Classic Review: Valentine (2001)

Valentine is a slasher directed by Jamie Blanks of Urban Legend fame. At the time of release, Valentine was met with extremely negative reviews and modest box office success but has gone on to gain a cult following in the years since. The plot is fairly simple and follows a typical slasher format, four friends: Paige (Richards), Kate (Shelton), Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw), and Lily (Jessica Cauffiel) begin to receive morbid Valentine cards and realize they’re being stalked by someone they wronged 13 years ago. With a masked killer on the loose, and Valentine’s Day approaching, they must stop the terror before it’s too late. While it still might not be a great movie now 23-years later and was not without its problems, it didn’t deserve the beating it took from critics at the time of its original release and is a fairly fun slasher that deserves a bit more appreciation.

The film was released around the same time as the height of the Scream franchise and other popular slashers such as Urban Legend and I Know What You Did Last Summer, and while this might not be quite as good as any of those, it feels like a healthy mix of those slashers, and one pulled right from the 80’s for which those aforementioned films mostly didn’t posses or ever try to evoke. From the revenge motive of the killer, to the opening flashback involving an act of bullying or public humiliation, and just the way the opening is filmed, Blanks mostly succeeds at making an 80’s slasher in the year 2001, and it has a lot of the same traits in both positive and negative ways. Either way, it is a very easy film to watch with its short running time and breezy pacing, which makes it fly by and remain entertaining throughout.

None of the cast or characters are all that memorable, but they get the job done and make for a decent enough group to follow for around 90+ minutes. Shelton and Richards are easily the standouts, and Katherine Heigl does great with her limited screen time as Shelley Fisher. The kill sequences themselves are pretty decent and there’s quite a few appropriately spread throughout. Though not all that graphic or violent for a 14A/R rated slasher, they are satisfying enough, along with some good sequences of suspense and morbid humour injected into some of them. The look of the killer is mostly effective although it’s not a total shock that it didn’t reach the same iconic status of other masked killers of the time.

While a fun time, they’re no denying it is also heavily flawed. The writing isn’t the film’s strong suit, and there’s several baffling lines and character decisions throughout that will leave most scratching their heads with one of the best examples being a scene where the main character washes her hair in the toilet after realizing her apartment has none. The identity of the killer is painfully obvious from the moment the character shows up on screen which only hurt the film, making its whodunit aspect fall completely flat. Meanwhile, it also follows the template from a lot of 80’s slashers therefore doesn’t offer anything particularly original, new, or surprising which can take the suspense and energy out of certain sequences.

In the end, there is no denying Valentine isn’t great and probably shouldn’t be recommend to all but the least forgiving slasher fans, but if one still haven’t seen it or doesn’t remember it too well, it is worth checking out in spite of its issues because it’s actually a lot of fun for hardcore slasher fans. Between this and the highly underrated Urban Legend, it’s a shame director Jamie Blanks didn’t direct a lot more slashers or anything in the horror genre for that matter, but it’s great that he got to make the ones he did.

still courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/