Valentine Week: Valentine

Day 3 of the madness that is Valentine Week and let me just give you folks a shout out.  I apologize if these blogs are not churning out as quick I normally do but I am devoting most of my attention to my book that I have been working steadily on and hope to get it e-booked soon.   I spare you the details for now but you will recognize its tone and writing rather quickly.  Well our glorious holiday is almost upon us or as most of my single friends like to call it the last of the biggies of the year.  As a single person if you do not throw yourself on your sword or in front of a bus during Christmas, the New Year and Valentine’s Day; you can pretty much handle a zombie apocalypse. 

So instead of that dark note, how about a film that’s trailers made it far too easy for me to figure out who the killer was.   So be a nice girl, don’t pick on the spazzies, gimboids and thickies and be pure of heart…or die horribly.   This is Valentine.

Hummel figurine from Hell!!

Paige Prescott: [sarcastically, to Brian]  You brought me upstairs to show me your spoiler? How sweet!

Our opus opens up with true Slaughter High flashback sequence of a junior high dance in the way back time line of 1988.  I hear those kids actually had to use payphones to call their parents for a ride home.  The dark ages aside, a young bashful lady named Jeremy ask 5 girls to dance separately.  Three just shoot our lad down, one declines politely and another tricks him into dancing with her and then screams sexual assault…because she can.  The boy is humiliated, forced to go to reform school and there will be no Sybil Danning or Wendy O. Williams to show him life’s consequences.  

13 years later, Med student Shelley (Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy, Knocked Up, The Ugly Truth and Life as We Know It) is practicing on a cadaver when she finds a disturbing Valentine card and is chased about moments later by a tall black clad man in a Cupid mask.  An important safety tip, ladies is to not hide in a body bag.  It is morbid and foreshadow. 

Buffy, I am happier with Bones is all. We can still be friends.

After Shelley’s death her friends of yesteryear all receive an equally disturbing Valentine’s card but no one thinks anything of it because it was never mentioned in the news.   Homicide is funny that way to no give out M.O.s the killer might be hoping the media blabs about.  As the girls’ friend Lily (Jessica Cauffiel of Road Trip, Legally Blonde and White Chicks) gets filled full of arrows by the killer…hey the killer is Oliver Queen!    Pushing ahead the cops are actually treating this murder with a bit more diligence than the last one as it looks like a serial killer may be in the works.   The girls get together and somehow string the theory of a boy they tormented 13 fricking years ago is the culprit.   Folks, to be honest if I could actually tally the amount of people I have irked, annoyed or openly mocked over the years I would be a memory god.

The story is a standard scarred and scared boy that nobody loves vowing revenge on those evil girls and blah blah blah.  The effects are sound, the death scenes though elaborate are convincing more or less but the need for a twist ending became a staple of the beginning of 2001 we have been seeing this duplicated over and over now. 

This is more common for the remake slasher films though to make it more edgy and bloody.  Bloody, yes.  Edgy, nope.   While these films attempt to ratchet up the tension they seem to miss the point which is deliver a film of interest, suspense, thrills and chills. 

Valentine is not by any means a gory film, the level of violence is not over the top and done with a level of discretion.  Still for what was a recycled idea it tried to make people jump out of their seats but relied far too much on jump scares, dramatic pauses in dialogue and conclusions that were on whole, pretty far fetched.   Not a bad film but not exactly wowing me at the same time.

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART!!!!  Must be a Bon Jovi fan.