My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine is a glum little slasher flick from 1981 about a mining town—presumably somewhere in West Virginia—where everyone is just ga-ga-gooey over a Valentine’s Day dance. Naturally, everyone works in the mine, and everyone knows the urban legend about a miner named HArry Warden, who was trapped in a cave-in and ate his co-workers. He gets locked up in a notorious urban legend-style mental home before being let loose—or escaping (I never did quite get this part right)—donning an oxygen mask and a hard hat with a lantern on top, and setting out to avenge his... well, I don’t suppose it would be his death, but his madness, at the very least.

To that end, he wields a pickaxe and a variety of other very creative methods to make mincemeat of various PBR-drinking 1981 yokels who dig a lot of bad old-time honky-tonk and, as noted before, seem to have lives that revolve entirely around Valentine's Day. (Hence the g-ddamned title of the movie, which takes place in—are you ready for it?—Valentine's Bluff. I think. My memory ain’t what it used to be, like the old grey mare.)

So there’s a sheriff and some old fart codger who gets a Valentine’s Day candy box with a bloody, dripping human heart in it, and damn, they just know it’s that silly motherhumper Harry Worden come back from the grave—or escaped from the nuthatch—and is out looking to STOP THE VALENTINE'S DAY DANCE cold in its shuffling, warmed-over, risen-from-the-dead tracks. Yowza.

Some other stuff happens. What, should I take notes already?

A couple of dudes spar over some chick. A guy gets his head boiled in hot dogs. A woman who owns a laundromat gets "dried" to death. Hullabaloo. Some mangy cur dogs pick the still-warm, bloody flesh of a victim off the cold, slick, filthy pavement curb in front of the cop shop. (There’s also a mondo cool killing where a guy’s eye pops out. What more could you ask for?)

The opening scene is curious, as it seems to be a fantasy take on the rest of the film—wherein a young, slasher-bait couple on the make go down to the mines to fool around. And then they don’t fool around so well, dig me? This movie, friends and neighbors, is bloody, gory, and just plain VILE.

Which is kind of what you're asking for if you sit down to watch it. Right?

An immensely fat man—who gets entirely too much pussy and has an 1897 curling mustache that vaguely makes him look like the bass player in Hüsker Dü if he suddenly developed type-2 diabetes—takes a bunch of feathered-hair 1981 Reaganettes down to the mine so they can ride the little carts on tracks and get their nice designer jeans all sooty and black. (This plot twist seems a little unrealistic to moi.) Predictably, he gets killed, and the whole thing turns into a claustrophobic scramble through tunnels and up dripping-wet ladders in the steaming darkness as the masked killer—who makes a sound somewhere between Darth Vader and me when my CPAP isn’t giving me enough air—runs around plugging them.

Curiously, they’re all fleeing this wanton engine of destruction as if he were a literal demon on two legs—invincible. But they seemingly have him outnumbered by a couple of dudes. What gives?

At the end, we get a resolution of the action worthy of an old episode of Scooby-Doo and a requisite flashback to childhood trauma. I'd be lying if I said I didn’t halfway enjoy this sick flick, but, on the other hand, it has virtually nothing exceptional about it. Mediocrity, thy name is My Bloody Valentine.

Of course, the title of this flick uh, “inspired” the alternative rock group My Bloody Valentine to steal it, use it, and make it even more famous—giving it a double set of associations. The soundtrack of the film itself blows, with a terrible folksy thing at the end that self-references the plot (such as it is).

I could say worse things about the film, but maybe I’ll just leave it at that. I’m such a damn softie in my old age, it seems.

A real bleeding heart. (Pomp-ching!)

Starring (Ahem):

Paul Kelman as Tom Jesse "T.J." Hanniger, Lori Hallier as Sarah Mercer, Neil Affleck as Axel Palmer, Jeff Banks as Young Axel Palmer, Cynthia Dale as Patty, Don Francks as Chief Jake Newby, Keith Knight as Hollis, Alf Humphreys as Howard Landers, Terry Waterland as Harriet, Thomas Kovacs as Mike Stavinski, Helene Udy as Sylvia, Rob Stein as John, Patricia Hamilton as Mabel Osborne, Gina Dick as Gretchen, Larry Reynolds as Mayor Hanniger, Jim Murchison as Tommy Whitcomb, Carl Marotte as Dave, Jack Van Evera as "Happy", Peter Cowper as Harry Warden / The Miner. Directed by George Mihalka. Screenplay by John Beaird. From a story by Stephen Miller.

(Whew! That’s a lot of cooks for one soup. Advice: Don't stick your head in the pot.)

Addendum

I was incorrect. The movie does not take place in West Virginia. It takes place in Nova Scotia. But I guess I should have known that from the accents and the general lack of sheep... herding.

My Bloody Valentine (1981) - Official Trailer

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