A camp-tastic footnote to the late-'70s, early-'80s slasher flick craze.

Happy Birthday to Me eschewed convention long before metatextual stories and increasingly intrepid sequels became the norm for the subgenre.

[J. Lee] Thompson pinned the crime on a different culprit, making for a ridiculously entertaining, if not entirely credible ending, though credibility doesn't appear to have been the goal in a slasher with more comic moments than most.

Although it was released when slasher films were already becoming a dime a dozen, this does enough different to marginally stand out from the pack.