Directed by: George Mihalka
Story by: Stephen Miller
Screenplay by: John Beaird
Music by: Paul Zaza
Starring: Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier, Neil Affleck, Keith Knight, Alf Humphreys, Leighann Robinson, Helene Udy
STORY
On Valentine’s Day, a group of miners are trapped during a cave-in after their foremen leave early to attend a dance. Only one comes out alive, weeks later, driven made after having had to eat the bodies of his co-workers to stay alive. One year later, he escapes from the sanatorium and kills the foremen, cutting out their hearts and warning that the same would happen again should a Valentine’s dance ever take place in town again.
Twenty years later, the story has become little more than a campfire tale. Given that the town’s name is Valentine Bluffs, even those residents old enough to remember the massacre think it’s silly not to have a Valentine’s dance again, especially as nothing has been heard of the killer since. Inevitably, the killings start once the date approaches, and the police work to find the man responsible.
OPINION
My Bloody Valentine is a small sleeper hit from early in the Friday The 13th-inspired slasher craze of the early 80s. It’s low-key with a few nicely inventive scare and gore scenes. It’s obviously low budget, but numerous intriguing touches (including the killer’s use of a gas mask and large heart-shaped chocolate boxes containing offal and riddles) keep it ticking over.
The characters are fairly believable as residents of a small mining town, and for once the central character conflict (a love triangle involving a guy who left town for the big city) isn’t so tiresome that you wish for the gore to come along. When it does happen, the effects are decent and the stakes are raised quite nicely until the inevitably predictable “shock” reveal of the killer’s identity. While not generally considered among the top echelons of the slasher genre, it’s a decent enough entry. Supposedly, the new region 1 DVD contains some extra gore that was originally cut, but I’ve yet to see it yet…
This is the first movie I’m reviewing here to have been remade in the recent craze for remaking 80s horror movies, and for once I’m actually looking forward to the remake. It’s in 3D, no less, and hopefully I will get to check it out (I currently live in the south of Spain, in an area neither renowned for projection technology nor showing films in English!). I’ll post a review here when I finally manage to see it.
Rating: 
