Valentine Week: My Bloody Valentine

Welcome back my loyal readers to Day 2 of Valentine Week.  Yesterday we had to tackle a less than savory remake of a less than noteworthy 80’s slasher but guess what??  Nothing? Not even gonna try.  Fine, well we are going to endure the original now.  The one of the worst things to hail from Canada this side of Final Sacrifice and Justin Beiber, this film is cheesier than a Quattro formaggio pizza and we get to experience it together.  I know you are counting yourselves lucky in this but hang on.  This is My Bloody Valentine a.k.a. The Secret.

What does cannon fodder mean?

Mayor Hanniger: (reads card out loud) From the spoiler comes a warning, filled with bloody good- cheer, remember what happened as the 14^th draws- near!

Yes there is a mighty large shindig, possibly a hootenanny to happen Valentine’s Day in the mining town of Valentine Bluffs, Nova Scotia…you get the feeling that cable modems, coffee shops and stimulating conversation is a long way away from them… Ahem back to the astounding story,  this will be the first Valentine’s Day party in over 20 years as the crappy flashback sequence will tell you an accident occurred and men because security for the mine was partying as well.   Methane built up and no one there to check the levels so one good spark and BABOOM!   The sole surviving miner Harry Warden (Stuntman/actor Peter Cowper of Oh Heavenly Dog and My Bloody Valentine) had to survive on the meat of his former coworkers or you know, eat a Hot Pocket so better to resort to cannibalism at that point.   A whole year later Harry found his two supervisors, killed them both with a pickaxe, tore their hearts out and left them in Valentine candy boxes as a warning to the town that if another Valentine dance occurs, he will go on a bloody rampage.     Warden is caught and shacked up in the wacko basket so the younger generations deem him nothing more than a ghost story. 

So the town tries to rise from the ashes of this insanity and get their Valentine’s dance groove on.   The Mayor (Larry Reynolds of When Michael Calls, PCU and Blown Away) and Sheriff Jake Newby [I swear I did not just make that name up] (Voice actor Don Francks of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Monster Force, X-Men, and Journey to the Center of the Earth) look at a box of chocolates sent to the mayor with a note with poor penmanship and a severed human heart as a warning about the impeding dance.

I sense a dirty cavern joke here somewhere.

Desperate to calm the fears of the Mayor and himself, Newby (snicker) calls the asylum to find out they have no records of Warden, his known whereabouts or what’s become of him… A loony man that butchered his bosses is somehow missing and they didn’t think to call the town and warn ANYBODY??!!!!   In this dinky, little town; the local sheriff has no idea of a get together involving booze, sex and drugs??  Oh, c’mon!   You know all these kids by face and name, man.  You rousted them out of kegger nights and confiscated their pot and you have no clue where they are setting up a drinking and debauchery binder?? They can’t afford a hotel and the owner would just narc on them ASAP so of course the mine!!!  Give me your badge, you chucklehead!!

Frankly I recognized only one cast member and that was Helene Udy because she was a main character on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as frontier town Colorado Springs’ premier prostitute.  Yes when you date, you get to watch more shows and films than you ever considered viewing in the first place.

Moving along to the technical aspect of the movie, I found the gore effects via blood and prosthetics to be well done.  Researching the FX crew I found a family name that sticks out in FX legend.   I speak of the Burmans.  Ellis, the father cut his teeth in the biz doing Lon Chaney Jr.’s transformation to the Wolf Man.   His brother Thomas is known for his makeup works on Die Hard 2, Grey’s Anatomy and Nip/Tuck.   Thomas’s son Barney is one of the leading TV and Movie SFX makeup artists for shows and films like Star Trek III: Search for Spock, Brain Dead, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Galaxy Quest, Planet of the Apes and Men in Black II.   This is literally the wildest family tradition.   In this household you hear a father say, “The hell you are becoming a doctor!  Now go make realistic vomit and gross out your little sister right now, young man!”

 Last note was the MPAA, made Paramount cut 9 minutes out of the film because it was FAR TOO GRAPHIC!!!   Screen tests proved that people pooped their pants on this so Paramount refused to make an unrated version for DVD viewers.  Lion’s Gate having no qualms about blood splatters or obligatory breast shots bought the rights to the film and released an unrated version of My Bloody Valentine around 2009 to co-inside with the release of the remake.   Smart marketing, fellas.

Billy, you're hurting me!  Billy?