The Birthday - Arrow Video 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

"I'm speechless. I am bereft of utterances."
-Kyle Barker, Living Single 

It's not often I'm left grasping at straws about what to say about a movie. I just sit at a keyboard and plug away. How did this movie make me feel? How did it intend to make me feel? Was it successful? Here I am, reviewing the long-delayed, nearly-lost film, The Birthday, starring Corey Feldman and... I guess I'll just take it from the top.

Feldman plays Norman Forrester, a stammering, awkward mess of a man, with a vocal style that's something like Peter Falk by way of Jerry Lewis (Columbo meets the Nutty Professor), a nasally, heavily accented parody of a New Yorker that feels like something born of a fever dream. Erica Prior plays his girlfriend, Alison. On the night of her father's birthday, in 1987, set in a spooky hotel owned by Alison and her rich family, Norman falls into a world of intrigue, horror, and Lovecraftian cults. 

The evening begins normally, if awkwardly. Norman, an uncomfortable, nervous person, sweats and bumbles his way through the festivities. He mumbles, murmurs, and makes a fool of himself at every turn. His girlfriend doesn't respect him, and her family thinks even less of him. At the halfway point, one hour into a movie that has no business being two hours, the tone shifts toward the horrific. This is also the point where the movie becomes much more interesting. Although it still struggles to maintain interest, it's more successful than the first half, as its manic energy and stilted performance become part of a coherent pastiche. It becomes a near-Lynchian single-location melodrama, with the end of the world looming as waiters who are enforcers for a doomsday cult enact a plan to birth a god.

Does this build to anything meaningful? Not especially. The first half is so lifeless, so irritating, and boring that the second half never stands a chance. Worse yet, the climax that it all builds up to is unearned pathos at best, and eye-rollingly misogynistic at worst. It's a real, "I told you so!" moment, with a character who's spent the entire film never rising above caricature, with no character ever deemed necessary to embody. 

To the cast's credit, they all seem to understand the assignment and give it their all; it's the screenplay that constantly does them dirty. They have fun with the material, which begins sympathetically (who can't relate to an evening being stuck at a party you don't want to be at?) and ends as an exaggeration on those fears of rejection and social awkwardness. Corey Feldman's performance is the odd man out here, with a voice performance that is so wrongheaded that whenever he speaks, the illusion of story comes crashing down all around him. I like Feldman as an actor, but following this character for a whopping two hours felt like an endurance test.

The Birthday famously remained unreleased for twenty years after debuting at a number of film festivals in 2004. It wasn't until 2024 that it received a limited theatrical run from Drafthouse Films. As a midnight movie, it has its moments. It feels tailor-made to watch with a crowd, the sea of audience-members a few beers deep. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Birthday blows out its candles on a single-disc 4K UHD Blu-ray release. For this release, we were issued a review check disc without final materials, but the final retail product should arrive housed in a standard case, with a removable slipcover and booklet. The case is supposed to have reversible artwork options, both of which are commissioned specifically for this release. The interior booklet features an essay on the film by Bryan Reesman.

The Birthday takes place all within the confines of a single location, that of an older, creepier, luxury hotel. The set mocked up represents multiple floors, re-dressed in various stages of grandeur or distress, depending on the floor and on when it occurs during the film. The set design on the film is ingenious and fun, and I'm a sucker for single-location stories. Unax Mendía shot The Birthday on 35mm film, and for its debut on 4K UHD Blu-ray, Arrow has restored it from its original film negative. Results are splendid. It looks terrific. The reds and golds of the set design pop without oversaturation. Skin tones look healthy and varied. And fine details in the meticulously crafted sets and costuming are apparent throughout. The video presentation has a fine layer of organic film grain throughout.

Viewers are treated to a pretty clever 5.1 surround sound mix, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. The first half of the film is a very front-heavy presentation, almost like a glorified stereo mix, and when effects are too loud to contain, it boils over into the rear of the soundstage, echoing through the satellite speakers. The second half feels much more like a classic surround sound mix, where instead of swelling and overflowing to the rears, the musical score more organically envelops the listener and engages them from the start. More obvious effects, too, ping the rear speakers, like the clattering commotion of large-scale destruction.

The Birthday would make anyone happy on their birthday when it comes to special features. There's a feature-length audio commentary, an interview, Q&A and in-depth analysis of a scene, along with archival trailers.

• Audio Commentary - Star Corey Feldman and co-writer/director Eugenio Mira
• The Shape of a Miracle (HD 17:17) - A brand new interview with Mira, shot exclusively for this release
• Pathology (HD 16:42) - An in-depth breakdown of a scene from the film by Mira, featuring archival behind-the-scenes footage, storyboards and rushes
• 2024 Q & A (HD 9:57) - With Feldman and Mira from the film's 20th anniversary screening at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas
• Original Trailer 
• 20th Anniversary Trailer 
• Image Gallery

I try to be kind to unsuccessful movies whose failing may be that they were just too ambitious, and that ambition exceeded technical skill and budget. To that end, The Birthday is an interesting experiment to watch, which doesn't always land. But it is also an irritating, overlong, frustrating experience in those moments where it doesn't work. From boredom and doldrums to nails on a chalkboard, The Birthday can be a tough watch--and not because of difficult content that asks uncomfortable questions, but because it's an obnoxious assault on the senses. When it works, it hints at what could have been. For a curiosity film unseen for decades, lovingly restored by Arrow Video, The Birthday is at least Worth a Look.