Valentine the Slasher? (film only review) (Valentine (DVD))

Name: anonymili

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Product:	Valentine (DVD)
Date:	03/07/07 (132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: some pretty faces in the film

Disadvantages: poor acting, easy to guess who the killer is

Ok I guess I must have been really bored to have sat through this film recently. I had heard of it before watching it and had not a good impression of it. I'm not a fan of horror films at all but was told that it wasn't really scary and that I would have to see it to believe how bad it was.


STORY (what little there is...)

The film starts with us seeing Jeremy, a teenager who's a bit of a geek, asking various girls to dance with him at the high school Valentine Ball and being cruelly rejected by all of them bar one, Dorothy, who is slightly chubby (but this is USA slightly chubby means she's seen by all as really fat), who goes under the stage and has a bit of a kissing session with him till some other kids see them and she claims he forced himself on her. The other mean kids pour some gunk all over him and you realise this is why the kid turns into a bit of a psycho!

Fast forward to a dozen or so years later and all the girls who rejected young Jeremy are receiving Valentine's card with sinister messages and are being bumped off one by one as well as their respective boyfriends in rather gruesome ways by a killer wearing a cherub mask! Everyone assumes the killer is Jeremy but is it?


CAST/CREW/ANALYSIS

The film stars some pretty faces such as Denise Richards as Paige, David Boreanaz as Adam, Katherine Heigl as Shelley, Jessica Capshaw as Dorothy, Marley Shelton as Kate and Jessica Cauffiel as Lily.

I can't say I was overly impressed by anyone's acting in the film, even David Boreanaz didn't impress, who I really enjoyed watching in the Buffy spinoff series Angel for years, he's cute but not cute enough to get by on his looks alone to make his role in this film noteworthy! The female leads (most of whom get bumped off one at a time) are all pretty and cute but acting skills are not their forte as far as I'm concerned. Not a one of them impressed but I guess this isn't the sort of film that people would get Oscar nominations for. As far as I'm aware the film only won one award which was for Best Voice Over, a Golden Trailer award in 2001.

The film was directed by Jamie Blanks and adapted from the novel by Tom Savage. Donna Powers wrote the screenplay. The film is rated 15 as it contains some scenes of a sexual nature and violence. The film was shot in 42 days in Vancouver, Canada, which is really easy to believe considering the standard of acting and rather dubious storyline. It was released in April 2001 and runs for just over 90 minutes, personally I think they tried to cram in too much gore and story into such a such space of time which is why the film was more of a letdown for me.

I found the storyline of this film to be as much as I'd expect from a film of this genre. I wasn't expecting anything realistic. It did make me wonder if teenagers watching this film might think twice about being so mean to geeks, the girls who reject them cruelly and the boys who play mean pranks on them. You never know when someone you know at school or college can turn into a psycho because of the treatment they receive from their peers, so in that respect it was wholly understandable that the character of Jeremy was expected to be the stalker/killer.

The killer wears a cherub mask when killing victims, cherubs are supposed to be cute aren't they? This mask certainly wasn't cute, it was creepy, I guess that was the intention. You're hardly likely to be scared of a killer who wears a cute adorable cupid mask now are you? Oh and I didn't understand why the cherub was having nosebleeds every time a murder was committed until the very last scene and then felt very stupid for not having got that bit earlier!

Fulvio Cecere plays the token detective in the film and basically he's a bit of a creep. When one of the potential victims is at the police station he makes a very inappropriate move on her which makes you wonder how tacky the director was prepared to be in the name of titillation. It really wasn't necessary in the grand scheme of things for that scene. Also just before the climax of the film the detective calls to say he is on his way to the house where the Valentine party is taking place and the victims are being killed off very rapidly but his attendance (or rather lack of it) is never evident. I just thought it was a bit weird to show the scene of him calling to say he was on his way and then... nothing! Can't go into more detail about the climax obviously as I don't want to spoil the ending of the film - although I guessed correctly pretty early on as to who the killer was. Even though there was a twist to the ending, it wasn't wrapped up properly and leaves you somewhat hanging but maybe they did that deliberately in case they made a sequel - thank God they didn't!


WHERE TO GET IT

You can pick up a DVD of Valentine from Amazon for just £3.97 or £10.99 from sendit.com (although why you'd pay more than a fiver for this from anywhere when you can get a cheap 2nd hand copy from ebay is anyone's guess)...


IN CONCLUSION

I don't think I can talk much more about this film apart from to say that I don't normally watch horror films last thing at night because I get nightmares, so I tend to watch a bit of comedy afterwards to lighten my mood. I didn't need to do this after watching this film because it was just not that scary at all, the ending actually left me with a smile on my face rather than anything else! I would rate Valentine as an average 4 out of 10 and wouldn't actually recommend anyone waste their time watching it unless you really enjoy teenage gore and a pretty duff storyline. There is another school of thought that might consider this movie as a sendup of other similar genre teen horror movies. If you look at it this way, I still doubt it would make the grade as sendups usually have some element of humour and I didn't find a lot to laugh about in the film apart from the somewhat absurd holes in the story... Maybe you'll have to watch it and judge for yourself...

NB: this is a film only review


N.B. I have also published this review at ciao.co.uk under the same username.

Summary: Recommended? No, not really...