The horror movie Valentine fails on so many levels...
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Read the review of Valentine here, look at the pictures and save your money for something more fun like the dentist.
Review by The Zombie Master
Lee Roberts
2006
DVD Release: 2001
Written by: Loose adaptation of novel written by Tom Savage
Directed by: Jamie Blanks
Starring:
Denise Richards as Paige Prescott
David Boreanaz as Adam Carr
Marley Shelton as Kate Davies
Jessica Capshaw as Dorothy Wheeler
Jessica Cauffiel as Lily Voight
Katherine Heigl as Shelley Fisher
I am a big fan of the slasher film genre. I own all of Jason’s, Freddy’s and Michael’s movies. I also have in my collection the obscure ones like Night School and Happy Birthday to Me . Valentine looked promising so I purchased the DVD without viewing the film first or reading any reviews. I took it on face value because it had been mentioned that Jamie Blanks, the director of this and Urban Legend was well versed in the intricacies of the slasher film. I can still feel the sting of my error.
Valentine starts out well enough. During a high school Valentine’s Day
party, Jeremy Melton, an outcast geek, is put down and made fun of by five girls in a
row that he asks to dance, then finds one to accept. A young Dorothy accepts the invite
and goes further by taking young Jeremy under the bleachers for some smooching.
After the two of them are caught down there by some school bullies, Dorothy lies and says that Jeremy attacked her - and does nothing as the bullies publicly ridicule Jeremy by stripping him and beating him up in front of the entire school.
Fast forward thirteen years; one of the girls who turned down Jeremy’s dance invitation, Shelley (Katherine Heigl), receives a rather morbid Valentine’s Day card - and is subsequently murdered by a killer wearing a cupid’s mask. The other four girls that had turned down Jeremy years earlier reunite at Shelley’s funeral, and start receiving threatening cards and messages themselves. I wonder who it could be?
I will try to be as nice as I can possibly be. Jamie Blanks does not have an original thought
in his head. Even though he also directed Urban Legend, he must have lucked out with a
fairly decent screenplay because, even with its numerous flaws, it was still way better than
Valentine.
I understand that Mr. Blanks is trying to emulate the greats such as Carpenter, Argento, and Raimi, but someone needs to show him where the line between emulation and blatant rip-off is.
What makes Valentine so bad? Well, for starters, all you have to do is change masks and the killer becomes Michael Myers, knife and all. The characters are more stupid than your average slasher film character. The only thing that would have made the cast any more lame would have been to add Paris Hilton to the mix.
The ending was beyond predictable. There was no suspense to be found. There are more plot holes than a brick of Swiss cheese. The over use of bad cliché’s make this film a waste of time.
In writing this review, I hope to make other connoisseurs of the genre aware
that Valentine is yet another fraud lurking around trying to pass itself off as a
slasher film. I also hope to show new comers that there is more out there than this, and they
should not have to settle for drivel to experience horror. If just one person reads this and
learns from my mistake then it will all be worth it and I will have some how been
vindicated.
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