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My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Low-budget horror with some shocks
Review: Along with "April Fool's Day", Paramount is getting its act together and releasing some of their earlier 80's teen horror films on DVD for the first time. As with their Friday the 13th series, I'm going to hedge a bet and say that there will be nothing in the way of extras since Paramount continues to embarass themselves by putting out outrageously priced DVD's that offer no value.
ANYWAY...
This movie is really a by the numbers effort that does have several good sequences. You can tell that the filmakers used what little budget they had to put together some genuinely disturbing scenes. The scene with the hanging chains is a good example.
The premise of this story is a small mining town that has outlawed Valentine's Day after a massacre that occured years before. This year is different though, the town finally is giving in and celebrating Valentine's Day with a dance and everything...which of course means that a killer turns up and starts to do away with various townsfolk.
The main characters are young (but not teenage) miners and their girlfriends...there are subplots about jilted lovers and one angry person in a miners outfit that does some pretty gruesome things with a pickax.
My main quibbles are with the acting which is not great with the leads but somewhat strong in various supporting characters. Too bad they get the ax while the bad actors get to keep breathing. Also...the film was obviously filmed in Canada (aren't all movies?) and the accents by some cast members are unintentionally stereotypical. Another thing...what town puts so much effort into Valentine's Day??
All in all an okay movie. Like I always say, if you haven't seen this movie (or any movie)...DON'T BUY IT UNTIL YOU HAVE! Why waste your money on something you may not like. Trust me, those that like this movie will buy it and I'll getting it for camp value alone.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Watchable
Review: A small town is planning to hold its first ever Valentine's Day dance after so many years. A man in a miner's outfit tries to prevent the town from holding the dance at all costs--even if it means murder. As a result, the town cancels the dance; however, several teens plan to hold a dance of their own near a local mine.

The acting is average, and so is the dialogue. The special effects during the murder scenes are good though. This is an average film that is good for passing time; some people might enjoy this film. I think this could've been a better film if there weren't so many cuts made to it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A classis 80's slasher flick...
Review: Let me start by saying (in case anyone is listening) that, I WANT THIS FLICK on DVD (Unrelated: It blows my mind that so much trash is on DVD today, and "more important" - read: for nostaglia purposes -flicks remain unreleased)!. That said, this flick scared the pants off me in the theatre in the 80's, and it's just as much "fun" to watch as Halloween, Friday the 13th, Texas Cahinsaw, and Elm Street. Some reviewers have really thrown 'Bloody Valentine' out with the trash, but I completely disagree, and stress that it's a true slasher flick that deserves its' place in with the other, more famous, flicks listed above. Come on... How can you argue with: human hearts in candy boxes, a creepy coal mine setting (hats off to the infamous scooby doo mysteries), and a serial killer dressed in his mining best - complete with head lamp and pick axe! A truly recommended 80's gem! I loved this flim!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of the better HALLOWEEN Clones
Review: I recently compiled an Amazon list of the Top 10 Slasher Films Before the 90's. I placed MY BLOODY VALENTINE in the #7 slot. Upon watching it again, I realize that I should've placed it higher. Several other titles were ahead of it, including TERROR TRAIN, PROM NIGHT, and APRIL FOOL'S DAY. Those were all very good examples of the slasher genre, but I don't think any of them rival MY BLOOD VALENTINE for sheer fright, excitement, and novelty.

Start with an interesting setting. Rather than a college campus or high school, we have a bleak, blue-collar mining town. Instead of free-wheeling students or teenagers we have working class twentysomethings pushing thirty. Then add a creepy backstory: a mining accident that entombed and killed all but one of a handful of miners. That survivor, Harry Warden, had to resort to cannibalism until he was rescued, messing him up for eternity and a day. The next year, on Valentine's Day, he returned (in full miner's garb with pick-axe) and brutally murdered the two supervisors who inadverdently caused the accident. He then cut their hearts out and sent it to the dance with a warning never to have another Valentine's dance.

Flash forward to the present. The townspeople are contemplating the first dance in twenty years. Naturally, a series of murders begin, with the victim's hearts cut out. Alarmed, the police decide to cancel the dance. Undeterred, the young folk decide to have a secret party (at the mine's cafeteria). And that's when the real fun begins. Some highlights: a dude's face scalded in a huge pot of boiling water, and his cut-out heart being thrown in with the franks (yum), a girl getting her head impaled on a shower head (no repetition intended), and the local drunk becoming the victim of his own practical joke.

Of course, no film (slasher or otherwise) would be set around Valentine's day without having a romantic supplot, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE is no exception. We're introduced to Axel and T.J., two former friends now duking it out for the affections of Sarah (Lori Hallier, in the film's best performance). This triangle could've been more fully developed, but it was sufficient enought to keep the audience interested. Who will get Sarah? Axel or T.J.? And as the murders multiply (and intensify) the question becomes "What does Harry Warden want?" Is it even him? Or someone else?

Watch this flick and find out. There's a great final act set in the darkened mine, with an extended cat and mouse chase scene between the killer and T.J. and Sarah. This last half-hour rivals anything in HALLOWEEN. Scary last scene, too.

Bottom line? Craftsmanship-wise, MY BLOODY VALENTINE is no HALLOWEEN, but in some ways, it's scarier.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Won't you be mine?
Review: Even in the annals of slasherdom, this movie just isn't very good. Not that I expect slashers to be masterpieces, but there is much lacking here. One of the primary omissions is gore--the film was literally butchered by the MPAA. Not only does this disappoint fans of the genre, but in all honesty, it really fudges the continuity of the film and even manages to mar the ending.

The acting here is strictly amateur hour. The direction is standard, by the numbers slasher fare. The script includes some great unintentional howlers, including the classic line, "We were having a party...and Harry Warden started killing everyone". The town mayor supplies some funny moments as he and the bumbling sheriff try and figure out who is sending bloody valentines (human hearts actually, with [bad] "Roses are red" poems attached).

You'll probably guess the killer pretty early on but keep watching for the murders. Well, most of the cast gets offed as if you couldn't guess. There's also the required old guy who tries to warn the townspeople not to throw another Valentine's Day party. His death is actually pretty funny as he tries to rig an elaborate practical joke and gets axed.

Most of the murders are cut pretty badly so that there is a real absence of blood. There is a beheading toward the end that doesn't look like a beheading because most of the scene was cut--I had to read about it to figure out what the heck happened. Not only that, but the ending is edited so that we can't even see what actually happens to the killer very well. Again, had to read about it.

What we do get is a pretty cool getup for a slasher killer: a miner outfit complete with pickaxe and lighted helmet. There is one very good stalking sequence featuring coal miner suits dropping out of their rigs in the ceiling and scaring a young woman nearly to death before her (heavily edited) death, which is never really clear.

The plot is weak, the characters pretty dumb and the gore compromised by picky censors wanting to tone down horror films at the time in the wake of John Lennon's death and Reagan's near-assasination. Oh well.

I would be seriously surprised if any company actually bothered to put out an uncut deluxe DVD of this film since, quite honestly, it just isn't very good....

Still, for fans of the genre, you might tack on an extra star just because this is a 1981 slasher and you just have to see it because.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Better than most slasher films
Review: Not a bad effort in the slasher film genre. At least some attempt is made to provide a story and we get some reasonable acting. Not only that, but the victims are not complete morons as they so often are in these films! Worth watching if you want to relax in front of some amusing mayhem.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Will You Be My Bloody Valentine???
Review: I found this movie on the boarder line of good and stupid. The plot was stupid. The legened behind the Valentine day killings are stupid. The killer could have killed everyone when they were trapped in the mine. The killings were unoriginal and the the ppl(teens???) were running around and not paying attention to their fello paryers. Ppl were being killed and theire bodies weren't turning up. And ppl weren't stupid enough to lok in the frig!!!! And what kind of stuppid hidding place is a frig!!! Yetit kept you watching and had a good ending(very end). The movie is 98% stupid and 2% ok. You be the jugde.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: SLASHER ODDITY HOLDS UP BETTER THAN MOST
Review: A Valentine's dance that has the whole town excited. A group of 20-somethings (pushin' 30 by the looks of them) who act like they've just turned 16. A sweet, doomed old lady, a sheriff with a comb-over, and a bartender straight out of an episode of Seinfeld. Yes, there are some tacky things about this movie, but they add to the entertainment value of the film. One wonders if some of these movies weren't meant to be funny...? A faceless killer with a macabre calling card and a creepy underground setting for the film's final act offer up some wild imagery and fun scares. Between scares, though, you might want to see who can identify the most slasher movie cliches to pass the time...was there any movie released between 1979 and 1983 that Kevin Williamson didn't pillage? The four stars are meant to be in the context of the slasher genre, by the way. Too bad this isn't out on DVD.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A classic slash-fest!
Review: Back in the early 80s,in the wake of FRIDAY THE 13TH,came this little gem.By it's own standards this creeper really succeeds!If you'd like to check out a cool slasher,here's a good one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Awsome
Review: My Bloody Valentine is the type of story you would expect to hear at a campout. Its a classic, what else can i say?


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