MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981)

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981)

Tagline: There's more than one way to lose your heart...

(Horror, Mystery, Thriller) [R]

It happened once, it happened twice. Cancel the dance, or it'll happen thrice.

In this one, a miner named Harry Warden survives a horrible explosion in a mine, but after 6 weeks of being trapped, he’s gone mad. He ends up getting put in a mental institution, but he ends up escaping. He then kills his supervisors that were in charge of the mine and at least one woman. He then threatens that there should never be another Valentine’s celebration in the town. So guess what is happening 20 years after the last incident? Yeah…they are planning another Valentine’s celebration. 

Oddly this movie opens on Thursday the 12th. The party is supposed to be on Saturday the 14th. In between in FRIDAY THE 13TH which might have been a nod to that series made by Paramount Pictures a year earlier. It’s possible they are planning a series with this one also, but we didn’t get another MY BLOODY VALENTINE movie until 2009 which was just a 3D remake. 

I watched this for the first time quite a while back but forgot about why it stuck out among the tons of slasher flicks that came out in the ’80s. When I say a while back, I mean it was probably in the actual ’80s. I think it was because it was one of the few that involved effects that weren’t over the top cheesy. The effects in this movie are pretty gnarly. That wasn’t the only thing though, the acting from everyone involved was really solid. We also got high-quality production. This doesn’t look like someone just tried to shoot in on a garage sale dented crusty video camera. However, this one never landed on my favorite horror flicks radar because it lacks humor and it’s almost too serious. 

Out of this whole cast, there are only 2 characters I don’t care for. Paul Kelman plays a jerk named T.J. in this, which really sucks because that is also the name of my cat and my cat is not a jerk. Then we’ve got Axel played by Neil Affleck who is also a jerk. In this movie that’s bad, because they get more screen time than most everyone. The 3 main actresses in the movie are all still active if that tells you anything about the casting. Helene Udy is probably the most well-known with over 99 film credits, stuff in production, and having several horror flicks under her belt. Lori Hallier has over 90 film credits as well and was even in STAR TREK: VOYAGER. 

The ending of this movie is pretty haunting and when we finally find out what’s really going on. It also left this thing wide open for sequels that as I mentioned never got made. This one did make over double its budget, but it clearly wasn’t enough for a return to the mine. 

This lands in the 4 out of 7 category. In spite of the unique storyline and quality, it lacks heart. Probably because so many were taken out of the victims during the movie. 

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