VALENTINE (2001)

VALENTINE (2001)

Tagline: Fall in love with terror this weekend.

(Horror, Thriller, The Irony) [R]

Get your hands off me, you mail-order bride from hell.

In this one, we are taken back to Valentine's Day 1988 when Jeremy Melton can’t get a break, and when he finally does, Dorothy the girl he is interested in rejects him due to peer pressure from some really mean girls. Fast forward to 2001 and now those popular girls Kate, Paige, Shelly, Lily, and Dorothy, are all grown up in their 20’s, dating and navigating life. It doesn’t take long before each of the girls realizes they are in mortal danger from a Cherub-mask-wearing killer who leaves them Valentine card death threats. Has Jeremy returned to exact grisly revenge on his tormentors? Who will be his next VALENTINE? 

So if you read a lot of my reviews you know I have an affection for these sorts of flicks. You give me I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, URBAN LEGEND, SORORITY ROW, SCREAM and I am all about it. I actually did see this one years ago but never got around to doing a review for it till this year. This one was from Jamie Blanks who only ended up directing 6 films, but one of them was the classic URBAN LEGEND. Naturally, I was super excited to see this when it came out, but was it any good? 

Well, first off, I always prefer killers with masks. It makes them more menacing, so if you do that, you are already off on the right foot. I do watch slasher flicks that have the killer showing his face, but it’s just not nearly as interesting from my perspective. I do have to say this is not a great movie for fans of Katherine Heigl. She maybe gets 4 minutes of screen time in this whole movie, so if you are a closet Heigl fan, don’t get too pumped about this thing because of her. 

VALENTINE does suffer from the problem of having mostly characters I can’t stand. To be honest, I wasn’t really rooting for anyone during this movie because of the opening scene and that actually ruined a lot of this film. It would be one thing if they just played what these girls did to Jeremy off as childish hijinks, but they realize they were mean to him and pretty much don’t care. They stayed mean and dumb. Kate might be the smartest one because at least she seems to have an issue with the fact that Adam is a violent alcoholic, but it doesn’t appear she is doing anything to support him. Neither is he. They both suck on that level. Dorothy is dating this guy Campbell but knows nothing about him, including his last name. What the crap Dorothy. So do we get any likable characters? Nope, even the detective attempting to help girls find the killer is a creeper.

I have a hard time passing up any movie that Denise Richards (TAMMY AND THE T-REX) shows up in. She is a jerk in this as Paige Prescott, but it is what it is. Also, it makes me wonder if this movie is loosely connected to the SCREAM universe. Sidney Prescott shows up in that series and could easily be the sister of Paige? I am just saying. David Boreanaz is terrible in this as Adam Carr. Maybe one of the worst horror movie characters of all time. I am sure David is fine in other stuff, but he sucked in this. This is a good outing for Jessica Capshaw (MINORITY REPORT) so I have zero complaints about here, but Dorothy as a character was terrible. Speaking of connections to the SCREAM universe. Marley Shelton (SCREAM 4) plays Kate Davies in this. Could it be possible that she survived VALENTINE, and restarted her life getting into law enforcement as Judy Hicks? Settle down. I am just using conjecture here. I was not a fan of Jessica Cauffiel (LEGALLY BLONDE) who plays Lily in this. Having said that, saying the acting overall was bad is overkill. 

When I started thinking about the awesome parts of this movie, this is what I came up with. The score is effective when it needs to be. The sets are awesome. The production is really good. This movie kind of reminded me of how dorky the internet was back in 2001. Everybody in this movie seems to be part of some conspiracy to sell us orange juice. I mean, what’s to complain about with that? The ending is kind of “What the cow?” and definitely set up for a series, but that never happened.

Overall this is not as good as SORORITY ROW, URBAN LEGENDS or I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, but it’s entertaining enough. VALENTINE gets a 4 out of 7. I think if you are doing a marathon of these types of films from this era, it needs to be in the conversation. Giving us one character to care about would have fixed a LOT of issues. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WARNER BROS. AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.