The Burning

In the tradition of such horror pix as Halloween and Friday the 13th, this portrays the gruesome extermination of a group of charmless adolescents by a bogey man. This time it's a hulk of burnt flesh wielding garden shears and terrorising a summer camp; and true to cycle, it's the teenage girls who are the chief victims of both the murderer's savage cuts and the camera's leering gaze. Presented as provocative teasers, they're despatched while the mini-machos laugh, lust, bully, build rafts and, finally become heroes. Suspensewise, it's proficient enough, but familiarity with this sort of stuff can breed contempt.