Back in the early 80s, the increasing popularity of slasher films like Halloween and Friday the 13th was hard to ignore and the impact it was having on the industry was undeniable, with a slew of menacing figures stalking your local cinemas, even those up in the Great White North took notice of this phenomenon, which led to one of my personal favourites, My Bloody Valentine.
Like any proper slasher movie, My Bloody Valentine gives us a horrifying backstory for our killer, which deals with two mining supervisors who ended up leaving several miners trapped in the mines while they attended the Valentine’s Day dance. There was but a lone survivor, Harry Warden (Peter Cowper), and he was forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, then went insane and a year later he returned to murder the two supervisors who left him and his mates to die. The legend states that he vowed further attacks if the Valentine's Day Dance ever occurred again. One has to admit that’s a pretty damn good set-up for a horror film, and the movie does not fail to deliver on that premise, but what makes this film stand out from its slasher brethren is that the cast of characters we follow into the dark bowels of terror are fully developed and interesting people, they aren’t just one-dimensional cut-outs being sent to the meat grinder.
This is not to say that most of them don’t die horribly.
Aside from the “Legend of Harry Warden” to provide the film with some heightened drama we also have a love triangle consisting of T.J. Hanniger (Paul Kelman), a young man who had left his home town to "make it big" out west but now finds himself back home, a bitter failure, and to add insult to injury his old girlfriend Sarah Mercer (Lori Hallier) is now dating his old high school pal Axel Palmer (Neil Affleck). To say Hanniger wants her back would be quite the understatement, which makes him a nice suspect when the killings start. Of course, this film isn’t about broken hearts, unless it’s via a pickaxe through the left ventricle, and before you can say “Harry’s back” bodies start piling up and the blood really begins to flow. Things kick into gear when the Mayor (Larry Reynolds) receives an anonymous box of Valentine chocolates that contains a human heart instead of candy, and when the woman in charge of setting up the first Valentine’s Day dance in twenty years is found dead he’s quick to order the party cancelled.
My bloody Valentine, indeed.
I like the fact that we don’t get a carbon copy of the Mayor from Jaws, so there is no moment where the Mayor state “We must keep the dance on, the town’s economy is at stake” instead we have police Chief Jake Newby (Don Francks) cancelling the dance but then stupidly refusing to give the reason why. I guess he doesn’t want a panic on the 4th of July either. The cover-up of Harry Warden’s possible return results in the town's youngsters deciding to hold their own party, and where should such a party take place? Why, at the mine, of course. Now, if you think the woods at night are scary they’ve got nothing on the dark and dank claustrophobia-inducing mine in this film.
“Good evening, I will be your tour guide.”
Stray Observations:
• The scene with the miners finishing work and joyfully heading into town to drink had me wondering if I’d put in The Deer Hunter by mistake.
• This movie is so Canadian it could double as a commercial for Moosehead Beer.
• A couple of the kills actually take place on Friday the 13th making this a good double with film Friday the 13th.
• The idea of an idiot prankster faking a bloody attack would later appear in Friday the 13th Pt 3.
• This town’s bartender provides us with a “Crazy Ralph” who warns of the impending carnage.
• Valentine Bluffs is the kind of town where you can walk around in full mining gear, while carrying a box of candy, and no one will even notice.
• This film is also the key reason I don’t go to the laundromat.
Who knew dryers had a broiled meat setting?
It should be noted that not only does My Bloody Valentine provide viewers with a collection of gruesome kills, on par with anything from Hollywood, – thanks to the work of imported make-up man Thomas R. Burman – but even though the MPAA brutally cut most of them they’ve survived and been restored, unlike the footage from the Friday the 13th franchise, which if survived at all looks like it was stored at the bottom of a hamster cage. As in more slasher films, things are a little rough around the edges when it comes to clichés as they are fairly abundant in this outing – the amount of times these idiots split up is simply staggering – but this doesn’t stop My Bloody Valentine from being an excellent example of a genre and can be incredibly fun and entertaining if you enter in the right frame of mine.
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