Saving the most derivative for last, Valentine is a retro-inspired slasher that hits all the high notes without adding anything new. While critics called it too much like ‘80s slashers, with the benefit of 24 years of hindsight, the real problem is Valentine isn’t nearly enough like the beloved slashers of the ‘80s.
- Directed by: Jamie Blanks
- Written by: Tom Savage. Donna Powers. Wayne Powers
- Starring: Marley Shelton. David Boreanaz Denise Richards
Recap and Review: Spoilers Ahead!
Traumatic Past
Valentine opens with flashback sequences of an awkward boy at a school dance, asking Shelly, Kate, Paige, and Lilly to dance, and getting rejected. All the girls are pretty vicious, except for Kate; she gently tells the boy, “Maybe later”. Paige, however, seems to enjoy being mean. This textbook teen cruelty is intercut with yearbook photos of each girl covered in red ink, reading “I love you” and “I hate you”. Valentine starts hitting the tropes early, but not effectively.
The boy finally finds success with Dorothy, outcast from the others due to her weight. Later, when they are caught kissing under the bleachers, she turns on him and falsely accuses him of being a pervert and assaulting her. The awkward boy develops a nosebleed from the stress. The flashback ends with the popular boys beating him up.
Present Day
Decades later, one of the girls, Shelly, now grown up and played by Katherine Heigl, is on a terrible date. She bails on the creep and returns to studying her cadaver. Before she can get too far into her dissection, a noise distracts her. She goes prowling around a totally dark hallway, and after one mild security guard jump scare, finds a creepy, threatening valentine in her locker.
Shelly returns to her studies, but before she can make the incision on her cadaver’s stomach, the only visible part of the body, it breathes. She jumps, screams, and before too long, she is being stalked by a man in a black trench coat and a latex cupid mask. If I had to point any one moment where this movie started to go off track, this mask would probably be a large part.
It’s meant to be emotionless and creepy, but it’s not. The only benefit is that it shows the killer getting his stress-induced nosebleed. Right off the bat, we now know who the killer is: the boy from the intro, all grown-up and looking for revenge. From here, the movie tries to maintain tension by trying to play guessing games with which of the male characters could possibly be this long-lost tragic killer. For a couple of reasons, that doesn’t last.
Neither does Shelly. The killer finds her hiding in a body bag, and puts an end to her.
Meet The Main Girls
Paige and Kate are now, for some reason, friends. In the intro, they didn’t seem to be hanging out together and have nothing in common. After fixing the mask issue, any remake of Valentine should really look at the relationship of the women. Other than guy problems, there’s nothing between these girls. It’s sad commentary on our priorities for women’s characterization in the early 2000s. The activity the script uses to re-introduce us to the girls is: speed dating. Not only is the defining characteristic of their friendship their problems with men, we also get to know them through their reactions to men, never just on their own merits.
The men here aren’t great either. They alternate between various flavors of creepy and lecherous. It’s entirely possible that this script just hates people, which you know, fair.
After their dating disasters, Dorothy calls them and lets them know Shelly died. Kate’s kind-of-boyfriend Adam goes to the funeral with her; it’s clear their relationship is strained. He’s a recovering alcoholic, but he’s played by David Boreanaz. The struggle is real.
And Now the Rest
At the funeral, we get the rest of the group of mean girls, now including Dorothy.
Dorothy is rich and lives in a huge, fantastic house. She also has a scummy guy, Campbell crashing with her, and problems with her dad’s wife, who seems to be younger than she is. This plot goes nowhere; it’s probably there to show how unhappy her life is, but it’s weird.
Kate is not rich. Her apartment has frequent maintenance issues. Once such issue sends her out in the hallway in towel, where she discovers the cupid mask jammed in the elevator door. We also get to meet her neighbor, who hits on her while rhyming everything, but is harmless, probably. It doesn’t matter; he’s not well-developed enough to be a suspect or a credible victim.
Not So Funny Valentine
Paige and Lilly are roommates, probably? There’s no development of these people outside what directly impacts the plot. Either way, they are spending their morning watching video date submissions. This is not a thing people do any more, but at one time you could get VHS tapes with dating profiles to watch in order to find true love.
A knock at the door uncovers a valentine from “JM”, and a box of chocolates filled with maggots. They try to figure out who JM could be, and finally end up on Jeremy Melton, the kid from the flashbacks. Paige admits they were horrible to Jeremy, sounding remorseful. Lilly barely remembers it.
Another Possible Suspect
The group goes to an art exhibit put on by Lilly’s date, Max. He’s a pretentious art guy with flexible views on monogamy and relationships. They also get to meet Campbell, who now looks more normal by comparison. As part of the art experience, they split the room into groups of men and women to explore a maze of images.
Lilly and Max are getting to know each other better, when she discovers he invited his assistant Amy to make it a threesome. Offended, she storms off and gets lost in the maze. The masked cupid shows up with a bow and arrow and kills Lilly. While I respect efficiency, this kill trades tension and mood for speed. There’s nothing scary here.
Kate has bailed on the whole thing to meet Adam at a bar. They have some fun banter before Adam tries to win her back, telling her that he’s stopped drinking so everything’s under control now.
And Finally, The Detective
A cop investigating Shelly’s murder talks to the girls about the creepy valentines. Dorothy immediate tells him it’s Jeremy. Dorothy finally tells the others that Jeremy never attacked her. For being so regretful earlier, Paige is kind of a dick about him now.
Kate starts looking into Jeremy and tells Adam everything. He offers the sanest advice in any slasher: head to Mexico. She does not.
They do, however, go tell the officer everything about Jeremy. Since Jeremy has vanished, all of the men in their lives come under scrutiny. The detective also hits on Paige, since Paige is played by Denise Richards.
Some Light Stalking
The Cupid killer breaks into Kate’s apartment, only to discover the creepy rhyming neighbor there trying on Kate’s underwear. He kills him. Kate returns home to find Adam waiting outside her apartment for her. They exchange cutesy valentines, right before Kate discovers Paige hanging out in her apartment.
Dorothy calls, mad that the cops are interrogating Campbell. He seems unbothered by it, especially when she gives him an expensive watch. They have a deeply unsatisfying romantic encounter. Dorothy is played by Jessica Capshaw, and for some reason, this movie tries very hard to make her seem like the undesirable friend. I realize this came out in 2001, when body standards for women were not as accepting as they are today. It will always make me sad that someone as gorgeous as Dorothy is portrayed as the “big friend”.
Oh, and Cupid kills Campbell with an axe while he’s trying to steal money from Dorothy. No big loss.
Isolated Location – Check
Since we are in a 2001 horror movie, it’s “big house with lots of kills” time. Dorothy is throwing a Valentine’s party. This means we get wildly elaborate decorations, over the top lighting, and slow-motion shots of Paige dancing by herself.
Paige meets up with the speed dating guy who only wants to sleep with her. She ties him to the bed and leaves him there, after giving him some not-so-subtle hints that perhaps his behavior was too forward.
The last woman Campbell scammed shows up to be mad at Dorothy for some reason. Max also shows up to let them know Lilly is missing. The woman steals the watch from Campbell’s bag; while she’s making her getaway, she comes across Cupid hiding the body of the maid.
She hides in the sauna, but Cupid eventually tracks her down and kills her. Compared to Lilly’s death, this is a longer sequence, which is odd considering that I’m not sure I heard this character’s name.
No Heroic Save
The detective tells them that they are all in danger, and to stay in groups. Kate finds Adam drinking and dumps him.
Paige is relaxing in the hot tub when she hears the door close behind her. When she looks back, a red rose is on the edge of the tub.
I’m going to pause for a moment to reflect on all the tiny little issues I have with this movie, that add up to it being less than it could have been. There is literally no time for anyone to get into the room and leave a rose without Paige noticing. Moments that strain credibility are all over this thing. Even the first kill, which could have been amazing with all the cadavers, loses momentum with basic logistics. How did Shelly get in that body bag and zip it up all the way? Those don’t zip from the inside. It’s irritating, because there are fun moments that are undone by this careless approach.
Getting Close to an End, I Promise.
Back to the story, Cupid kills Paige by throwing an electric drill into the hot tub. This also shorts out all the lights in the house, and the party guests empty the mansion in record time.
Dorothy and Kate fight about who the killer might be, and Dorothy reveals her deep issues and insecurities about her appearance and self-worth. Kate calls after her, but decides that dealing with a killer is probably a better use of her time. She goes to meet the detective, only he’s already dead. Also, the valentine she gave Adam is with the detective’s severed head.She runs back into the house as Adam comes down the stairs. Adam is either drunk or the killer; Kate doesn’t seem really sure which he is, either. If I’m being honest, this is not the worst-written conversation in a horror movie. It works for both scenarios, and feels more honest than the rest of the movie.
The Killer Revealed
Kate keeps running from Adam, believing him to be the killer. She eventually ends up with a gun and goes on a room-by-room tour of the house. This should have been a slow drawn-out tense moment; it’s not. Cupid attacks her at the top of the stairs, but she loses the gun, and they fall down together.
Cupid does a nice, dramatic slasher-villain sit-up, but before he can attack, Adam fires the gun, killing him.
Adam removes the mask, to reveal Dorothy. Kate tells Adam that it doesn’t make sense. He replies that if someone is that angry, they can hide it, but it never goes away. She apologies and hugs him. As he comforts her, his nose begins to bleed.
So, That’s How It Ends?
Yep. That’s really what I liked about Valentine. It’s a movie where the killer wins and gets everything he wanted. He gets revenge against those who were cruel, while being a hero for the girl of his dreams. If the writer/director had taken this concept and applied some real ‘80s gore, tension, and styling, this could have been something really special.
That’s because there are elements that work in the script, they’re just not fully realized. Valentine is adapted from a novel, although loosely. Tonally, it’s a much lighter movie than the source material, filled with plenty of snark about dating and predatory men in general.
Not that the women are much better; while the men are perverts, con artists, and opportunists, the women and catty and adversarial with each other. These lifelong friends shed few tears for their murdered classmates, and seem mostly just habitually accepting of each other. This could have been commentary about relationship-obsessed women, but like most of the themes in the movie, doesn’t go far enough.
Kate and Andy have some of the only genuine-sounding dialogue in the movie, as they discuss his alcoholism. Which is a nice touch; it’s 100% believable that someone with that much rage and bitterness might try drinking before escalating to murder.
How Is It a Slasher?
Adam kills those responsible for his traumatic past. He has a thematically appropriate costume, although the mask loses him style points.
Where Valentine falls short is the actual killing. Adam does very little stalking in preparation for his kills, which removes much of the tension from the movie. He varies his weapons, although the bow and arrow were a nice touch.
The deaths, however, are lackluster and missing the raw rage that one would expect from someone harboring a grudge from 6th grade. I don’t need long, extended, gory deaths, but in a perfect world, the kills would fit the killer.
They need to reveal something about his motivation, personality. For example, at one point, 6th grade Paige tells 6th grade Jeremy that she’d rather boil herself alive than dance with him. This is how she should have died; electrocution is close, but not morbidly poetic enough.
The final location is less slasher and more “early 2000 era” horror, with the giant, fancy house. Valentine hits a lot of the standards for the period of time as well, with the de-emphasis on gore, casting of recognizable and overly attractive actors, particularly TV actors, and the super bright and clean cinematography.
Isn’t That Nitpicking?
Yes. But I pick because I love, and I want people to see why I find enjoyment in watching these movies. Even if sometimes that enjoyment comes from discussing how they could have been better. Valentine isn’t a great movie. Its biggest issue is that it fails to fully commit to its tone or concepts.
If they had fully leaned into an ‘80s slasher mood, borrowing more from movies that know how to portray their killers as truly menacing, Valentine could have better stood the test of time.
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