I’m a slasher-movie aficionado; I always have been since I can remember. If they have a mask on their face or a burn terribly disfiguring, you can bet that I’m in the front row on the first showing.
However, I hadn’t seen My Bloody Valentine until recently, and I don’t know how this unrefined Canadian gem released on Feb. 11, 1981 (perfect date movie!) escaped me for so long. (The movie was remade in 2009, but we’re talking about the original Canadian import here.) The plot is so painfully close to Halloween in that, beat for beat, it’s an exact match. Starts two days before the holiday, tragic incident a couple of decades before tainted the holiday, town is recovering, killer comes back to get revenge. It’s so paint-by-numbers, even Jackson Pollack could’ve made sense out of it.
Twenty years ago, Harry Warden was the only survivor of a tragic mine accident, trapping him and four other men because the supervisors went to the Valentine dance. Spending a year in an asylum, he returns to kill the two supervisors. Twenty years later, the town of Valentine Bluffs (“The Little Town with the Big Heart”), population 3,735 (soon to be 10 less), gears up for its first dance in 20 years. Harry swore that if there were another dance, he’d murder everyone. You’d think that’s enough incentive to leave it alone.
The new, slightly loopy batch of miners include Axel and T.J., best friends who have fallen out over the same girl, Sarah. T.J. abandoned Sarah when he went out west and failed. She’s with Axel now, but T.J. wants her back (and the feelings seem mutual).
After an unnerving homoerotic shower scene (the only real flesh this proto-slasher movie shows), the scarily alcoholic miners go help decorate the dance hall, where the police chief and mayor help unload a page or two of exposition. The mayor gets a box of chocolate, which has a poem — “From the heart comes a warning, filled with bloody good cheer, remember what happened as the 14th draws near” — and a human heart.
If you ask me, an elaborate poem is scarier than a human heart, but the mayor understandably freaks and makes sure that it’s a human heart (as the coroner juggles it with ungloved hands). The miners get a warning (and a flashback) from the nosy bartender that Harry Warden will come back, but, like the alkies they are, they ignore him. The bartender, of course, is the archetype of the crazy old coot who gives the warning that takes us all the way back to Sophocles. Personally, had Sophocles seen what would be come of the prophet type, I think he would’ve blinded himself!
Mabel Osborne, the laundress behind the party, is next to go, as she reads the poem that Harry leaves: “Roses are red, violets are blue, one is dead, and so are YOU!” This is a little self-serving, because, really, it’s not that good of a poem, and his intended audience doesn’t have the time to appreciate it. Poetry is meant for rumination and cogitation. Harry gets a pass for surviving, but his poetry skills really stink. Harry cleans up, though. The chief finds Mabel in the dryer.
They consider covering up Mabel’s death, but the mayor receives another box, heart and poem. The poem, which gets points for Roget research, is “It happened once, it happened twice, cancel the dance or it’ll happen thrice.” You have to admire any killer who uses “thrice” in a poem. This prompts the mayor to cancel the Fourth of July because the shark attacked the Kintner boy… er, I mean, the Valentine’s dance.
Everyone was looking forward to the dance. Patty, Sarah’s best friend, has a spectacular dress which is so sexy that she “might not get out alive!” The miners, in their alcoholic haze, decide to have the party at the mine. (Look, you couldn’t pay me to walk into a coal mine in Pennsylvania — much less this mine, which already collapsed once!) The bartender overhears this and rigs up something to scare them, but Harry attacks him instead.
The chief receives the bartender’s bloody heart in a box, which says, surprisingly unpoetically, “You didn’t stop the party.” Harry must have found it hard to come up with a rhyme for “party.” (I didn’t; here’s my version: “After beans and rice, I feel sharty, I’m gonna be nasty, because you didn’t stop the party.”)
The party is where all the fun happens. No one has premarital sex, although not for lack of trying. Axel and T.J. get into a fight, which results in Axel staggering off drunk. Harry starts picking off the miners and their dates, who make it easier by going down into the mine. Axel and T.J. realize the girls are down there and run down to get them while sending the survivors upstairs to get the chief. As all the people start being picked off in the mine, Axel and T.J. are separated. Patty is killed and Axel drowns, although his is the only body we don’t see. T.J. leads Sarah up the train shaft and Harry confronts him, but it’s really Axel. If all this sounds confusing, it took an hour of close attention to figure out everyone’s names, and dammit, I’m going to show off that I learnt something from this film!
https://youtu.be/Cd5D3GnPuic
Despite the fact that Axel would’ve had to change his clothes faster than Clark Kent, it turns out he was the child of a murdered supervisor. There’s a final fight, which leads to Axel being trapped as the mine collapses. As the chief comes to arrest him, Axel frees himself and escapes out the other way to kill another day. The final, horrifying moment comes not from any story element, but from the fake Gordon Lightfoot ballad about Harry Warden that ends the film. You’ll laugh, cry, and require a diaper listening to this earnest song.
Very much a product of the after-Halloween but not the future 1980s slasher flicks, My Bloody Valentine has many of the elements (gore, almost going to third base) that make Friday the 13th and other holiday-related movies memorable, but these are muted. It’s quite enjoyable in a non-aesthetic way, and seems tame compared to the torture franchises of today. However, the killer has a unique look with the miner outfit, and the mine is a great setting for a slasher film.
The 2009 remake changes the town’s name to Harmony and made T.J. the mine owner’s son who caused Harry’s accident. Axel is the town sheriff and married to Sarah. The new version has ample gore, nudity and 3D effects, all of which eliminate the charming aspects of the original. There’s really no need to see it. T.J. was the killer in this one, which everyone surmises five minutes into the movie.
John P. Inloes (@suburbandwarf) is a child of the 1980s but watches every television show a 14-year-old girl does… so don’t spoil who “A” is! He’s on season two.
