My Bloody Valentine (1981) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

Canada 1981
Director: George Mihalka
Cast: Paul Kelman, Neil Affleck, Lori Hallier, Cynthia Dale, Keith Knight, Alf Humphreys, Don Francks
Rating: R
Release Date: February 13th 1981 (Canada)
Running Time: 1 hour 33 mins 0 secs

The Movie Review

My Bloody Valentine film still 1


MY BLOODY VALENTINE
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

There are so many things from the 80s that many people still love until this very day, it's absolutely a colourful decade (though also a time where Fashion forgets). And concerning movies, I'm just really out of words and space to list it. But this time I'm going to review one movie that I personally really like and have seen it for so many times. It may not be very popular, but this horror movie is really worth to watch. It's just great and I just like it very much, besides it's hard to be perfectly critical when you like a movie so much. Several plot holes even exist, but back then I wasn't too critical, I just watched any movie available, and My Bloody Valentine was and still is among my favorite movies from the 80s.

My Bloody Valentine eventually had been remade in 2009 and added 3D as the special touch of novelty. And My Bloody Valentine 3D does have several differences with the original. Anyway, in MBV 1981, the story is located on the small mining town called Valentine Bluffs. February 14th is closing in and the town is about to celebrate the valentine's day by throwing a Valentine's Day Dance on Saturday nite at the Union Hall. Actually, it's been 20 long years since the last time they held a valentine's day dance, even though it had been a tradition for over 100 years. My Bloody Valentine film still 2

The grim reason behind it is they were traumatized by the mining incident 20 years ago. It all started in the Hanniger mine when 5 miners were still down at the tunnels with two supervisors who were waiting up on the ground surface. The 2 supervisors were supposed to look after them, but they simply neglected their duty and went to the Valentine's Day Dance instead. Their irresponsibility caused a mine explosion that killed all of the miners down below except for one person, Harry Warden. Harry Warden, who survives by doing inhumane action, seeks revenge and makes sure that nobody in the town has the "guts" and "heart" to hold a Valentine's Day dance ever again. My Bloody Valentine film still 3

However, the young people of Valentine Bluffs dismiss the story of Harry Warden as an old nonsense legend. They are having a blast decorating their Union Hall and waiting for the V-Day, except for one person, Jessie 'T.J.' Hanniger (Paul Kelman) the son of Valentine Bluffs' mayor, Hanniger (Larry Reynolds). He went to west coast and let his girlfriend Sarah (Lori Hallier) dangle, but when he returns he finds that she's already with his best friend Axel Palmer (Neil Affleck). Jealousy and friction will follow this love triangle relationship. Anyhow, not everyone is also very excited about the Dance, the Mayor, Chief Jake Newby, Madame Mabel Osborne are worry heck that Harry Warden will be back to 'punish' them, especially after the Mayor received a valentine gift of a real bloody young woman's heart being ripped off and packaged neatly. So the Mayor and the town's Chief, Jake Newby (Don Francks) are reconsidering to cancel the party. Meanwhile Harry Warden is not resting while they're thinking and things are getting worse because the youngsters do not heed the warning and planning to do something that might invite lethal consequences. They will soon learn that the legend of Harry Warden might probably more real and dangerous than it sounds.

Even though time has passed for almost 3 decades since it was released in 1981, the overall atmosphere and tone of the movie don't feel like it's from the 80s. MBV 1981 absolutely still could deliver the chills. Almost everything in MBV is done nicely, even down to the colour of the clothes that the cast wear. This is something that I certainly didn't notice in my childhood, but now that I think of it, almost every actress or actor wears a bit of red colour in their clothes, even the Mayor himself.

If you went to the video store/rental back in the 80s, you could easily find any sort of horror or slasher movies filling the shelves. From the very sleazy one, the giallo-like, the sadistic, the brainless, any kind! But to bump into a little Canadian horror gem like this one, I would call that luck. At that time, I didn't know where to go to read a film review. And right now, I'm even luckier since this is the long-awaited uncut release of My Bloody Valentine. It's like a surprise gift, because without it being uncut, I already had great time watching this slasher movie, but now that I finally able to see the uncut copy, the excitement inevitably doubles. The uncut DVD version is a lot more gorier, scarier, shocking and brutal compare to the Betamax version (Ehem ehem :-) yeah I know, I love Betamax!). So, with the uncut version, the word Bloody in the title means something more, and it doesn't matter if it's more brutal and cringe-inducing, the important thing is, it's a valuable experience to see a movie the way the director/filmmakers initially intended to be.

But My Bloody Valentine is not that generic, even though several aspects of this movie is not something new but at least George Mihalka knew how to apply the technique very well. Some of you might familiar that the common concept of a slasher movie is to create a killer wearing a mask and to put several sex-craze teenagers with their main job is to go naked before getting whacked. But as for MBV 1981, main characters are given decent scripts and story. With a splash of good-quality drama, romance, and everyday normal life in the town of Valentine Bluffs. You may not feel very emotionally-attached to the characters, but at least it's almost impossible for you not to care even just a bit for them, so when they got chased and stalked, everything is more intense. And George Mihalka arguably even borrowed the camerawork technique that we had seen earlier in other Holiday horror movies such Black Christmas (1974) and Halloween (1974) which is to present us the view from the killer's point of view, and so when the killer strikes, all you see is how frightened the victim is. Moreover, with the Miner's Mask that Harry is wearing, we got to hear his intense heavy breathing while he chases and kills his victims. My Bloody Valentine movie screenshot 7

The editing in My Bloody Valentine is also very neat. Every single aspect of MBV 1981 seems to fall right on its respective place, from the acting, the chemistry of the cast (the friendship), the gory bloody scene (from the start till the end), the prosthetic, and everything else. A single element of MBV 1981 may not be something extraordinary, but every single element is treated very well, so the sum of those merely 'just' good elements is something great and memorable. And that's what MBV 1981 is. And I even dare to say that the censored version would appeal to the majority of moviegoers out there, be them horror fans or not. MBV 1981 has a good pace, it's not too fast and not dragging. My Bloody Valentine movie screenshot 8

Some scenes are guaranteed to make the average moviegoers turn their sight away from the screen, as they're very brutal and disgusting, just to name a few: the washing machine scene, miners' shower scene, kitchen hotdog scene, the nail-gun tunnel scene. They're violent yes, but I guess those brutal scenes were inserted to shock the audience, besides these types of violence are not alien to the 70s & 80s horror era, even though we're able to see those scenes fully-uncut only in 2009 release unrated version of My Bloody Valentine. Besides My Bloody Valentine is not that mean-spirited. But one thing for sure, if you're looking for sleaze or some T&A, you're gonna be very disappointed. This is the major difference of MBV 1981 with MBV 3D, not a single women's flesh could be found in MBV 1981. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean MBV 1981 is inferior to MBV 3D. On the contrary, it's much more thrilling. Speaking of thrilling, the filming was also thrilling, the director really film the mine scene 2,700 feet below the ground surface in the Sydney Mines of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. This also means that the crew and cast have to face the same danger of methane levels (explosion risk) as Harry Warden does. Talking about claustrophobic...

With My Bloody Valentine, you would experience something more than with other slasher movies. My Bloody Valentine employs mystery and suspense to its storyline. We as the audience would be intrigued to know where the story goes and who is this Harry Warden really? And speaking of Harry Warden, aside from his creepy miner mask, he's also not some sort of superhuman like other killers in other slasher movies where they are seem impossible to be killed. So his character is more realistic. The finale is shocking, even though on the fighting scene before the finale comes is very very lame, it's clearly shown that the actors were very careful not to hurt each other, so to say it to the point...it's silly! Silly, yes... but after we get pass through that silliness, the last scene would highly likely linger on your mind for some time.

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Harry Warden is also scarier because he's not entirely evil, he is delusional. He seems to have split personality which makes him in some way a more interesting character other than merely a serial killer who hacks the foolish teenagers. Although not the same, but his psychotic character similar to that of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Pyscho (1960).
Nevertheless... You just gotta call red is red, so I gotta call flaw is flaw. Unfortunately My Bloody Valentine has several blatant flaws. As I've mentioned earlier, plot holes are annoyingly exist. I rarely use the word "annoying" for my fave movies, but the biggest of all is why wouldn't anyone suspect that the killer would be "that guy" when they live in a small town where people know each other very well? And the second of all is the chasing scene down in the mine, from such an intense scene where the killer could just kill a victim in a single swing, suddenly the victim is safe again. It's just like "Ok! Restart the chasing scene from here! ...and Action!" What a weird jump I'll say. Man, I don't feel very good to criticize this Betamax memory of mine.
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I don't know whether is a good thing or a bad thing that My Bloody Valentine was not followed by any sequel. This fact makes My Bloody Valentine very memorable for it didn't get tainted by sequels that highly likely would've just ruined everything. In conclusion, fans and other horror aficionados are mandatory to get a hold of this unrated version after a long 3 decades of being cut. I don't think this movie would ever leave my video shelves... Betamax and the Unrated DVD? That's just bloody splendid!