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65%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #3,343
...out of 20,736 movies
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Twenty years ago in the sleepy mining town of Valentine Bluffs, a fatal mining disaster occurred on Valentine's Day while some of the crew was decorating for a party. The sole survivor of the accident killed the remaining crew-members and warned the town not to celebrate Valentine's Day again. When a group of teenagers decides to defy that order, a murderous maniac in mining gear begins dispatching townsfolk in bloody and creative ways.
--TMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: February 18, 2007
It's time once again for an eighties slasher flick, and what better slasher flick than one centered around Valentine's Day? I realize that I'm a bit late in "celebrating" this holiday (I blame Netflix, although that excuse didn't work with the woman of the house), but it's the thought that counts - right? I thought so.
The story in this one takes place, appropriately enough, in the town of Valentine's Bluff on Valentine's Day. The residents of this small town have been going all out for the holiday, as every last window and wall in the town has been plastered with decorations. They've also been planning to throw a huge party, but these plans infuriate the local bartender, who goes on to explain that, twenty years ago, a man by the name of Harry Warden was trapped in an underground mine-collapse for two weeks, during which time he was forced to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. This cave-in was the result of the supervisors leaving work early in order to attend a Valentine's Day dance, so naturally, Harry doesn't exactly enjoy the holiday: in fact, he murdered a bunch of people on the next instance of the holiday and warned the town to never throw another Valentine's Day party. He was locked up in a mental institution for his crimes, but this does little to set the weathered old bartender at ease... especially when a few people turn up dead, their hearts cut out and placed in candy boxes. The party must go on, however, and our heroes for this little outing - Jessie 'T.J.' Hanniger (Paul Kelman), Sarah (Lori Hallier), and Axel Palmer (Neil Affleck) - will soon discover that not everything is as it seems.
To a certain extent, this is a predictable eighties slasher flick as it follows all of the guidelines that the previous entries in the genre had laid out: a respectable body-count is established, there's an obvious suspect, a few red herrings are thrown in along the way, and the film is wrapped up with a surprise finish that you probably won't see coming. This has been done a thousand times over in other films and it's also been done better, but I still enjoyed the hell out of My Bloody Valentine.
This can mostly be attributed to the fact that the film is simply done in an entertaining fashion. I don't care how predictable a movie is and I can overlook a lot of budgetary issues because at the end of the day, all I really want is to be entertained for ninety minutes. This film entertained me, thanks in large part to a director who made what is admittedly a by-the-books slasher into something worth watching. The storyline flows along nicely and the characters are likable, and there's a couple of truly-inspired sequences which I particularly enjoyed (the human hearts in the candy boxes was a nice touch).
I've mentioned that the movie was slightly predictable, but that's only to a certain extent. You see, as the movie progresses, viewers will realize that there's probably more to the story than the simple "lunatic returns to town to kill people" plot that the characters establish. These particular viewers will find that they were correct when the ending rolls around, but they'll probably be surprised at the details of the situation - and shockingly enough, it all makes sense and wraps the movie up nicely.
Seeing a human heart stuffed inside a heart-shaped candy box was nice, but gorehounds will also find a couple of other goodies throughout the running time. My personal favorite was the "death by dryer" scene, as I can honestly say that I don't think that I'd ever seen the results of a human body taking a few spins in a clothes dryer before watching this. There's a couple of the usual stabbing deaths that slasher fans have come to expect from the genres, but there's also a handful of creative kills to watch for.
While most people probably cuddle up with their significant other to sit through a chick flick on the fourteenth of February, horror fans could do much worse than cuddling up with this one. It's not a perfect film, but it is an entertaining one. 7/10.
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#1:
bluemeanie
- added June 5, 2007 at 4:20pm
A fantastic slasher flick -- one of the best from
the 1980's. The version you saw and the original
version I saw was the theatrical version, which
was minus 9 minutes of gore, which explains the
quick and choppy death scenes. The censors had a
field day with this one when it came out and it
shows in the theatrical release, which is sadly
the only DVD release available. The scenes cut
out make the film far bloodier and far more
inventive than a lot of other slasher flicks from
the same time period. We need a DVD release with
the Director's Cut of the film. 6/10 for
Theatrical Release, 8/10 for Director's Cut.
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#2:
Chad
- added June 5, 2007 at 4:25pm
I was reading about that, but I was under the
impression that the director's cut was never
released to the public. Where can you get the
original version?
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#3:
Tristan
- added June 5, 2007 at 4:32pm
That would explain a lot. I have this downloaded,
and right before someone gets killed, there's a
cutaway or it just shows the aftermath of the
death. Sort of F13 7ish. How long is the uncut
version? IMDb has it clocked in at 91 minutes for
the US version, but I doubt that's the uncut one.
All that aside, this was a very enjoyable film.
There were some pretty nice kills, and they would
have been a whole lot better with a little added
gore. 7/10
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#4:
bluemeanie
- added June 5, 2007 at 4:33pm
I bought a bootleg copy back in like, 2003 maybe,
when I saw the film for the first time. They're
out there. You just have to find them. The
Director's Cut just adds about 9 minutes back to
the film.
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#5:
bluemeanie
- added June 5, 2007 at 4:36pm
The best addition is the couple killed in the
mine. In one scene you see them kissing and then
another character finds them dead about ten
minutes later, with no idea how they died other
than the stake sticking through both of them. The
added scenes include their murder, which is
especially cool because the killer stops before he
kills them, while they are screaming and just
stares at them and then jabs them quickly -- makes
it far creepier.
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#6:
Tristan
- added June 5, 2007 at 4:44pm
I like the scene where he looks at the heart on
the girls chest, and lifts her onto a spike or
something. You don't really see what it is. I can
imagine it comes through in the uncut, version,
but it's a huge letdown in the one I have.
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#7:
Crispy
- added June 2, 2009 at 7:01am
So the Special Edition that's currently sitting in
Wal-Mart for 13 bucks, is that the uncut version?
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#8:
Chad
- added June 2, 2009 at 9:25am
According to Amazon, nope.
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#9:
Dametria
- added June 2, 2009 at 10:56pm
Yeah, I actually saw this one with the boyfriend
on Valentines day (last day it ran in theatres
arround my town) and paid the extra $3 for the
glasses. Now, the movie was pretty awsome......
predictable, but awsome. The gore was great and
there were some big laughs. If you like the cheezy
80s slasher genre, like I do, youll love it.
HOWEVER I could have really done without the 3-D
effects. Most of the time it was just that the
background seemed a little farther than the main
characters, there were only like 3 scenes where
stuff came into the audiance that were pretty cool
but I think THOSE would look campy in a non 3-D
version.
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#10:
Crispy
- added July 10, 2009 at 2:42am
A little slow in spots, but entertaining enough.
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#11:
Nirrad
- added August 29, 2010 at 9:54pm
Just finished watching this. I have the Blu-Ray
version and it looked excellent. This one did have
the added footage because there was extra gore and
you could tell because the scenes weren't as great
quality as the rest of the movie. The only thing
that seems to be missing is the actual kill scene
with the drill or whatever it was with the couple.
I got to see the aftermath and it appeared to have
a long uncut shot and it showed a lot. Overall,
this movie is awesome. 9/10
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