My Bloody Valentine (1981)
Directed by George Mihalka
Viewed on Vudu
After watching the remake and original versions of My Bloody Valentine in reverse order I now instantly regret this decision. I had very little experience with this series, hadn’t seen either movie, so I just figured it might be an interesting experiment to watch them this way and the results were not quite what I expected. I may have already given away my feelings about the original My Bloody Valentine so let’s be fair and go over the movie and its merits because My Bloody Valentine is certainly not a bad movie.
The Story!
My Bloody Valentine takes place in the small town of Valentine, which is about to hold its first Valentine’s Day party in twenty years. This moratorium on parties wasn’t the result of a Footloose-esque ban, but rather on the order of a miner, Harry Warden, who went on a murderous rampage after being trapped underground due to a mining accident. Warden was captured and committed to a mental asylum and the town of Valentine’s Bluff slowly moved on, with this new party signaling a return to happy times. This party is interrupted though, as killings start up once again, with the same calling card of Harry Warden appearing. With bodies piling up, the police have no choice but to try and solve the murders without alerting the townsfolk who would rather not be reminded of Warden’s rampage.
Sequel To A Movie That Doesn’t Exist
Much like My Bloody Valentine 3D, this story that I’m sharing with you is a very condensed version of the movie’s actual plot. The whole ‘Harry Warden murdered a bunch of people after being trapped’ is established quickly at the beginning of the movie and it feels almost like a recap from a previous movie rather than a backstory. It is just there to establish that Harry Warden is a figure in urban legends around town and as that, it kind of succeeds. I generally like movies about urban legends and other similar stories and My Bloody Valentine succeeds in creating that specific kind of atmosphere that accompanies films about urban legends.
Good Concept And Visuals!
On another positive note, the kills here are quite bold for the time and the effects are good, especially given the scale of the movie and the budget that it had. Speaking of violence I have to say, this is a wicked little movie, there is quite a bit of gore in it and I generally liked how it was used. Speaking more of the look of the film, the setting is rather unique for a slasher film, instead of taking place at a camp or in a suburb, the choice of a rural mining town that is hovering around the poverty line is pretty interesting and there was clearly care taken to make sure the movie showed a poor town being poor rather than just saying they’re poor and have no indication of that. By that I mean, most everyone drives crappy beat up cars, everyone works at the town mine, after work a large group of people hang out at the junkyard, there’s just lots of touches that drive home that there isn’t a lot to do here and this Valentine’s party is an important thing for the younger generation.
Baaaaaad Characters
Now that I’ve mentioned the younger generation I have to start getting into what I did not like about the movie, and way up on that list is the characters, who I did not care even slightly about. Part of the problem here is that there are about a dozen characters or more who we meet and that is just way too many people, especially for a slasher movie. It was so hard for me to remember everyone’s name and face, and even then I regularly confused the characters, that by the time I got that down I couldn’t remember why I was supposed to care about anyone. The only people who you learn anything about are three people, T.J., Axel, and Sarah, who have this love triangle going on, and let me tell you something, I find love triangles difficult to care about if I’m not already invested in at least one of the characters involved. I was not involved in anyone in this love triangle.
A Less Than Thrilling Love Triangle
Okay, I was less than not involved, I was actively rooting against both T.J. and Axel from the beginning. T.J. because he’s an entitled manchild whose backstory is that he was in a relationship with Sarah but then left town for an indeterminate length of time and then came back and expected Sarah to be waiting for him and when she wasn’t he alternately sulked and tried to pick fights with Axel, and Axel because he has a stupid face and no other personality and neither of them cares about Sarah’s feelings at all. Really, I just wanted the end of Sarah’s arc to be her deciding that both of these guys were jerks and she could do much better. Sadly though, that is not what ended up happening.
Recommendation!
While I will rail against the characters in it, I can’t say that My Bloody Valentine is a bad movie, I liked quite a few things about it, especially the sheriff, who was a fine no-nonsense sheriff trying to keep the peace in a superstitious small town. Generally, the acting was fine, especially when you take into account that this is a slasher from the early 80s, and the dialogue was pretty decent all things considered. I’m going to get into spoilers in a bit but, in a nutshell, if you enjoy late 70s/early 80s slashers, then give My Bloody Valentine a watch, it’s a good example of the genre even if it is unlikely to win converts from non-slasher fans.
Spoilers: There’s A Dumb Twist!
If you read my review of My Bloody Valentine 3D, and if you haven’t then you should because these are fascinating movies to compare, you know that there is a really really dumb twist at the end of the film. I won’t say what it is here, but it is nonsense. So, being the original, I assumed there would be an equally dumb twist, and I was right. This twist isn’t as offensive as the twist from My Bloody Valentine 3D but it is just as dumb.
Man, This Doesn’t Make Any Sense
The identity of the killer is revealed at the end of the movie and shockingly the killer is Axel! Why is Axel killing people while dressed like the murderminer? Well, that’s because his dad was killed by Harry Warden and young Axel witnessed it. Now, a sensible movie would have that be an opening scene, maybe a POV style one, so we know that someone in the main cast had a loved one murdered by Harry Warden, but not know who it was. Or have some foreshadowing about Axel being obsessed with Warden or generally being violent. But none of that happens here because we only know Axel’s involvement because of a flashback that we see AFTER HE IS REVEALED TO BE THE MURDERER. It’s like that moment was intentionally designed to be incoherent. Maybe there was foreshadowing but it was cut, as almost 10 minutes of the movie were cut upon release, but I can’t judge based on what may have been there, I can only judge based on what was there.
So, with spoilers, My Bloody Valentine is a decent movie but man does it have a dumb ending. Though its ending isn’t quite as offensive as the remake’s, in most other ways My Bloody Valentine 3D did entertain me more, so, by a slim margin, I do declare that this is a moment in film history where a remake has exceeded the original film in terms of quality.
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