My Bloody Valentine (1981)

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) Three stars
Several elements lift MY BLOODY VALENTINE — a 1981 Canadian production that became renowned for nine minutes of excised footage so it could receive a “R” from the Motion Picture Association of America — above the average mad slasher film.

1) Valentine Bluffs (“The Little Town with the Big Heart,” elevation 200, population 3735) feels like a real place, definitely more than Springwood, Ohio in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and any of the locations in the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies.

You can almost feel the characters’ excitement as they plan a Valentine’s Day dance for the first time in two decades, you can almost taste the Moosehead beer, you can almost sense their dread they’re stuck in this small town, and you can almost articulate word-for-word both their frustration and thankfulness for that damn mine where everybody, just about everybody, in town works for all their lives.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE just might be the only horror movie that evokes THE DEER HUNTER, through its mine, its miners, its cars, its bar, its beer drinking, its tough talking, and its romantic triangle.

In an interview with Terror Trap, director George Mihalka touched on the environment in MY BLOODY VALENTINE, at one point mentioning how the film’s screenwriter pictured it as “THE DEER HUNTER of horror films.”

“One of the things that both (screenwriter) John Beaird and I wanted to do was that we wanted to take it out of the suburban bungalow context,” Mihalka said. “We wanted to set this in some place where there is a slight hint of social consciousness. This was really the first film in that era where teenagers are actually talking about the fact that there’s no future left.

“There’s no jobs, there’s no future. Not a lot of hope. It was, in a strange way, the first of a Generation X mentality. I think that’s what may still resonate after all these years.”

Valentine Bluffs rates with Kingston Falls (GREMLINS) at the top of my list for horror towns.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE used Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, for its location.

Their plants Sydney Steel (DISCO) and the Sydney Mines Steel (SCOTIA) helped produce 50 percent of Canada’s steel during World War I.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE filmed its mine scenes at Princess Colliery Mines, an operation from 1875 to 1975 that produced 30 million tons of coal.

Princess Colliery even had a famous disaster on December 6, 1938.

From the opening paragraph of Canadian Press staff writer Arthur Andrew, “A committee of miners and officials planned today to descend Princess Colliery and trace the death-dealing trail of a runaway ‘man-rake’ that killed 16 men yesterday. Their visit is the first step in an investigation seeking the reason the string of cars broke loose, spreading death and injury. … The evidence they gather, added to the testimony of the more than 200 men who survived the disaster, will be placed before an investigating commissioner. Hon. Michael Dwyer, minister of mines, will attend the probe into the worst accident in the last 21 years of coal mining in Cape Breton.”

2) MY BLOODY VALENTINE mines (pun intended) its holiday for all its worth.

Not only do we have Valentine Bluffs, we have a Valentine’s dance, we have red and white streamers all over the place, its killer has a future writing Hallmark cards … for psychos like this epic “ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, ONE IS DEAD, AND SO ARE YOU!” (the killer underlines you three times for dramatic effect), and it makes brilliant use of a box of chocolates, only rather than candy hearts, well, think we should leave that a surprise for those who have never seen MY BLOODY VALENTINE. I’ve already said too much.

Paramount Pictures released MY BLOODY VALENTINE on February 11, 1981, and its profit proved to be considerably less than what FRIDAY THE 13TH produced for Paramount in 1980.

3) “The Miner” is one of the most iconographic killers, I mean, come on just take a gander at him on Google Images. Hell, better yet, go watch MY BLOODY VALENTINE.

He’s combination miner, Jason Voorhees, and Darth Vader.

4) These characters are years removed from HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: They’re adults.

Of course, that fact does not absolve them from doing any of the numbskull things horror movie characters often do at the most inopportune times for numbskull behavior.

5) A 25-year-old John McDermott sang “The Ballad of Harry Warden” over the closing credits and I remember being floored by this song upon first viewing MY BLOODY VALENTINE. I just could not believe it. Wow, it’s just about every bit as great as Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and it’s the closing song for a mad slasher movie.

A sampling of Paul Zaza’s lyrics: “Once upon a time, on a sad Valentine / In a place known as Henniger Mine / A legend began, every woman and man / Would always remember the time / And those who remain were never the same / You could see the fear in their eyes / Once every year, as the 14th draws near / There’s a hush all over the town / For the legend they say, on a Valentine’s Day / Is a curse that’ll live on and on / And no one will know, as the years come and go, of the horror from long time ago.”