[2] He and fellow director Kevin Meyer dropped out of USC after his third year to finish their American Civil War drama Divided We Fall, which premiered in 1982 and won some acclaim at festivals around the world.

For his second feature film, alternately titled From a Whisper to a Scream or The Offspring, Burr approached veteran horror actor Vincent Price.

The film was poorly received, and Burr balked at studio executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein's post-production re-shoots with another director.

[3] Still, Burr was subsequently contacted by New Line Cinema with an offer to direct the second sequel to Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre after the studio's first choices—including directors Jonathan Betuel and Peter Jackson—dropped out.

Throughout his career, Burr has expressed frustration over studio interference, budget limitations, and other unfortunate circumstances, leading him to claim in an interview in 2012 that there were only three films which he considered to be his own: From a Whisper to a Scream, 1992's Eddie Presley, and 2004's Straight into Darkness.