In honor of this joyous, lovable holiday I decided to review Jamie Blanks' Valentine (2001)!
Valentine begins with a junior high school dance for 6th graders where a dorky looking kid with glasses named Jeremy is going around asking girls to dance. Sucks to be Jeremy because they all say no until he ask Dorothy, a plump girl who looked bored agrees. Somehow the two end up sucking face under the bleachers but then they are discovered by a group of boys. But Dorothy being super embarrassed tells the boys that Jeremy attacked her. I suppose she wanted to seem cooler than Jeremy. The guys attack Jeremy, rip his pants off and he in the gym in his tighty-whiteys while everyone is laughing at him. As a result Jeremy's parents sentence him to reform school for the awful crime he committed. Poor kid. First terrible glasses and haircut and now this....
We fast forward THIRTEEN years later and all the girls who said no to the nerd are now in their 20's and still friends. The friends consisted of Kate; the sweet one, Paige; the hot one, Dorothy; the formally overweight but privileged one, Lily; the character who wasn't quite developed since she's dead pretty early in the film and Shelley; the first one murdered but I suppose the smart one. The first friend gets murdered in a medical school morgue by the hands of a masked killer in a Cupid's mask. As a result, it brings the rest of the girls on the screen and this begins our slasher film! As time goes on each of the friends as well as cops try to figure out who the killer is before he brutally murders them all.
What I loved about the film was the fact that it was a Valentine's day horror because when you think of Valentine's Day, murder is far from the mind! I liked the characters, although it was a bit typical I really enjoyed the flow of the friends. The other thing I liked about the film were the killings! The kills were very creative. However, there were some kills in the film that didn't add up; one of the friends were brutally murdered during a party. She falls down an infinite of stairs into a dumpster at the back of the building and nobody notices until days later. In fact, her body goes completely unnoticed for days because her friends never tried to call her. Another character who I'll leave anonymous gets axed to death in a basement and their body is left there to pretty much rot because no one discovers it.
What I didn't like about the film was how it was no mysterious on who the killer was. I first saw this film back in 2001 and I knew exactly who the killer was less than 30 minutes into the film. Does that make me awesome? Perhaps! Or maybe it was just so predictable. The clues are just RIGHT in your face, it was pretty hard to ignore! If for some reason you couldn't figure out who the murder was until the end of the film perhaps mysteries aren't for you and that's totally acceptable in life.
Like majority of slasher or even monster films, the killer has superhuman speed and agility, well, this film is no exception. The killer appears and disappears when he or she desires!
Overall, Valentine is far from perfect but not a bad film. I know majority of people disliked it but I liked it. If you're a fan of slashers I don't see why you wouldn't want to check this film out!
3½ out 5 queen skulls!
Still not sure if you want to check out VALENTINE? Check out the trailer!
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