Valentine

“You turned out to be a cheap, hypocritical, sleaze bag!” “Yeah but you knew that.” Paige and Max I’m kind of on a bit of a trend here, I went from a Post-Scream Slasher, to a Slasher Reboot about Valentine’s Day, to a Post-Scream Slasher about Valentine’s Day. I was worried at first that this movie would fall into my opinions on the former rather than the latter, and while the intro and opening kill didn’t do much to ease my mind, compared to my thoughts on the rest of the movie I see it as just a rough takeoff. What I was worried might be an incel’s revenge fantasy actually had a lot more thought into it than I had imagined. A lot of this movie’s success hinges on casting and while that might seem obvious I feel a lot of horror movies, slashers in particular, lose their footing, with many of these movies relying on the crutch of premise, they tend not to invest well into writing for a cast you actually have a sense of stake in. This movie has a very barebones premise, revenge with an emphasis on romance, not exactly original. What helps though is this movie feels quite overtly satirical, at least after the opening scenes. I inevitably got the idea that things aren’t being directly presented as is, doing a lot to make this flawed set of characters feel grounded within the context of the world of the story. The lead actresses do a great job at making these individuals palatable despite much of how they’re written, which really helps the movie tow the line between satire and comedy, as to not write these people off as one note stereotypes in line for the guillotine. And not to discredit the female cast who all do excellent jobs but a lot of the humor this movie is drenched in comes from their not-so romantic male costars who are a tasting flight of douchebaggery. While they lack much in the nuance department they make for truly funny characters. What they do best though is they draw attention towards Adam, a character who in any other movie would at best get a redemption arc and at worst would be dumped and forgotten but in this dating pool from hell you actually grow accustomed to liking him. This all goes into setting up the “twist”, if you can call it that. All eyes are on Adam as some paragon of semi-normalcy. I was practically praying that he wasn’t the killer because he was the only male cast member who had some level of redeeming qualities in the fact he was at least trying to take into account love is give and take. This set up does a great job at instilling one of the core themes of just how much of a slog the dating scene is given it got me to root for the guy who’s more or less the bare minimum, making a Mr. Right out of a Mr. Mediocre. And even when suspicion grew on him his competition was so lackluster I was still ready to bite the bullet and accept a Mr. Better Than Nothing. Even in the final big show scene at the end when it was basically all but confirmed this was being orchestrated by Adam I was still hoping Kate would’ve got to end up with someone that at least presented as normal. I didn’t buy Dorthy as a killer and with that zoom in on Kate’s cheek I knew what was bound to happen but I wanted to believe things would work out even if I knew in my heart that wasn’t the case which I feel perfectly encapsulates the idea of hopeless romance. Going back to my review of Urban Legend, my biggest issue was that it didn’t feel like it understood what made Scream work, the structure was there almost beat for beat but without the rationale. People were drawn to Scream in large part due to its satire of the horror genre not simply because it tried replicating its sources of inspiration, and in some ways it even strayed away from its tropes. Urban Legend was themed to urban legends, but not about them. While far from the worst movie I've watched, if theme alone is what you wanted, My Bloody Valentine is right there. I believe this movie goes beyond that though, sure it utilizes Valentine’s day as a thematic anchor but there’s also an actual to capture the purpose of the holiday while also commenting on its associated themes and where they might be flawed, love-blindness, shallowness, entitlement. If you’re looking for a bloodbath this might not be my first recommendation but I still definitely recommend this movie. I feel like there was a lot of potential in the wake of Scream and while I’ve heard very few movies capture that I really do think this movie matches a lot of its wit and humor. And from a more personal note, while not one of those movies with an overt take away for its audience it really does leave me with a desire to not just settle for being an Adam, and I feel like the ability to grab something from such an open ended movie is a testament to good writing. Rating: 9/10