Happy Valentine’s Season! I’m taking a break from the chronological review of slashers to focus on more seasonal fare, starting with My Bloody Valentine. For this review I’m watching the unrated, almost-director’s-cut of My Bloody Valentine from Scream Factory.
To get this out of the way, this is not an unbiased review, although I will try my best. My Bloody Valentine is one of my favorite slashers. I have the steelbox special edition set that came with the Harry Warden figure and art print. I also have a habit of buying all the Harry Warden prints I come across from artists at various conventions.
My Bloody Valentine has everything I want in a low budget slasher: fun characters, great gore, and a solid story.
- Directed by: George Mihalka
- Written by: Stephen A. Miller John Beaird
- Starring: Paul Kelman. Lori Hallier. Neil Affleck
The Story – Major Spoilers Ahead
Two miners enter the mine, looking like they’re there to work, until one unzips her jumpsuit revealing a fancy bra and cute heart tattoo. Sexy miner-themed shenanigans almost unfold, until the male miner focuses on the heart tattoo. This triggers something in him, and he shoves her onto a nearby pickaxe, piercing her heart.
Cut to miners getting off-shift. They discuss how unsafe the methane is and generally horse around in the showers. We’re introduced to Axel, who is dating Sarah, and T.J. Hanniger, who has just returned to town and may have some kind of feeling about this. It’s awkward for a moment, until they decide to run into town for drinks.
Horror Returns to Valentine Bluffs
The town, Valentine Bluffs, is preparing for the first Valentine dance in 20 years. Most of the miners have girlfriends in town and everyone’s pretty coupled up, except for T.J. The generational divide is much more apparent in this original version, with T.J. and his father not seeing eye to eye, and Chief Newby keeping an eye on the young miners.
The Elder Hanniger, who’s also the mayor, gets a candy box with a heart in it and a warning not to forget what happened on the 14th. The younger generation is clearly not as connected to the story. Their dismissive attitude causes bartender to retell the story of five miners who got trapped in the mines the night of the last dance. After weeks of rescue efforts, only one man was found alive: Harry Warden. One year later, he returned to town on Valentine’s Day to kill the negligent miners who caused the accident.
This is one of my favorite scenes. Harry in his miner costume, stalking through the fog to kill anyone who celebrates Valentine’s, is a core memory. The combination of small-town romantic drama with the aesthetic of blood and Valentine’s never fails to strike a chord with me.
Have a Heart, Chief
Chief Newby and Hanniger investigate the heart while trying to learn if Harry Warden is still locked up. Meanwhile The Miner stalks Mabel, the woman organizing the dance and running the laundromat. He leaves a heart-shaped candy box for her with a threatening poem, right before he attacks her. The audio effects in this scene are amazing, with The Miner’s respirator adding an eerie soundtrack. Mabel is killed offscreen with a pickaxe.
T.J. and Axel have a conversation about Sarah, their triangle, and the general situation. It goes poorly. These guys used to be friends, but T.J. left town and everyone else moved on.
The institution Harry Warden was committed to has no record of him. It will take several days for them to research the microfilms, and Chief Newby and Hanniger are getting anxious.
Sarah and Patty are talking about her situation and the dance. They don’t get as much screen time as the guys, mostly because it’s time to find Mabel’s body.
Secrets Kill
This is one of the most famous scenes, I think. As Chief Newby searches the laundromat, he keeps sniffing, until the dryer pops open and Mabel’s body falls out. It’s shocking and gruesome, even when you know it’s coming. The Chief is appropriately wrecked at the discovery, a reaction as memorable as the body.
In the mines, Axel and T.J. are starting to escalate their tension.
Hanniger and Newby are trying to keep Mabel’s murder under wraps, but The Miner left another poem warning them to cancel the dance. They finally decide to cancel the dance and issue a ban on parties.
T.J. gets Sarah to go with him; she says she doesn’t want to, but doesn’t do anything to stop going with him. She does finally get to question him about why he abandoned her. He apologizes and tells her he loves her. Axel’s probably not going to win this one.
Sarah is walking alone at night, when we get a fake out from Chief Newby. The decision from the Mayor and the Chief to keep the murders secret from the rest of the town is one of the worst decisions in horror movies. The otherwise tight script doesn’t give them enough justification for it, and it ends up causing a lot of deaths.
The Party Must Go On
Back at the bar, the young people are trying to figure out how to still party on Valentine’s Day. T.J. suggests having it in the mine. The bartender is not a fan of this idea. He gets drunk and rigs a miner’s costume to scare the kids when the open the door. After testing a few times, he goes to triple-check it, only to find the real Miner there waiting for him. He gets dragged off into the night on The Miner’s pickaxe.
Sunday – Valentine’s Day. The young adults are getting ready for their party. The chief has received another candy heart. This one is a real Valentine, sent from Mabel before her death.
With the party in full swing, the rec room is packed, giving The Miner plenty of targets. The first is background character named Dave who gets boiled. Not the most memorable kill, but he’s working with what’s available.
The Last Heart
Chief Newby discovers another heart with a simple note: “You didn’t stop the party”. This is the most effective of the messages. The Miner is done with poems and warnings and now his meaning is clear – it’s too late.
Sarah and Axel aren’t doing so well. T.J. isn’t helping himself either. A fight breaks out and Axel gets kicked out. Sarah tells T.J. she doesn’t care anymore, and to leave her alone.
And despite being right by home, a couple, Sylvia and her boyfriend, have decided to fool around in the mine.
When the boyfriend goes back to get beer, he misses the dead body in the freezer. The girls at the party also find Dave’s heart boiled with the food. They don’t recognize what it is and think its some kind of joke. To be fair, it is hard to tell.
Back in the mine, Sylvia is in a locker room with jumpsuits hanging from the ceiling. The Miner starts turning on the showers, then dropping the suits from the ceiling. In all the chaos, he grabs her and impales her on the shower nozzle. The boyfriend discovers her but avoids meeting The Miner.
Not In the Nick of Time
Chief Newby almost gets to the mine, but a call from the institution has him turn around. The group decides to go down into the mine. T.J. tries to stop them, since there is a no women in the mine rule. Neither he nor Axel is with the group of about six that goes.
One couple immediately breaks off for some alone time.
Dave, the body in the freezer, is finally discovered, just as Sylvia’s boyfriend returns with news of her murder. After evacuating the party, T.J. tells Axel about the group in the mine. They suit up and head into the mine to save them.
Hollis, Patty, and Sarah are wandering the tunnels while Hollis gives them a tour. Howard scares them as they reach the old part of the mine, where Harry Warden used to work. The sound of a respirator can be heard as someone watches them.
The Miner is following them, breaking the lightbulbs strung up. This is another great sequence by the audio effects team. The sound of the pickaxe hitting the bulbs combined with the pop as the explode as the tunnel grows darker, just works so well. The group hears the noise before they know what it is, adding to the tension.
Outside the Mine
The escaped party-goers reach the Chief and direct him to the mines.
T.J. finds the group telling them about Dave and Sylvia. Hollis and T.J. split up to find the other two, leaving Howard to guard Patty and Sarah. Hollis finds the couple, but they’ve already been killed with a drill. Instead of running away, he stays in the room too long and gets a nail gun to the head. He makes it back to the group before dying, leading The Miner right to them. Howard bravely runs away. I’m sure he’ll be fine.
Patty refuses to leave Hollis until Sarah slaps some sense into her. Axel shows up and leads the girls until they meet up with T.J. The Miner smashed the control panel for the lift, so climbing a ladder is the only way out. Patty is scared of heights. When The Miner drops Howard’s body on them, this does not improve her mental state.
Escape Attempt
On Axel’s suggestion, the group changes direction, heading through the sump to the mine carts. Axel somehow falls in the water and drowns. T.J. gets separated from the girls. As they fumble through the tunnels, The Miner hops out and kills Patty.
To be honest, this part of the movie drags a bit, probably because I’ve seen it about once a year for a while. But the claustrophobic mine tunnels, without much of The Miner showing up, doesn’t have much tension for me. After Axel drowns, things get a bit better, although there are some weird cuts.
T.J. and Sarah are reunited, and he gets the carts running, just as The Miner shows up again. They climb into the carts as The Miner chases them. The chief and a mob have shown up and are heading into the mine to help. T.J. is fighting off The Miner with a shovel.
The Reveal
Just as The Miner is about to stab T.J., Sarah rips his mask and respirator off. It’s Axel. Guess he didn’t really drown. His father was one of Harry Warden’s victims, and as a boy, Axel witnessed it. The upcoming Valentine’s Dance triggered the trauma and his recent killing spree. Turns out Harry Warden’s been dead for five years; that was the urgent message from the institution.
The section of the mine they are fighting in collapses, trapping Axel. Sarah and T.J. escape as the Chief and mob rushes in to dig out Axel. When they discover he’s alive, Sarah returns to see him. The only thing that’s visible is his arm. He grabs her and they discover that he’s amputated his arm to escape the cave-in. Axel runs off into the caved-in tunnel, laughing maniacally and asking Sarah to be “His Bloody Valentine”.
The Slasher Elements of My Bloody Valentine
Axel has a decently traumatic childhood; his father was murdered in front of him. Assuming the role of his murderer to punish the town for wanting to move on seems like an appropriately unhinged response.
There isn’t a lot of visible stalking in My Bloody Valentine. It makes sense, as Axel must put in twice the effort as normal Axel and The Miner. Axel can keep an eye on his potential victims while being one of them.
His weapons are classic too. While he relies heavily on his pickaxe, he makes good use of what’s available as well. Improvisation is key for a good killer.
Location
The mine gives us a different kind of isolated location. Before we get there, we have the town. Valentine Bluffs is, to start with, a small town, and it feels like it’s removed from the rest of the world. So much so that T.J.’s move to the west coast is presented as a major betrayal of not just the family values, but the town values. He left, so he deserves whatever treatment he gets.
Once the action moves to the mine, the location, while it should be perfect, it works against the filmmakers. Or at least, the script doesn’t use it fully. There are stand-out moments; Sylvia’s death in the locker room area is great. But I could always use more scenes of The Miner, played by Peter Cowper, stalking menacingly through dimly lit tunnels. Side note: Peter Cowper will be at Mad Monster Atlanta in early March. I have other plans that weekend and I’m super sad about it. I have so much stuff I could get signed.
It’s hard to get a sense of the layout of the mine, so the action is disjointed. Instead of making it feel like The Miner could pop out from anywhere, it makes it confusing as to how he could move from one location to the next. There are some dialogue clean-ups, where Axel discusses his knowledge of short cuts, but it’s lost in the chaos.
Why Do You Love My Bloody Valentine So Much?
My Bloody Valentine was not a commercial or critical success. Neither of these things have mattered much to me in terms of my preferences, although it’s nice to have my favorites recognized by others. For me, the look of The Miner is too good. The giant goggles, combined with the head lamp used to blind his victims, is such a striking silhouette. Especially when framed in the mines, or in the fog or smoke.
It’s also a nice, lean script. The characters are all memorable, from the incredibly likeable Hollis to the desperately not funny Howard. T.J. and Axel have great chemistry as former bros fighting over a girl. Okay, the women aren’t given much to do here, but this is a movie from 1981. Sarah is her own person, and even if I don’t like all her decisions, (T.J is clearly the better choice from the beginning), I understand why she makes them in the context of the film.
The twist that Harry Warden isn’t the killer was shocking the first time I saw the movie, and still entertains me now. There isn’t any real mystery to the plot; it’s Harry until it isn’t, and I’m okay with that.
Legacy
My Bloody Valentine was released in 1981 and at the time, critics compared it unfavorably to other recently released slashers. Decades later, it’s found a fanbase due to its polish and the subject matter. Unlike a lot of films made in the same time frame, Valentine focuses on young adults, not teens.
In 2009, My Bloody Valentine was given a 3-D remake. This version changes some of the plot elements, kills, and ending, but maintains the much of the spirit of the original. I’ll be covering it soon and get into more detail on that.
My Bloody Valentine is available on Shout Factory in a wide variety of box sets (not an ad, just a great version of the movie).
Check out my other Slasher Reviews here:
Leave a Reply