance. Savini's best gore work.
Terror Train
A costume party on a moving train, a killer swapping disguises, and Jamie Lee Curtis again.
Alice, Sweet Alice
American giallo in Catholic New Jersey. Genuinely disturbing and well acted.