« Killer Nun (1978) | Home | Neither The Sea Nor The Sand (1972) »
My Bloody Valentine (1981)
By lngway2go | August 21, 2007
Director: George Mihalka.
20 years after a brutal spate of murders in a small mining community, the town begins to put the past behind them and they decide to hold the first Valentine Days party since the murders occurred. If you’ve never seen a slasher movie you will be shocked and amazed to discover that things just aren’t as simple as that, while the rest of us emit a heavy sigh and play the rest of the movie out in our heads.
The culprit of the 20 year old crime is locked up in the local mental ward, so all should be safe, right? Well, no. When a human heart ends up as a valentine gift for the local constabulary, well, of course they think the maniac has escaped since the MO is the same. It seems the blood thirsty killer is a prude, and the idea of anyone partying without him is just more than he can take.
As the bodies begin to pile up the sheriff is adamant that no one should know what is happening, otherwise there’d be an unwarranted panic, I assume. But they are scared of what the future might hold, because with each body the killers threats of more murders should the party go ahead begin to carry some weight. Reluctantly the party is canceled but the kids in town are having none of it.
This is where the movie starts to get slick! Oh, we didn’t see this coming did we? Such originality is unparalleled. Yes, the kids decide they’ll have their party down in the mine shaft, screw the fuddy duddies who just want to spoil their fun. And here’s the shocker, better take a seat, guess who decided to turn up in the mine shaft? Yeah, by this point we don’t really care, if we are even paying attention anymore. The murders are about as uninspired as the plot, and since the murders are normally THE plot in slasher films there isn’t much to recommend. I don’t care if they moved the finale into a mine shaft, sure I doubt anyone else did it up till then, but really…I feel shafted!
Halloween (1978) is a pretty boring movie, why on earth did they think we needed a clone of it? Like Halloween, My Bloody Valentine has a legion of loyal fans. It gained some notoriety over the years as it was only available in a heavily cut form, but now Paramount have released a fully uncut version, in all it’s bloody glory.
My Bloody Valentine falls into the same trap as many slasher films, and it’s a shame because there are some good qualities to it. The acting isn’t horrendous, it sure isn’t mainstream quality, but it’s nothing to complain about for a genre picture. The direction and construction of the film has much to commend, Paramounts release looks really nice for a film of this period, the colours are very rich and vibrant. But it lacks any true inspiration or originality, and that, which is a problem of many slasher films, is really it’s undoing.
If slasher films are your ilk, this one would be high up on your list of must sees, but if you are like me, just tired of this stuff, we’d rather be watching Jess Franco at his worst. That’s a scary thought!
Topics: Canadian Horror, Slasher Films |