Valentine (2001)

Director	Jamie Banks
Writers	Powers, Wayne Powers, Gretchen J. Berg, Aaron Harbets
Starring	Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marley Shelton, Jessica Capshaw, Jessica Cauffiel, Katherine Heigl
Genre	Revenge
Tagline	Love Hurts
Country

I've got to state I'm slightly confused over here, for some reason I thought Jamie Banks had done a whole bunch of Aussie movies before turning his sights to the false sheen of Boredwood. A quick check of the imdb elicits the information that Mr Banks hasn't actually directed that many flicks. Besides the U.S releases Urban Legend and Valentine, Banks gave us the Aussie outback psycho thriller Storm Warning and the thus far unsighted remake of Long Weekend. There is 1993's Silent Number, but that one pretty much slipped under everyone's radar so who knows. Since Banks has returned Down Under to make dark genre flicks one can imagine his experience with tinsel town wasn't that good or generated enough profit to get him more gigs over there. How did he do in his second Hollywood flick?

Talk us through it

We flash forward to 2001 where our five young ladies from the dance have turned into twenty something hotties of the vapid and plastic variety. Even Dorothy has managed to shed a few pounds and is looking pretty darn good, actually better than the starving Marvins she's hanging with. Valentine's Day is fast approaching with the highlight being Dorothy's bash at her dad's palatial mansion.

One of our five, Shelly, suffers through a disastrous date before cutting it short and heading back to the lab for a bit of corpse dissection. Before anyone starts screaming "Re-animator" she's a pre-med student, and apparently they are allowed into labs late at night to do nefarious things to corpses. Remind me to donate my body to medical science, preferably after I have actually died folks. Shelly is interrupted in her slicing and dicing by another student crashing around the place, and notes she has received a valentine's day card of the morbid variety on her locker. To cut to the chase, no pun intended, Shelly is chased by a Cherub-mask wearing killer who finally cuts her throat. After the funeral for a friend our four remaining girls start receiving threatening cards and messages, and so do their parents according to the Police. Could Jeremy, who has escaped form a mental institution, be responsible, who's going to make it to the closing credits, and how inventive or not will the kills be? Guess those are our questions, a by the numbers movie ensues.

Review

When you have four writers churning out a run of the mill horror flick you know you are in deep trouble. Any competent writer could have knocked out the script for Valentine over a weekend without really breaking a sweat while doing so. The movie simply follows the well beaten path of previous "slashers" to the resolution that can be seen lumbering over the horizon from about the twenty minute mark. Valentine harbours no surprises and is remarkably dull in places. Who ever thought that a cherub-mask wearing psycho would join horror's pantheon with the likes of Freddy or Michael really does need to seek some profession help, or at least get out of L.A for a weekend to see how things happen in the real world. End of day Valentine labours under the weight of a group of writers who are dialing into a sub genre they think they have covered but who have actually no idea about. It's really not that surprising that they miss the "slasher" bandwagon and fall under the wheel's of the revenge movie. Blame I Know What You Did Last Summer which also completely missed lodging a "slasher" application.

Director Banks takes a movie that really doesn't know what it is meant to be and tries his best to get something happening. Banks opens with the obligatory flashback to the event in the past that will shape events in the here and now. It's a school dance and Carrie told us these things always end up in tears by the end of the night. We quickly get Jeremy being rejected by the four popular girls before being betrayed by Dorothy nicknamed "Bison". To use a South Park gag, Dorothy is "big boned" which means she really must have one hell of a big bone in her arse. Okay for some reason that doesn't sound quite right, where's Kyle when you need him!

Banks quick cuts between the rejections, the tentative acceptance, and the whole under the bleaches thing. The Director is in a hurry, he wants to establish his background, and then get to the good stuff in the present. Jeremy's total debasement is covered quickly but effectively enough that you are pretty much convinced this is going to have deep psychological repercussions later in life. As an aside the whole punch bowl thing shouldn't in anyway remind the viewer of a classic scene from Carrie. Notably there's a whole nosebleed thing going down as well that shrewd horror viewers will immediately pick as being a plot pivot point.

There's probably something to be said for a predictable movie if you are a U.S teen. It doesn't require you to think or have any emotional investment. Hence any old shite will do for a movie night.

Having actually done okay with his background the Director then proceeds to raise eyebrows by going for what I can only imagine is meant to be a light relief moment, Shelly's date with the obnoxious Jason (yes the horror references do keep lumbering around aimlessly). Jason is a total tool, as we would say Down Under, and Banks simply spends way to much time with a character that is of no further importance to the overall plot flow of Valentine. Unfortunately Banks repeats the dose throughout the movie's running time, so prepare to deal with light relief of the most mind numbing variety. The one liner's simply are not funny and the situation stuff had me banging my head against my virtual desk. God save us all from writers who think they are funny folks they have committed more cinematic sins than Michael Bay could ever hope of achieving.

Surprisingly Banks nails his first stalk and slice scene, I was definitely appreciative of the effort the Director put in here. Shelly, is that a reference to the odious comic relief from Friday the 13th: Part 3? - is in the lab late at night preparing to cut up a copse. Naturally she is wearing a skimpy tank top as you do while dissecting bodies. Banks goes with some blue filter, makes it all sterile don't you know, and turns the lighting down to get those dark corners happening. Shelly has covered the corpse's face, cause it is staring at her with dead eyes open just like a fish served up at an expensive restaurant. Remember that one kids, corpses and meals at expensive restaurants, you can thank me for the connection later ladies. [Editor's note: crap here comes our first barrage of outraged email]. Shelly gets distracted by another budding MD banging around the place, remind me to ensure I get that dude for my next bout of surgery, and leaves the lab that dripped blood to find someone has left her a Valentine's day card. I really want to know where you get those cards from, how cool to send out to people. Anywise, and I'm rambling on this one folks, Shelly heads back to continue the night's cutting only to find her former corpse is now breathing. Insert a bit of that Jason Voorhees teleportation and we have a pretty intense and tension filled stalk scene with a pre-ordained finish of course. I was actually expecting a whole better movie after this gambit from a Director who had his horror mask on and is taking names.

The Director is unable end of day to overcome a script labouring under the delusion that the writers actually know what they are doing. Rather than a slasher, and this movie is trying to really touch bases with that concept, we get a revenge flick wrapped in slasher conventions. From the unknown protagonist, who most audience members will have picked from about the twenty minute mark, to the "final girl" the script is hitting all the clichés like a wild Friday night up the Cross. And if you can't pick the "final girl" from the fifth minute you really aren't trying. Valentine is a cut priced movie that goes with clichés that even a rudimentary viewing of the "Idiots Guide to Slashers" would quickly show don't actually exist. The whole "final girl" thing, for example, is a fallacy dreamt up by an Academic trying to fit round pegs into the square holes of her feminist belief system. The person in question had her conclusion written well before viewing the facts. Unfortunately for us horror fans a hell of a lot of people have taken the "final girl" at face value, people very much like the script writers of Valentine, and thus it has become a reality. I call that Academic bankruptcy and another example of how the U.S education system is fundamentally flawed, try a scientific method next timer perhaps.

As stated previously Director Banks is trying his level best to raise Valentine from the depths of mediocrity that the writers seem hell bent on submerging it in. A number of scenes will have you nodding your head in approval, Banks sure does know how to get his stalk on, and you end up feeling sorry for a Director who has been lumbered with a movie bereft of vision or any attempt at making a new statement as to the what a horror movie can do.

Banks does manage a double whammy at the end of the movie which had me wondering if I called it all wrong earlier in the movie, but it does prove to be something of a false spring. Keen viewers would have taken note of the order of the murders however and be reflecting that the fate of individual characters does marry up with their actions on that fateful Valentine Dance night.

Jamie Banks isn't being helped by post production editing either; did they allow a troop of chimpanzees to make the final cuts on this movie? There clearly has been quite a number of frames cut from the final release version of Valentine as some of the transition scenes are simply way to jerky and to be honest irritating. Banks has most scene transitions moving smoothly, as any competent director should, so the jerky nature of some transitions are even more noticeable. No wonder the Aussie Director got out of dodge after seeing what they did to this one.

The casting choices for Valentine seem to have been made by an agency that doesn't get out much beyond Rodeo Drive, in other words the normal flotsam and jetsam of "B" grade actors that look good. Denise Richards (Paige) simply can't act and should be applying for a job at Bunnings. Heck based on her performance here she would be a shoo in for their lumber yard. David Boreanaz (Adam) seems to be cast due to his work as television's Angel, there's even a punch line around that, and repays the casting agency by going all emo and smouldering. Wonder if they ever considered him for a role in Twilight? Marley Shelton (Kate) is all preppy and irritating. Jessica Capshaw (Dorothy) actually does okay. Jessica Cauffiel (Lily) needed to be drowned at birth. And Katherine Heigl (Shelley) is my pick of a not very impressive cast.

T&A isn't going to give you any relief here, Denise Richards shows off her legs and cleavage, cause she's the requisite slut character, and that's about all she wrote. The sharp eyed will note some nekkid boobs on the video monitors at the art show. Ladies can dig on into Boreanaz's smouldering looks and sparkle that as much as they wont.

In terms of the score, I didn't really notice that much of it but did write down in my movie notes "soundtrack is your standard mixture up to this stage", guess we're talking heard it before playing it again Sam. From memory pretty disjointed and somewhat of a hack job with influences from numerous sources being utilised.

Summary Execution Valentine was one of those movies I'm always left feeling slightly underwhelmed by. Parts of it were good, Banks can nail the tension when he wants to, but in other places you are left wondering what could have been done if they had of jettisoned at least two of the script writers early in the piece. Just how many people does it honestly take to write one of these things anyways? Overall not the worse horror flick I've sat through but equal not one I'd go out of way to watch again.

Proving not every horror movie ever made makes a profit at the cinema Valentine returned $20.4 million in North America and $16.3 from the International markets on a production budget of $29 million, well below the breakeven point. For those wondering, yes the imdb has the production figure completely wrong. For trivia buffs both Tara Reid and Jennifer Love Hewitt intially tried out for parts in the movie.

If you are one of those people who simply must watch every pseudo "slasher" ever made then feel free to dial into this one, it may be derivative but the movie does contain the odd surprise. For the vast majority of readers who want something other than a whole bunch of murders strung together by a thread bare plot then you can give it a miss as you wont be losing out here. With two more movies in our Jamie Banks retrospective we can only hope it gets better from here kids.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...