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Valentine 2001 Review
Valentine 2001
Directed by: Jamie Blanks
Starring: Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marie Shelton
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
Director Jamie Blanks split critics with Urban Legend, his debut movie. Some called it brainlessly entertaining, whilst 
others just called it brainless. Looking back, it was actually one of the better efforts that shamelessly jumped on the Scream bandwagon. Good enough to garner two sequels and it 
showed that the director knew how to build tension and had an eye for stylish photography. For his follow up, he put a popular cast together, including Denise Richards and David Boreanaz and went back to the roots of the slasher genre’s trappings to terrorize an annual day of celebration. His choice was Valentine’s Day, the same that was (pick) axed in 1981 by director George Milhalka and his gas masked bogeyman, Harry Walden.
Despite its large fan base, the original My Bloody Valentine was not as successful as the producers had hoped for upon initial release. It was only much later that it really began to achieve its status as an out and out slasher classic. The Special Edition disc that finally brought back the majority of the gore sequences was a fantastic moment for the genre and the film has acquired a new generation of followers. Blanks’ second attempt at slashtastic success was released 
eight-years before the remake of My Bloody Valentine hit screens, and I went to catch it at the cinema on its opening night. Despite not having any link to the aforementioned Canadian classic, I have often thought that the idea here was to at least pay homage to that film. Perhaps the original plan was to produce a remake, but in the end they just settled for a theme that was close instead. Aside from the obvious link that both stories take place on the same date, the psycho has an 
extremely similar calling card. It’s also worth noting that even though this claims to be an adaptation of Tom Savage’s novel, there’s little more than a few characters and a title that has been ported over from the book to the big screen. This aided my belief that they set out to modernise, albeit unofficially, one of the slasher category’s long standing fan favourites. Either way, I hoped that Blanks could at least manage to capture some of the vibe that was so prominent over at Valentine Bluffs back in 1981. And if that was too much to ask, then duplicating the fun that he had with his previous movie would be good enough for me…
It starts with a pre-teen valentine disco set in 1988. A bespectacled young boy heads on the dance floor looking for a 
young female to share a dance with. First he approaches Shelly (later played by Katherine Heigl) who embarrassingly rebuffs him. His charm doesn’t seem to work with Lilly (Jessica Cauffer), Paige (Denise Richards) or Kate (Marley Shelton) either; they all send him packing mercilessly. His luck changes when Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw) actually acknowledges him and 
the twosome leave hand in hand. They are later caught kissing under a bench by a gang of bullies. In order to save her own self from persecution, Dorothy accuses the youngster of attacking her and so the gang decides to take their own revenge. They cover him in red goo, strip him and chase him onto the dance floor where they proceed to beat him up. You already know that this kind of stuff usually turns someone in to a violent mass murderer.
Fast forward ten years and the girls have become women. No one is sure what happened to Jeremy (the unfortunate 
kid from the prologue) as he disappeared after that dance. It’s close to Valentine’s 
Day and they each receive a card signed with a poetic threat to their lives. They soon begin to take them seriously when Shelly is found with her throat sliced. Before long a mysterious masked madman stalks each of them leaving Kate and her boyfriend Adam (David Boreanaz) to work out that she’s next on the psycho’s list…
From the off, Valentine certainly looks the business. The healthy production values have been put to good use and the photography is sharp and confident in places. The director shows some real creativity in some of his twisting shots and I liked how he managed to keep the energy rampant for the first half an hour of the 
feature. At times, I really felt like I had been transported back to the eighties and I enjoyed the attempts to camp the tone up enough to align the film more closely with its stalk and slash forefathers. Parody is nothing new for these titles after Kevin Williamson, but Blanks demonstrates a fondness for the category and has fun with the trademarks 
We’ve got a cast of actors that have more experience than usual, but there’s no denying the fact that their attractiveness played a huge part in the success of their auditions. Denise Richards spends the majority of her screen-time pouting and posturing at the camera and even though 
she’s a great piece of eye candy, it quickly becomes obvious that her performance motivation for the role was something along the lines of, “Denise, just treat the camera like a pole in a strip club”. Sadly, if ever the phrase ‘looks aren’t everything’ could be applied specifically to a movie, then Valentine is that film. It lacks the fundamentals to back up the quality of the make-up and wardrobe department’s work on the faces and bodies of its stars. Fundamentals such as: momentum, 
intrigue, suspense and realism. It reminds me of those houseplants that you see in Ikea that are made of plastic. They most certainly look the part, but in the end, they’re completely fake and therefore hollow.Think of Cheryl Cole for a second and you should be able to understand where 
I am going. Ok, take your mind off Ms Cole now so we can get back to the film… Are you ready? Good.
The murders are surprisingly weak and gore-free (perhaps an attempt to gain the most lenient rating possible), which may have worked for Halloween because John Carpenter used precision to make sure that each killing was extremely suspenseful. The problem here is that Jamie Blanks is no John 
Carpenter. There’s a chase sequence early on that was tight and brilliantly crafted, but the rest simply felt rushed and unplanned. The nut job does indeed look creepy in a cherub mask and the blood trickling from his nose after he dispatches each victim was a neat little touch. Nevertheless, there aren’t enough of those pleasing elements to 
add up to a satisfying whole and mostly Valentine is as shallow as a puddle in the Sahara.
Another problem is that the characters are incomprehensibly self indulgent and morally extracted and it’s simply impossible for them to win over the audience. I know that the story demanded that they behave that way, but I still needed someone to root for, you know? The film was lacking a central character that we could relate to and it really left a heart-candy sized hole in the runtime. It’s fine if the players that are soon going to get their comeuppance don’t have a shred of likeable-ness between them; but what about the heroine? Surely she has to be a class above? How can anyone want such pompously arrogant characters to survive? In a typical slasher movie, the ‘final girl’ is usually the shy reclusive type and she earns 
audience sympathy for being the one that we can bond with. The personalities here are all incredibly shallow and conceited, which makes you believe that the world would be a better 
place without them anyway. In fairness, much like the amusing Shallow Hal from a few years later, the film does try to convey a deep rooted message about our current obsession with image. It’s a poorly delivered social commentary however and the point is never made with any class or strength.
Jamie Blanks has proved that he has the potential to be a fair filmmaker; however I would consider this to be a failure. There are some very good things here (the killer was mega creepy), but as a whole it can’t escape its overall feeling of, well, nothingness. It’s a shame that he couldn’t have made more of the talented cast and competent budget; but in the end, Valentine just feels like a bottle of vodka at on a stag night – totally empty. This mystery aspect and the ‘twist’ just about worked when I saw this in the cinema. So what do Warner Bros go and do? Well they go ahead and ruin it for you by giving away the killer’s identity on the back cover. Yipeeeeeeeee!!
The film is unfortunately a lot like Kim Kardashian. Beautiful at first glance, but hideous and ghastly underneath. That was a bit harsh actually. Nothing is quite as bad as Kardashian.
Cupid certainly missed when he fired the arrow of fortune toward this bleeding heart…
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√√√√
Gore √
Final Girl √
RATING:
Scream Uncut 1996 Review
Scream Uncut 1996
Directed By: Wes Craven
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Rose McGowan
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
When I was young, growing up on the mean streets of London, I never really shared my love for slashers with the kids that I associated with. I guess it’s because it can be considered a strange 
hobby. Why do I spend so much money and effort tracking down these rarities? I mean they hardly ever offer any artistic reward. It’s also a topic that can be somewhat misinterpreted. Does the politically correct brigade think it is right for someone to watch horror movie after horror movie? Nowadays I couldn’t care less, but back in those times, it wasn’t something that I particularly wanted to broadcast.
When my girlfriend of the time came around and told me that she’d just seen Scream and I needed to watch it, she unwittingly opened a crammed can of worms that she probably regrets to this day. I revealed to her my darkest secret and took great pleasure in setting up a planned viewing schedule for the next twenty years.
I had an excuse from then on to roll out the stalk and slash collection with lines like, ‘it’s just like Scream’ or ‘Remember, you said you loved that one’. Do you wonder why we are no longer in contact?
We all know by now that Wes Craven’s tribute to the slasher genre reinvigorated the cycle and gave it another gallon of petrol in the tank that would keep DTV merchants in business long after its day of release. But looking back after all these years is it really that good? Does it deserve to share the stage withHalloween?
A small Californian town that is still reeling from a ruthless murder a year earlier becomes the target of a masked killer. A group of youngsters realise that the psycho is playing games that follow the rules set out in the movies. Do they have enough knowledge of the guidelines to know what they need to do to survive?
All great horror movies need a great opening. It’s pretty much an unwritten rule. How many truly scary films of terror have you seen that don’t start with an edge of your seat intro? That’s right, 
there are none that I can think of either. Scream raises the bar from the very opening scene and can you believe it? The first victim is a seasoned Hollywood star. I remember being intoxicated on my initial viewing, especially with the line, ‘I want you to drive down the street to the Mackenzie’s house’. It was like all my secret passions were being rolled out for examination for a new generation and it was captivating.
Whilst we are on the subject of rules, Scream is notorious for underlining the majority of them and twisting them inside out to make good use of their repetition. Almost every victim here puts up a good fight and none of them fall foul of making the usual bad route of escape decisions. What sets it apart from the likes of Return to Horror High and April Fool’s Day, which also attempted to mock the 
trappings, is that it does it with more intelligence and a higher form of cinematic energy that only a seasoned horror craftsman could have provided. Craven uses every trick in his repertoire and let’s none of them go to waste. Some of the photography here, like the shot of Sidney’s house in the sunset, is breathtaking and I loved the bouncing movement in the looming tracking shots. Despite Craven’s standing in horror as one of the greats, he is not the most consistent filmmaker and is as capable of releasing a big miss (Shocker) as he is of helming a skilled submission (Deadly Blessing). Here he finds the perfect balance and it’s among the best titles of his illustrious resume.
The film’s true quality is in its witty self reference and ability to take each mood to its maximum potential. The gags here are fresh and don’t feel overdone, but when Scream 
wants to be scary, it does so with ease. There’s something foreboding about the way that the killer is always one step ahead of his intended prey and his ruthless ‘games’ take the development of his victims to a new level. These guys don’t want to die and through good acting and smart scripting, you share their suffering. During the first sequence, Casey is dragged to her doom whilst still clenching her phone and when her parents return to the smashed up abode, the first thing they do is attempt to get on the line to the police. What they hear is the dying breath of their daughter who is still connected. It’s an efficiently disturbing scene and sets the atmosphere nicely. The fact that a recognised movie face was the one getting slaughtered gives Scream an ‘anything can happen’ vibe and it reaches its potential with its panache for breaking limitations. Newcomer Kevin Williamson’s script is sharp, but is guilty of perhaps expecting a tad too much from some of its gimmicks. With that said, it is never feels underwritten or lacking in continuity.
The performances are excellent throughout, with a career best (in movies) for Courtney Cox and a solid turn from all of the youngsters. I especially appreciated Matthew Lillard’s ‘break all boundaries’ portrayal and Skeet Ulrich handled the different depths that we were meant to see in his character with finesse. What I didn’t like about the movie and it is perhaps due to personal 
taste was the conceited MTV style of its players. I much prefer a set up like Freak or Coda that casts its characters as normal everyday folk, because it makes the terror seem much closer to home. Take a walk through your local town on a Saturday afternoon, how many rich, beautiful people do you see? Are they the type that fills you with sympathy? Can you relate to someone with a mega rich daddy and a smug air of arrogance? Maybe it’s because I am a working class kid that grew up in worst parts of 
London, but personally I prefer to go for realism. I can’t remember the last time that I felt true bonding with a modern day slasher heroine. Perhaps I am just getting old.
Scream’s comedic style hasn’t aged well and it’s interesting that whilst being the launch pad for the modern day slasher, it suffered the same fate as it’s forefather, Halloween and was blatantly copied to death. After not watching this for ten or more years, it had lost some of its impact, but that’s only exactly because I have seen all this more recently done again in poorer clones. It still plays well and delivers scares and good characters and it made my heart beat rapidly, which is a feeling I’m always looking for, but find less and less in the newer flicks that I watch. Perhaps my biggest regret is that I never saw this at the cinema when it was first released as I can imagine it being an absolutely amazing experience, especially for true fans of the genre like me.
This is still a SLASH above when it comes to horror films and shows what can be done with the slasher genre if it is well funded and competently produced. Buy some popcorn and a few beers and give it another blast. I’m glad that I did.
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√√√
Gore √√
Final Girl √√
RATING:
Buried Alive 1990 Review
Buried Alive 1990
Directed by: Gerard Kikoine
Starring: Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, Karen Witter
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
The tag-lines that were sprawled across the colourful cover of this movie would lead you to believe that it was more 
of a zombie adventure. ‘Some secrets are best left buried. But will they stay there?’ and ‘The dead return!’ make this sound as if it’s yet another attempt at a Dawn of the Dead rip-off, something that happened more times than it should have during the eighties. I bought it anyway, as it was one of those titles, which I had seen many times on my travels when VHS was the only medium available and I often wondered what it was like. (Stalk and slash films aren’t my 
only vice, you know.) Anyway this is pure slasher cheese, right down to a masked killer preying on young female students in an all girl reform school.
Another point that also first attracted me was the fact that it was another of the countless efforts that claim to be adapted from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. By this, they meant his short story (one of his best) ‘The Premature Burial’. There’s a TV movie with exactly the same name 
that funnily enough was also released in the same year (although this was made twenty-four months earlier) that also based itself on that novel.
It opens with some gloomy shots of an eerie looking building silhouetted by the foggy night sky. The sign outside reads ‘Ravens croft Reform School’ and Inside we see a group of teenage girls all deeply sleeping, except for one dark-haired youngster who looks as if she’s packing her things to make a daring escape. She puts her rucksack on her back and heads towards the exit. Just before she leaves, her friend calls her back and gives her a leaving present – a blue switch-blade – and then she says her goodbyes and heads out into the misty night sky.
She hotfoots it through the woods, until she spots a car driving along a road in the distance. She takes a break for just a second, and all of a sudden a masked assailant jumps out from within the bushes and violently knocks her on 
to the floor. He picks her up and drops her into a man made pothole and she falls into a corrugated steel tube that leads into a dank and spooky underground chamber. She awakes to see the grisly psycho standing menacingly above her. He injects her with a sedative, puts her in a straight jacket and then drags her by the feat to a cramped cell-like room. Once inside the assassin begins to brick and cement up the doorway, effectively leaving her ‘Buried Alive’…
Next we meet a young science teacher named Janet Pendleton (Karen Witter) who has just got a job teaching at the college. We also see the head doctor Gary Julian (Robert Vaughn), his twitchy assistant Dr. Schaeffer (Donald Pleasence) and a group of bitchy female co-eds who enjoy nothing more than pulling each others hair out. (Later quite literally) When another girl goes missing from the
campus, Janet becomes suspicious and investigates the history of Ravenscroft, only to find a sincere and shocking secret. But who is it that is violently killing the young helpless girls?
With a cast including Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, John Carradine as well as porn star Ginger Allen and a plot that pits a group of saucy female co-eds against a vicious psychopath, Buried Alive should have had enough in its manbag to offer a decent offering to the cycle. Gerard Kikoine attempts to seduce you 
with his claim that this is adapted from the twisted mind of Edgar Allan Poe. But to be thoroughly honest, apart from the odd black cat popping up here and there, it looks as if the director – who started out in the porn business – has only added the homage as a marketing gimmick to give the movie a disguise of class. Unfortunately, it is just cliché by the numbers and certainly not something you’d associate with any class at all. For a start, what the hell was wrong with Donald Pleasence here? I never thought that I could describe one of his characterisations as ‘obnoxious’ – a million miles away from his legendary 
Sam Loomis. It probably didn’t help to put him in a dodgy toupee and a give the Nottinghamshire-born Brit a role that required a German accent. Anyway, he is by no means the only one here to be slummmmmmmmmingggggg… (Ahem, Mr Vaughn…!)
The screenplay by Jake Chesi must have been written in the director’s native French, translated to Polish and then to Swahili before being put through the Google translate of that day to end up this jumbled. In one scene Miss Pendleton has another of her strange nightmares, which begun plaguing her as soon as she arrived on campus and I think reached quadruple figures before the film ended. She ends up lying on the floor, panting, sweating and hysterically screaming. Dr Julian witnesses her freaky episode and instead of rushing to her aid, he asks with the oomph of water-logged crisp packet, ‘Is something 
wrong?’ I was expecting a sarcastic response along the lines of, ‘No, this is generally how I relax myself to sleep’ – but the screenwriter didn’t gives us that pleasure, unfortunately. Also at one point the doctor asks the shaky heroine if she’ll marry him. No harm in that you may think, the funny thing is, that the two of them only met a couple of days earlier and haven’t even shared so much as a date yet? I kept wondering if I had actually fallen asleep for a while. Who says that no one believes in love at first sight, eh?
I enjoyed the creative ways that they thought of to kill off the cast though. They included a painful looking electrocution, a trough in the side of the head and a young girl gets buried up to her waste in wet cement. When she screams for help, she gets a mouthful of the soggy muck to shut her up. The director at least shows promise with a 
couple of decent ideas. There are some morbid shots of the rotten corridors of the creepy chamber, which are accompanied by the victim’s screams as they get dragged off to their demise. Each unlucky individual spots a black cat before they are dispatched, which as I earlier alluded to, is the only real noticeable element lifted from Poe. I remember also at least one very gory scene that will liven you up if you end up nodding off. A female teen is curling her hair on a food mixer (?) when she’s scared by an unseen menace (presumably the masked maniac), and ends up drilling into her head and pulling her hair completely off…Ouch!
It’s also worth noting that the killer sports a Reagan mask to disguise his identity. Interesting because Reagan’s rein was notorious for many things, but one of them was cutting the federal funding for mental institutions across the US, which meant many people still needing treatment were thrown out on to the street. I was thinking that maybe this was 
a slight dig at those policies, but then I wasn’t sure if I was right in crediting such an inane script with hidden intelligence. I can’t see the point in including subliminal political statements in a screenplay if you can’t develop characters, dialogue or even common sense; but hey ho.
This was the last film that John Carradine worked on before his untimely death in 1988, which sadly wasn’t the greatest flick to finish off a five-decade career in the movies with. It’s not that it doesn’t try; it’s just that with a cast of sexy youngsters that were only too eager to reveal some skin, a decent enough budget and some senior faces with bundles of experience, the movie really shouldn’t have been this dull. Kikoine had worked with Jess Franco for years and although I am no great fan of Franco, this entry could have used some of his exploitation leering to liven things up. It’s occasionally interesting but mostly predictable and sadly long winded.
Although it pains me to steer you away from the slasher genre and into the land of thriller features, I must admit that you’re better off taking a look at the other made for TV flick with the same moniker…it’s a much stronger effort and this one is sadly best left in the bargain bucket…
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√
Gore √
Final Girl √√
RATING:
