It was a rare combination: Friday the 13th, Saturday Valentine’s Day, and Monday some federal holiday. One of our first friends as a couple called unexpectedly on Friday to say she was in the area and that led to an impromptu meeting for a late supper at a diner. Still, being Friday the 13th a horror movie was prescribed. So I picked My Bloody Valentine. I’ve seen it before, of course. (I had a whole life before this blog, as witness this friend.) But the confluence of Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day forced me to realize that I’d never posted about it. And the fact that Monday is Presidents Day made a horror movie mandatory, given the current denizen of the White House. Back to My Bloody Valentine. First of all, there was the question of which to watch. The original from 1981? Kids in high school were talking about this, but I didn’t watch it until several years later. Then there was a reboot, My Bloody Valentine 3D, which wasn’t as highly rated, in 2009. It nevertheless was well made and, it was streaming for free. Spoilers follow.
I’d forgotten whodunit, so the movie kept me guessing. Here’s how the story goes: a coal mine cave-in led Harry Warden to kill his fellow miners to preserve the air to survive. He went into a coma, but after a year he awoke and massacred the hospital staff and kids partying at the mine on Valentines Day. He was shot dead. Ten years later, Tom, the son of the former mine owner, one of the kids at the fateful party, returns to town to sell the mine. Instead, he becomes Harry Warden in his mind and begins killing again. Viewers don’t know that it’s him since he wears a miner’s mask. Suspicion is thrown on the sheriff, Axel, who was also one of the kids at the party. And Tom and Axel are feuding over Sarah, now Axel’s wife, but formerly Tom’s girlfriend. The movie effectively keeps you guessing whether Axel (who’s a philanderer) or Tom (who has mental problems) is the killer.
The movie has a Pennsylvania feel to it, having been filmed in my home state. This is more in the industrial part where I grew up, rather than the Bucks County that features in M. Night Shyamalan movies. The only thing they got wrong is that it doesn’t seem very cold for February. (February can be a trickster in this state, with temperatures anywhere from the seventies to zero or below.) It isn’t a bad horror offering. The 3D effects are campy, but that only adds to the fun. It was the right choice, given the confluence of red letter days.
Steve A. Wiggins 