Survival Of Dana

The Survival Of Dana is your typical trite '70s anti-drug drama. Dana (Melissa Sue Anderson) is your typical good girl with a bright future for about five minutes.

 When she is mistakenly busted for shoplifting everything changes. Her grandmother doesn't believe her and she is forbidden from joining the ice skating team. Did high schools even have ice skating teams? She waves bye bye to her good girl ways and starts going out with Donny (Robert Carradine)

 This is the second drugs are bad movie that Carradine has starred in, he also played a junkie in Go Ask Alice. Donny is everything a girl could want, car thief, junkie, and unfaithful dog.  Dana gets in touch with her inner bad girl which is no different than her good girl role. It's hard to take Anderson seriously with her monotone voice and deer in the headlights gaze. Also whoever said that perms were a good look were seriously disturbed.

"One of these days I'm gonna break like ice. I'm gonna explode like a grenade."

   Look, Judge Reinhold! He plays an abused kid named Bear, who gets thrown through a plateglass window by one of Donny's friends. He has no real role in this movie. I suppose he's supposed to be a cautionary tale. But it's hard to stand out when every character is this film is a cautionary tale.

   So Donny and his gang piss off a bunch of thugs and wind up in a high speed chase. Dana seems worried, I think, it's hard to tell when the actress only has one expression throughout the movie. They get away but the thugs go after Dana's grandmother played by Marion Ross. Poor Marion, she must have gotten desperate for work as Happy Days wound down.

    Eventually there an epic fight in which Donny is shot dead. But at least he got to a great slow motion Million Dollar Man jump before he bites it. Dana mourns for about three seconds before changing her sinful ways. She goes back to skating and gets the obligatory good guy boyfriend that all these films have.

   Dana seems happy...I think.

Mary Ingalls Sees Dead People

    The true tragedy of Happy Birthday To Me is that it could have been a great movie. It had a good set-up, interesting plot, and a fantastic ending. To bad everything in the middle couldn't uphold those standards.

    Our favorite prairie diva Melissa Sue Anderson, plays Virginia. Virginia is a shy, quiet, girl who is a part of an elite group of teens called the "Top Ten". Unfortunately for Virginia, she suffers memory loss due to a tragic car accident four years prior.

    Soon, her friends begin falling prey to a mysterious albeit, creative murderer. Virginia begins to suffer blackouts and fears that she may be responsible for the possible murders of her friends. Is she the killer or is someone going to great lengths to frame her.

   Happy Birthday To Me is probably one of the better slasher films of it's era, but it had the potential of being a classic. To start off with there is no character development, it's hard to tell them apart let care about them.

  Like Sleepaway Camp, the majority of the characters are massively unpleasant. One of Virginia's "friends" even breaks into her house in order to steal her underwear. Don't worry, he's not a pervert, stolen panties apparently bring good luck in motorcycle races. The storyline gets convoluted and there are one too many red herrings for my taste.

   Melissa Sue does well as Virginia, she expresses a great level of vulnerability and is enjoyable to watch. However, the film focuses too much on her neuroses and not enough on the plot. At one point, you wish she'd just spank her inner child and get on with it.

   As I said before, the gem of this movie is the ending. It could've have come off as rushed and tacked on but the phenomenal acting makes up for it. It has a great downer ending that is pretty realistic to the plot. This film is a must see for any slasher fan if you have the patience to sit through the boring parts.