Review #131: Valentine (2001)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Jamie Blanks (Director): Urban Legend

Denise Richards (Paige): Tammy and the T-Rex (1994), Starship Troopers (1997), Wild Things (1998), The World Is Not Enough (1999), Undercover Brother (2002), Scary Movie 3 (2003)

David Boreanaz (Adam): The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005), Buffy, Angel & Bones T.V. series

Marley Shelton (Kate): Death Proof (Pictured Right)


Jessica Capshaw (Dorothy): Minority Report (2002), The Practice T.V. Series

Jessica Cauffiel (Lily): Road Trip (2000), Urban Legends 2 (2000), Legally Blonde (2001) & 2 (2003), D.E.B.S. (2004), White Chicks (2004), Guess Who (2005)

Katherine Heigl (Shelley): Bride of Chucky

Fulvio Cecere (Det. Vaughn): Excess Baggage (1997), Disturbing Behavior (1998), The Bone Collector (1999), The Hurricane (1999), Double Jeopardy (1999), Best in Show (2000)

Trailer:



Plot:

The film starts off with a flashback to a middle school Valentines Day Dance, with a nerdy, dorky looking kid (Jeremy Melton) going up to all the girls (or at least five of them) and asking for a dance. One by one they all turn him down. Until he finally finds the school's fat chick and she accepts.

They dance, and one thing leads to another and before you know it, they're making out underneath the schools bleachers. Some of the school's other kids find them secretly engaged in lip lock and then proceed to pick on them. The fat girl claims that Jeremy attacked her and she wasn't part of the "love session". The kids take Jeremy, strip his clothes and humiliate him in front of the whole dance.

Years later Jeremy decides to unleash his anger on the girls who passed up his dance offer. Jeremy sends each of the girls a disturbing, demented Valentine's Day card and then picks them off one by one as they brainstorm to figure out who is killing them..

A basic Public Service Announcement to all those girls that rejects the dorky kid at the dance: Give him a damn dance! Just one. You don't have to sleep with the dude, just a dance. Otherwise years later, he'll grow up into some psychotic, revenge seeking man who kills you. Once again, give the kid a pity dance. It'll make his day, and eventually save your life.

Villain:

The main villain of the film has his/her identity hidden from the viewers until the end. All through the movie the person wears a cupid mask (or cherub) while being dressed in black. I'm not trying to tell or hint who it might be, or infer with a picture of him on the left, but to be honest, it's not hard to tell who the real villain is or might be...David Boreanaz...aka...Angel.

I believe right before the movie came out, a Canadian news station accidentally leaked the identity of the killer during an interview. Oops! So when I saw the film, it was no secret who the killer was (even though it's quiet is to pick up on) and the "twist surprise" ending had no real shock value to it.

Cast:

Talk about cardboard thin acting and characters, this film had it all. It maybe a surprise to some, but who would have thought a film that ticketed Denise Richards as one of it's stars, would have bad acting? Yeah, that's what I thought. It was a total blind-side. Never saw it coming. Denise pictured right.

Mrs. Richards-Sheen (or whatever she is now) plays the hot, super b*tchy, stuck up, slut chick, Paige, in the film. Wow, she didn't even need to act. She should have just been her self.

The main girl in the film is actually Marley Shelton who plays Kate. Kate is the stereo-typical "pure" girl who hasn't done anything wrong in her life...so the story revolves around her part. While the other girls in the film struggle to find their "true love", Kate has an "off and on" relationship with her boyfriend, Adam.

SFX/Gore:

Lost in the shuffle of this film is it's unique style of kills. I have always been impressed with the film to use bloody and gory ways to "oft" a person. There were a couple of generic ways of killing (like all films), but for the most part the film tried to be different. How many films use an iron to say good bye to a character? Not many.

The best kill, or my favorite was the kill of * Highlight to Read * Campbell's ex-girlfriend, Ruthie. After being chased around in the basement of a mansion by the Cupid, Ruthie finds herself eye to eye with him. Cupid throws her through a glass shower door and she bangs her head against the tile wall. On the bottom ledge of the shower remains a few jagged pieces of broken glass, Cupid slams her throat down on the shards of glass sticking up. * End. I thought it was the best kill of the film.

TNA:

There's a lot of smokin' hot chicks in Valentine, but no of them are any hotter than Katherine Heigl in my opinion. Sure Denise Richards has always been a poster child for the exotic, lustful type, but Heigl (Pictured below) is way better looking in my eyes.

Valentine does a lot of "male teasing" in the film with the help of several shower scenes, a hot tub bikini scene, a disturbing end to an erotic wax scene but fails to give the flesh and curves of what men really want.

For the women, you get David Boreanaz. The dude who played Angel in Buffy and Angel, or the dude in the show Bones. Hey, if I could die and come back handsome, I'd pick his the blueprint he's got. I'm not saying it's a man-crush, but if I was a chick...I would be attracted to him.

Concept:

Hey a horror movie dubbed after a holiday. Haven't seen that before! A nerdy kid seeking revenge on the popular girls who turned him down at a middle school Valentine's dance. Well, not that original, but it does the trick. It does send a message to all those that have seen this...dance with the nerdy boy...or suffer a far worse fate down the road.

The story and script are weak, but most horror films have that problem. The killer, which is supposed to be Top Secret, is very easy to predict, thus leaving little astonishment during the revelation at the end of the film.

T.Gun Factor:

It's a campy little revenge horror flick. I have a lot of mix feelings about this film. On one hand, it completely sucks as a film. Pretty horrible. But on the other hand, it tries to appease the audience. It doesn't hold back in it's kills or blood. That's pretty much what horror fans expect. Valentine tried to make a classic horror film, but it failed.

By the way, whatever happened to those Valentine Day parades in school? You know the ones, where you make some crappy mailbox out of a grocery sack, and then everyone goes around dropping Valentine Cards in everyone's sack. Then later on you find the one card that reads, "You have a secret admirer!" Do they still do that? Why don't they make a horror movie based off that plot? It could go something a little like this...

Young Timmy becomes obsessed with finding the little girl that left an unsigned "secret admirer" card in his Valentine's sack. Years later, Timmy is hard up for love, and still obsessed with finding his "true love".

Timmy searches for the girl as he stalks all the girls in his class until he finds the "one". Timmy picks off the ones that don't fall in love with him or he finds out that wasn't the one that sent him the card.

Sounds far fetched and crappy? Yeah, but so is Valentine. But if it doesn't... Hollywood, give me a call.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on February 2, 2001 and made $20.3 million at the Box Office ($10 million opening weekend)
-The cheapest film to ever have a Superbowl spot ($10 million)
-Tara Reid was originally casted to play Dorothy