My Valentine's Day is usually spent by myself at home with some alcohol and something to eat. This year was no exception. However, my quest this year was to watch some movies that centered on the holiday itself. HBO on Demand had Valentine's Day up on its channels so that seemed like a natural place to start. A quick glimpse (completely on a whim) at what Fearnet was offering showed the original movie, My Bloody Valentine. My Facebook followers would know this already but, I've never seen the first movie, but I've seen the second movie a couple times. It has been a while though for the slasher film. Let's begin with the one I watched first.
I will readily admit that I fully expected to hate this film. In 2009 the film He's Just Not That Into You hit theaters and other than the winning performance of Ginnifer Goodwin the film was a hot mess. That film featured characters who were either uninteresting, outright annoying, or somehow concurrently both. This film is different, but I can't quite put a finger on why exactly. There was never a point in this film where I ever wanted to stab any of the characters with anything and I enjoyed the intertwining stories which featured a little bit more depth than the average romantic comedy.
From the top I'll say that somewhere along the line Ashton Kutcher became a pretty engaging actor. Perhaps I carried the memory of him being a total douchebag on MTV's Punk'd, but for a long time I just found him annoying as a character. he played every part as some variation on his character Kelso from That 70's Show. Just Married, Guess Who, Killers, and My Boss's Daughter all featured him as a guy who wasn't endearing as a character. You couldn't get behind him in a movie unless it was to push him off a cliff. Here though he reigns himself in quite a bit and it really props the movie up which is good because a lot of what happens hinges on him. He's definitely one of the fence posts from the cast.
The story is basically a bunch of vignettes that run together throughout 18 hours in Los Angeles on Valentine's Day. Reed Bennett (Ashton Kutcher) wakes up on Valentine's Day and proposes to his girlfriend (Jessica Alba). She accepts and this sends Reed out into the day with a huge smile on his face, full of the joy that day should bring. His best friend is Julia Fitzpatrick (Jennifer Garner) who is given a gift by her boyfriend before he leaves for a big heart surgery in another town. Julia goes to the flower shop that Reed owns and they share their big news before heading their separate ways. Later that day Julia's boyfriend (Patrick Dempsey) comes into the flower shop and orders two bouquets of roses- one for Julia and the other for his wife. That puts Reed in the position of having information that he wishes he didn't have. Further complicating manners is that his fiancee has second thoughts and backs out of the marriage leaving him with a broken heart that he wants to spare Julia from.
Meanwhile, there are other stories involving an aging couple caring for their grandson and dealing with their own complications. There are two young couples that are best friends. One couple is preparing to have sex for the first time while the other couple is celebrating their love for each other and promising to wait. In another corner of town, superstar quarterback Sean Jackson (Eric Dane) is contemplating what to do with his career, and hiding a secret desperately from the public.
That story overlaps with his publicist (Jessica Biel) who is completely angry with the holiday, to the point where she sets up a party every year to celebrate being single. She is starting to fall for reporter Kelvin Moore (Jamie Foxx) though but tries to resist those feelings. That story drifts over to Jackson's agent (Queen Latifah) who has a secretary (Anne Hathaway) moonlighting as a phone sex operator and dating the mail clerk (Topher Grace). If that all sounds confusing- add in Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts characters on a plane whose purpose is not really known until the last 10 minutes of the film and you have a plot that is quite a bit more complex than this type of film normally is.
On some level, I think that's why I appreciated this film quite a bit. It has the typical goofy trappings these films normally have- I mean really, NO GUY IN LA wants to date Jessica Biel?- but at other times it is asking the viewer to follow along a little bit. Additionally, there are characters to root for here. The older couple is great and they carry a ton of catharsis in their roles as sages for one of the young teenage girls. The script bogs down a few times and not everyone is really necessary for the film. In fact, Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift's characters seem like they are here for the same purpose of getting young actors into the film. They don't add much which is a shame because I think Lautner is a little underrated as an actor and Swift has the perfect sunny disposition for this type of film.
It's not a flawless film, but it's good enough and sometimes that is all you need in a film.
The 1981 Canadian slasher film, My Bloody Valentine, is a beloved film in the horror movie genre. It is a low-budget film that developed quite a bit of a cult following in the years since it was released. A 3D remake in 2009 opened it up to an entirely new audience which was good for the genre. I know people abhor remakes, but sometimes it is a good thing. This film didn't really need to be remade but it did need to introduced to a new generation fans. Consider the 3D version a nice primer for the original. The film from 1981 gained notoriety as it had to be massively cut down to achieve an R rating from the MPAA. But even without the cut 9 minutes- it is still awesome.
The town of Valentine Bluffs is a mining town in a similar vein to any region in West Virginia or Western Pennsylvania. One day in 1961 a methane gas explosion collapses the mine killing a number of workers inside. The two supervisors had left early for the day to attend the town Valentine's Day dance and failed to make sure everything was safe. When they dig everyone out from the rubble only Harry Warden is alive and he has eaten the other miners to stay that way. He's lost his mind so they commit him to a mental institution. The following year the town is getting ready for the annual dance but Warden shows up, dressed as a miner, and he attacks both foremen, cutting out their hearts and swearing to do it as long as the town holds their dance. The town heeds the warning and cancels the event for the next 20 years.
In 1981, they decide to start the event back up again. However, the organizer of the event is quickly dispatched by Harry Warden and the sheriff tries to shut down the festivities again. A group of young miners and their girlfriends decide this is foolish and hold the celebration anyway attributing Warden to being nothing but a town boogeyman. The body count starts piling up though as Warden shows up dispatching the youngsters in young- and even creative ways.
Warden is in many ways an underrated movie monster. He wears a mining mask and carries his trusty pickaxe. What sets him apart though is that the pickaxe is not always his weapon of choice. One kid gets his head held in boiling water before being chopped to pieces and stuffed into a freezer in a fairly interesting sight gag. More importantly though, Warden doesn't mess around with his victims. He doesn't give chase and it isn't a game. He sees someone and it's pickaxe to the chest. I applaud the urgency with which he kills people.
In the end, a group is trapped in the mine and we find out that it's not really Warden who is the killer but rather a character who has been there all along. It's an interesting ending and one that manages to surprise without being completely out of left field. The film itself indulges in it goriness and presents a villain who is truly terrifying as he attacks with a surgical precision.
Valentine's Day
My Bloody Valentine
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