As we head into the second half of August and the spooky season approaches, we thought we'd seek out a little bit of last-minute summertime fun from the Shudder library. Our vintage pick this week is 1981's The Burning, a summer-camp slasher flick that went up against the mighty Friday the 13th franchise and... let's just say, got a little lost in the woods. While the film doesn't include any hockey masks, vengeful mamas, or brutal sleeping-bag kills, it does feature a very young Jason Alexander (a decade before his casting in Seinfeld) as well as some typically stellar FX work from Tom Savini -- who, at the time, was fresh off his experience on the first Friday film. And then, continuing the nostalgia trip in a slightly different way, Chris and Nick review the 2018 Shudder exclusive Summer of 84, a film that borrows heavily from Hitchcock's Rear Window and also gives off some serious Stranger Things vibes with its Reagan-era suburban setting and themes of boyhood friendship in the face of mortal terror.
As we head into the second half of August and the spooky season approaches, we thought we'd seek out a little bit of last-minute summertime fun from the Shudder library. Our vintage pick this week is 1981's The Burning, a summer-camp slasher flick that went up against the mighty Friday the 13th franchise and... let's just say, got a little lost in the woods. While the film doesn't include any hockey masks, vengeful mamas, or brutal sleeping-bag kills, it does feature a very young Jason Alexander (a decade before his casting in Seinfeld) as well as some typically stellar FX work from Tom Savini -- who, at the time, was fresh off his experience on the first Friday film. And then, continuing the nostalgia trip in a slightly different way, Chris and Nick review the 2018 Shudder exclusive Summer of 84, a film that borrows heavily from Hitchcock's Rear Window and also gives off some serious Stranger Things vibes with its Reagan-era suburban setting and themes of boyhood friendship in the face of mortal terror.