THE MOVIE

Review by Tim M

The slasher movie is like the bastard son of the thriller and the horror movie. Scream was responsible for rejuvenating the industry in 1996, and very soon we found ourselves in the middle of a bunch of new, “hip,” films. These films, which included Urban Legend, the Scream sequels, and I Know What You Did Last Summer were aimed squarely at teens, just like slashers once were, in their heyday during the 1980’s.

All of these films, while paying tribute to older horror movies, were in their own way “smart” (even if they weren’t any good). However, as time went on, and the sudden mid90s spurt died down a bit, the slashers that began to come out were just rehashing older stories, with even worse acting that actually insult the viewer’s intelligence.

Valentine is such a film.

Best friends since school, Kate, Paige, Dorothy, Lily and Shelly seemingly have it all – glamorous lives, hot bodies, great careers and men falling all over them. But as Valentine’s day approaches, they each receive a mysterious card with a sinister message – “you’re next”. And then, one by one, they start to disappear in horrific circumstances. Who has chosen them to die? And why? Just pray you don’t meet your secret Valentine on February 14.

Well THAT’s 92 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Valentine starts off innocently enough, unless you’ve seen Prom Night, or Terror Train, or any of those slashers, where an innocent kid is tormented at the start. Flash forward a few years, and all the girls are really hot and we get the typical opening kill.

Ah, the opening kill. Let me ask you this, makers of Valentine, you throw this character out there, with 3 minutes of warm up to the audience, and you expect US to CARE about them? Who are you to instill in us the notion that we’re supposed to be scared by this? It’s not just the opening character, it’s all of them. We don’t care a lick for any of them. I even had trouble telling them apart at one stage cause most of the girls look the same.

None of the girls are particularly likeable, even to the male audience who would only have been interested anyway if they showed some skin, and there is none of that here, even WITH Denise Richards involved. But nudity aside, we the audience are simply not enthralled enough in the story to care about five obnoxious, dare I say, bitches.

It’s fairly predictable fare here and when you can call the lines 20 seconds before they are spoken, you know that the movie is bad. There are, however, some twists in the story, and for this I give the filmmakers credit, but there are SO MANY red herrings that it’s hard to decipher who is who or what is what or when is where or how is why is what is when is where. Confused? You will be.

In 1981, a movie called My Bloody Valentine was made, and this borrows from that movie in spades. As well as “borrowing” (and I use the term “borrowing” in the lightest possible sense, plagiarism is a better word) from Prom Night, Terror Train, Friday the 13th, and other assorted 80’s horror fests.

“Hack”, Valentine is thy name.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Like is so often the case crap film = excellent DVD. Valentine is a good example of this. The 2.35:1 widescreen presentation is a gem and looks amazing. There aren’t any problems with it at all, colors look great, blacks are strong and shadow detail is excellent.

Flesh tones are perfectly recreated as is every detail of the set. This is, in fact, a very sharp and finely detailed transfer that shows you everything. Great stuff, too bad about the movie it is attached to.

Audio:

Like the video, the audio is above par compared to the film. The 5.1 track utilizes the whole soundfield. In fact it is very impressive using all the speakers to full effect to bring you into the film’s world and keep you there, even when your mind may wish it was elsewhere.

The on screen dialogue is audible and lines up well with the sound. ‘Bumps’ off screen really happen off screen. The soundtrack, which features some modern songs, is also well recreated. All up this is far too good of an audio presentation to be with this film.

THE EXTRAS

We have a few extras, however, these aren’t of the greatest quality. First up is a commentary by the director Blanks. He is an entertaining and interesting host and he takes us through much of the film discussing what went on behind the scenes, dealing with the MPAA etc etc. Interesting stuff, it’s good to see Aussie’s making their mark.

Next is a rather crappy ‘behind the scenes’ feature that doesn’t really do much for anyone. Very EPK. There is also your rather stock standard ‘extras’: a music video, trailer and biographies.

SUMMARY

An excellent visual/audio package with a crappy film. The extras are decent but nothing amazing. Valentine is clearly a renter and then only if you have nothing else to rent. But hey, if you’re in the mood for some good horror flicks don’t forget the old VCR and go digging around the video stores horror video section, you may stumble across some 80s classics that’ll probably never see the light of day on DVD. Happy Hunting.