VALENTINE
US, 2001, 95 minutes, Colour.
Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marlee Shelton, Katherine Heigel.
Directed by Jamie Blanks.
Valentine is one of the many teenage slasher killer film from the '90s and the beginning of the 2000s. It is directed by Australian Jamie Blanks, who impressed Hollywood with some of his short films and was invited there to film Urban Legend. This is his second feature film.
The film, as always, has a group in school who are being threatened by a slasher. It is a man who has been ridiculed when young and it taking revenge on the girls who mocked him. There are the usual red herrings, scary sequences, the various conventions that people expect from this type of thriller.
The star is Denise Richards, who emerged at the end of the '90s as a star, culminating with her being a Bond girl in Tomorrow is Forever. The male lead is David Boreanaz, who was the star of the popular television series, Angel.
Audiences know what to expect from this kind of film and, with its limitations as well as its style, it delivers what is expected.
1. The tradition of the slasher film from the '70s and '80s? The school group? The boy with a spirit of revenge for being put down? The girls who ridiculed him? The serial killer? Its remake for the beginning of the 21st century?
2. The city settings, the school, homes and mansions, art galleries? The atmospheric musical score? Editing for shocks?
3. The title and the celebration of St Valentine's Day? The theme of love, gifts and cards, sexuality? Deaths?
4. The prologue with Jeremy and his appearance, the girls in turn rejecting him for the dance, Dorothy and acceptance, the kiss, the boys tormenting him? Jeremy subsequently being sent to the reform school? His disappearing? Reappearing?
5. Shelley and the dinner with Jason, Jason as a suspect? Talking about himself in the third person, her rejection of him? Her exams, going to the mortuary, her scares, the appearance of the murderer, her death among the
corpses? After the Valentine's card?
6. The other girls and their going to her funeral? The introduction to each of them and their particular personalities: Paige and her being very forward, Kate and her attractiveness and popularity, Dorothy and her being fat, rich and resentful, Lily and her exuberance?
7. Seeing the girls in action: Paige and Katie with the 30 second dating (and Brian and his later encounter with Paige and his macho sexuality and her humiliation of him)? Katie and her relationship with Adam, knowing his background, working with him, his alcoholism, her forgiving him, being together,
finally discovering him drinking again, suspicious that he was the killer? The reconciliation? Her friendship with Paige and Paige going to her apartment, sharing things together? Paige and her flirtation with the policeman, his reaction? Lily and her relationship with the artist, the art exhibition, his coming on to Kate, meeting her later, Lily and her being trapped in the gallery and her death? Dorothy and her father and stepmother, her accepting Campbell into her house, his wanting to con her, her not seeing this?
8. The policeman and the investigation, his coming on to Paige, his contact with the women, the investigation the irony of his mobile phone and his death?
9. The suspicious men: Adam and his drinking, Campbell and his being a conman (and Ruth denouncing him and the irony of Ruth coming back, taking his watch, her death)? The discussions about Jeremy being released? Jason and his being released?
10. The women themselves as suspects?
11. The build up to the final party, Paige's death? Ruth's death? Kate and her fears, the appearance of the masked killer, falling down the stairs, Adam shooting her? The revelation of Dorothy? The seeming solution and then the
nosebleed from Adam revealing the truth?
12. The popularity of this kind of slasher thriller? Its being better than average with its development of characters and performance? Not the same routines and stereotypes for this kind of thriller?
