Horrorble Holidays

# 9 My Bloody Valentine

Please be Mine. A bone to Pick, and an Ax to grind.

My Bloody Valentine (1981) came down the mine shaft and off the heels of holiday horror proto-slasher giants like Halloween (1978) and fellow Canadian produced Black Christmas (1976).

The slasher genre was still years away from over saturation. After Friday the 13th the year before, slashers had taken over the horror industry as the most lucrative sub genre. Canada had a proven track record of well made horror with the aforementioned Black Christmas, Cronenberg’s Shivers, Rabid, and The Brood, not to mention The Changling, Prom Night, and Terror Train.

Directed by George Milhaud, My Bloody Valentine takes place in the small Canadian mining town of Valentine Bluffs. In 1961 a terrible accident happens the night of the town’s annual Valentine dance. A section of the mine collapsed due to over site trapping five men for days. By the time they were rescued all the miners were dead except one. The rescue team found Harry, the sole survivor, having lost his mind and resorting to cannibalism to survive. He was hospitalized and one year later returned in his miner’s helmet, mask, and uniform armed with a pick ax to take out those he deems responsible before disappearing. Harry left a note warning the town to not have another Valentine’s Day dance or he would come back to seek revenge again.

Twenty years later the town has decided (unwisely) to rekindle the community tradition and the plot revolves around a group of twenty something miners, their girlfriends, and the sheriff trying to protect the town and solve the mystery after Harry returns continuing his murder spree. Once the dance is cancelled the group of young people decide to secretly have a party at the mine which is finally narrowed down to our main final girl Sarah (Lori Hallier) and the two guys who both love her, Axel (Neil Affleck) and Tom (Paul Kelman), battling Harry for survival while the sheriff (Don Francks) and a posse of town people rush in to assist.

For a movie called My Bloody Valentine it’s actually fairly bloodless. Despite what Cronenberg was able to get away with in the 1970’s, MBV is tame compared to its slasher siblings released around the same time due to restrictions and censorship placed on it by the studio. This itself is not inherently negative but My Bloody Valentine apes many of the same story beats as Halloween less successfully.

The killer loses his mind and murders people on a holiday. The killer may have escaped from the mental hospital he was supposed to be locked up in for the last twenty years. The killer returns to continue the crimes on the night of the holiday. We have a sheriff trying to keep the town safe while also trying to stop Harry. MBV also rips on Friday the 13th in that there is an underlying mystery and twist that I won’t spoil here but it doesn’t quite work as well as Jason’s mom being the killer. Oh shit. Apologies if you haven’t seen Friday the 13th yet. I mean it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not like I told you Bruce Willis is really a ghost at the end of The Sixth Sense and ruined that twi..shiiiiiiit what is wrong with me? So, so sorry.

With the similarities MBV shares with these better movies it lacks the measured build up of tension that Carpenter created flawlessly in Halloween or the groundbreaking gore effects for each kill in Friday the 13th pioneered by Tom Savini. The cast of characters never really come together as an interesting ensemble at any point and our final girl Sarah doesn’t get a one on one moment to shine with the Harry at the end. Not a complaint as much as an observation but there is also very little cursing and zero nudity which is even more rare for an 80’s slasher.

My Bloody Valentine does have some narrative strengths that quickly became a trope such as a crusty old harbinger of doom in the local bar warning everyone to pay heed to Harry’s warning or they’ll be next. He was the unlucky guy who found Harry eating his other dead coworkers in the mine that night. The sheriff continues the tradition of weathered, small town law man in over his head against an unstoppable killer like Sheriff Bracket in Halloween 1 and 2 and John Saxon in Black Christmas and later Nightmare on Elm Street.

There is also a novel kill involving the mayor finding the woman who oversees the Valentine Dance and owner of the laundry mat in a dryer burnt to a crisp. The laundry mat and color design is shot beautifully leading up to the killer taking her out. Harry does have one literal and gross calling card in that he will leave candy boxes with the victim’s heart and a threatening Valentine card inside.

As much as I appreciate the unique costume Harry wears to conceal himself he never has the opportunity to distinguish himself as a real character with nuanced and memorable actions in the way Michael Myers or Jason Vorheese moves and speaks with their bodies. No shots or scenes linger on the killer for more than a second or two beyond the fantastically weird opening scene that explains nothing about how that scenario came to be. Outside of this every kill is quickly and poorly edited.

I enjoyed My Bloody Valentine overall and it’s probably the quintessential Valentine’s Day horror movie that at least any horror fan needs to add to their watch list around the holiday. But if MBV isn’t going to reinvent the wheel it at least needs to make sure the wheel is strong and propulsive enough to carry a story that can set itself apart from Halloween and Black Christmas. Perfect holiday horror movies. Or it needs to be so squeaky and misshapen that it risks running off the tracks completely into a fascinatingly uncanny valley and fleshing out the killers and teenagers to invest you in the story like Sleepaway Camp, Silent Night Deadly Night or Slumber Party Massacre 1 and 2.

Unfortunately My Bloody Valentine takes the middle track failing to achieve a course to iconic slasher greatness or barreling off the lane into what the fuck am I watching infamy. We are only left holding a red and white box filled with the heart of a movie that had the potential to be more but was forced to spin its wheels slowly down hill into the quiet, prosaic darkness as we remember that thankfully Halloween is only eight more months away.

Happy Valentines Day Horrorbles!