Be My Valentine

Lets see if I can finish this review this time shall we? I started it earlier today but had to turn the computer off before I could save it. Just how my luck runs I tells ya. I once caught today's movie on cable once but at the time it was on I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the tv so I only watched a little bit of it and most of the ending. It was good enough that I was hoping to catch it on again and never did. Once I found the movie on Netflix, I had to have it! At long last I got to watch this movie from start to finish, like it is meant to be watched!

My Bloody Valentine came out in the heyday of slasher movies. Released in 1981, it followed the success of Halloween and Friday The 13th. It is often acussed of being a rip off of those two movies but I have to disagree. There is a mostly quiet killer as in the other two movies but the story and setting set it apart somewhat from those that came before. My Bloody Valentine takes place in Valentine's Bluff, a mining town. The town is getting ready for its Valentine dance but there is a problem. Someone doesn't want the dance to take place. 20 years before, a group of minors were traped in a cave in due to an explosion. The supervisors on duety skiped out to attend the dance, they could have stoped the explosion from happening. 5 weeks later they find the traped miners. Only one, Harry Warden, remained alive. He had been eating his fellow miners and was stark raving mad. A year later he returned to Valentine's Bluff and killed the two that was resposible and gave a warning. If the town ever held the dance again, he would return and kill more people.

The mayor decided that 20 years was long enough and decided to throw the dance once again. Two days before the dance, he gets a bloody heart in a candy box, with a warning about the dance. The next day (Friday the 13th actually), after another murder, the mayor decides to cancle the dance. A group of miners, and their girlfriends and wives, decide to have their own little party anyways. This doesn't please Harry to well. But, is Harry the killer? Or is someone else doing the killings now?

If there is one thing that is serverly lacking in this movie, it's effects. From what I have been reading, My Bloody Valentine came under the watchful eye of the movie ratings people and they had to trim at least 9 minutes from the film in order to keep an R rating. Because of this, almost all the murders take place off screen and we see very little of the after effects. This being a slasher movie, one would expect some blood and gore but that has mostly been cut out here. It isn't often that I feel a movie would be better with some effects added but this has to be one of those movies. The killer looks very cool. The mining outfit, mask and all, really makes him look very creepy. One of the best looking killers I thought.

The cast did a nice job. The acting felt a little over the top at times, but not bad enough to take away from the performance to much. There is a nice little side plot that turns out to be a love triangle. T.J. (Paul Kelman) left town suddenly and wasn't able to make it on his own so now he is back. His ex, Sarah (Lori Hallier) is now with T.J.'s best friend Axel (Neil Affleck). That is something that set this one apart some. We are only in this town for three days but we see their lives. We see where they work, what they do after work. We get to know them a little better than most slasher movies allow.

As much as I loved this movie, I just felt it was missing a little something. That something being gore. There is a great setting, the final showdown happens in the mind itself which is poorly lighted so adds a lot to what is happening. A decent cast and a decent plot. I don't mind if there isn't much as far as effects go but My Bloody Valentine offers almost zero for effects. The heart in the box was very nice. A lady found in a drier was also very nice but it just wasn't enough for me. Hopefully there will be a uncut version of this movie someday and I can judge it again. As it stands now, I will suggested to all my horror fans that like slasher because this is truely one of the better ones out there. Don't let my rating fool you, I just think if it had just a little more gore, I would have loved this one instead of just liking it.
3 out of 5 Breaking my bloody heart