My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Someone out there hates Valentine’s Day as much as forgetful husbands. He hates it so much, in fact, that the very thought of people celebrating it makes him just want to kill someone!

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Miner sex! Not minor, you sicko, miner. This guy’s going deep into more than one tunnel tonight!
• So I guess this girl and her horrible heart tat on her tit are turned on by mining equipment?
• The dude impales her. In the murder way.
• This other group of miners are having way to much fun in the communal shower.
• The town is named Valentine Bluffs. Looks lovely.
• I guess if you want some excellent tourism once a year, you should name your town after a holiday. Like Yom Kippur, Alabama.
• The mayor gets a literal heart box. Apparently there’s been a murder in this town before at a previous Valentine’s Day dance by a pyscho named Harry, who got trapped in the mine while everyone was cha-cha-ing at a Valentine’s Day party.
• If this bartender thinks the town is so cursed and awful why the fuck does he still live there?

• I think Hollis, the big dude with the awesome mustache, was one of the weird assassins in Diamonds are Forever. [checks] Nope, he was the fat kid from Meatballs.

  

  It’s Valen-time in Hollis, Queens.
• “Those were terrible murders,” says the coroner. As opposed to those pleasant murders.
• I guess in 1980 they didn’t really know better but clearly the guy they’re building up to be the killer isn’t actually going to be the killer.
• For a movie called My Bloody Valentine it isn’t very bloody.
• Oh it’s Friday the 13th. Literally.

• The dryers in the laundromat just run indefinitely?

  

  Maybe you’re using the wrong fabric softener.
• CANCEL THE DANCEL!
• Really, why do these people give so much of a shit about a dance? What is this fucking Footloose? Maybe they could just hold the dance outside of the city limits, like fucking Footloose. I’m with the killer on this one.
  Fuck dances.
• I thought this killer’s whole thing was to kill people during the dance, but he’s killing people days before.
• “Instead of a Valentine’s dance, let’s have a Valentine’s party!” You’re in a fucking bar right now and you go to this same bar every night! What’s the difference?

• Party in the mine? There’s a pool table there? YOU’RE IN A BAR RIGHT NOW! Just party now and ball tomorrow.

  

  Roses are red
  Miners are lazy
  Seeing you dance
  Makes me act crazy

• The crazy bartender sets a trap to surprise someone, but there’s no way it wouldn’t kill whoever sprang it. Uh, good one?
• So they’re holding the party. It’s exactly the same thing they were doing last night at the bar.
• I don’t think Harry is going to accept this party as a technicality.
• So what constitutes a party in the killer’s eyes? If there were six people hanging in one house would he consider that a party?
•  Ohhhh these two are making it and he just went for beers. NEVER GOOD.
• A lot of these dudes dress really foofy.
• A group goes down into the mine. I’m sure nothing bad will happen.
• “Harry Warden is killing everyone!” Ok, there are like 30 of you. Nobody has a gun?
• How the fuck did the killer get that guys corpse all the way up the mine shaft already?
• Just a horrible climactic fight.

Is It Actually Scary: Maybe in 1981 if you were still getting used to the slasher concept, but every kill and surprise moment is telegraphed.

How Much Gore: Depends on which version you’re watching. In the theatrical version, it’s a small to medium amount. In the extended cut the gore is, for lack of a better word, extensive.

Best Scene: Shower the people you love with love. (death spoiler)

Worst Scene: The end is basically the killer amputating his own arm and disappearing into the mine. Ok, so either nobody goes after him, and he starves to death, or the townsfolk get a bunch of guns and hunt his ass down. He’s in a mine, it’s not like he got away. (spoiler)

Any Nudity: NONE! And this is an ’80s slasher movie set around the most sexy of all days!

Overall: Very good, underrated slasher pic. Some consider it a classic, and possibly the best slasher movie ever, but I wouldn’t go that far overboard. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as great as Halloween, or even The Burning. But it is good, and if you haven’t seen it and are a fan of the genre you definitely should. HOWEVER, and I can’t stress this enough, make sure you watch the extended cut. The DVD I watched had a choice between watching the theatrical version or the extended cut, and I opted for the theatrical version because generally extended cuts mean just some more useless dialogue or boring scenes that weren’t necessary, which is why they’re cut out in the first place. So during my viewing I was confused as to why the movie wasn’t gory and why it seemed to cut away sloppily during the kill scenes. So after I finished I checked out the deleted scenes, which were mostly expanded, gorier versions of the kills that were so much better and more entertaining. For instance, in one kill in the theatrical version, the killer puts his pickaxe through a guy’s head, and it cuts away without showing any impact, then he drags his body away. In the deleted part, we actually see the pickaxe gore the guy under his chin and come out of his eye socket. That’s just a million times better and pretty much every kill in the movie has an expanded version, and taken cumulatively they really amp the whole viewing experience up a few notches. Plus, if you watch the extended version with your squeeze, you’re 6 times more likely to get laid, whether it’s Valentine’s Day or not.

Score: 7 hearts in a box (out of 10)