10 Biggest WTF Moments In Slasher Movies
4. The Burning (1981) - Cropsy Goes Rafting
A horrific diamond in the rough, The Burning is an oft-forgotten masterpiece of the slasher subgenre. Despite many contemporary critics deriding the movie as little more than a knock-off of the Friday the 13th series, Tony Maylam's 1981 offering has gone on to attain cult classic status as a gore-soaked hidden gem.
The Burning follows the murderous exploits of Cropsy, a caretaker who was hideously burned in a prank gone wrong and presumed dead. Cropsy soon returns to wreak bloody havoc on the nearby Camp Stonewater, where he goes on to become the perpetrator of arguably the most WTF-worthy massacre that horror audiences of the time had ever witnessed.
After canoes go missing from Stonewater, several camp members improvise a raft and paddle off in search of them. They soon discover one of the missing canoes, only for a homicidal Cropsy to suddenly emerge from the boat and butcher them all - using nothing but a pair of pruning shears. Legendary horror prosthetics artist Tom Savini's mastery is on full display as severed fingers go flying and blood spurts from a litany of nauseating wounds, against the backdrop of the doomed characters' desperate screams.
Contemporary viewers may snigger, but at the time of The Burning's release, this was about as harrowingly violent as anything that had ever been seen on screen.