ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 11th
"MY BLOODY VALENTINE" released in 1981
A decades-old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer killing those who celebrate Valentine's Day turns out to be true to legend when a group defies the killer's order and people start turning up dead, in the cult horror classic, My Bloody Valentine!
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Mayor Hanniger (Larry Reynolds) of mining town Valentine Bluffs reinstates the traditional Valentine's Day dance which has been suspended for twenty years. The dances stopped after an accident that occurred when two supervisors left several miners in the mines to attend the dance. Harry Warden, the only survivor who resorted to cannibalism, murdered the supervisors who left the mine and vows further attacks if the dance resume. As the accident was forgotten and Warden was placed into an asylum, the dance resumes. Many of the town's younger residents are excited about the dance. Of this group Sarah (Lori Hallier), Axel (Neil Affleck), and the mayor's son T.J. (Paul Kelman) are involved in a tense love triangle.
Mayor Hanniger and the town's police chief Jake Newby (Don Francks) receive an anonymous box of Valentine chocolates containing a human heart and a note warning that murders will begin if the dance proceeds. That evening, resident Mabel (Patricia Hamilton) is murdered by a mining-geared killer with her heart removed. When Newby discovers this the next morning, he publicly reports that she died of a heart attack to prevent a panic. Newby contacts the mental institution where Harry Warden was incarcerated, but they have no record of him. Hanniger and Newby cancel the dance and order the hall locked, however the town's youngsters decide to hold their own party at the mine head. After a bartender named Happy (Jack Van Evera) is angered by the youngsters, he tries to set up a fake miner dummy to scare them, only to be brutally killed by the real miner. Soon, the miner proceeds to kill many of the youngsters, a shaken Sarah and five others decide to travel down into the mine as a diversion, while Newby, after getting information from Gretchen (Gina Dick) about the murders, begins to rush into the mines with police support to rescue the group. But will he arrive while there are still any survivors to save?!
Mayor Hanniger and the town's police chief Jake Newby (Don Francks) receive an anonymous box of Valentine chocolates containing a human heart and a note warning that murders will begin if the dance proceeds. That evening, resident Mabel (Patricia Hamilton) is murdered by a mining-geared killer with her heart removed. When Newby discovers this the next morning, he publicly reports that she died of a heart attack to prevent a panic. Newby contacts the mental institution where Harry Warden was incarcerated, but they have no record of him. Hanniger and Newby cancel the dance and order the hall locked, however the town's youngsters decide to hold their own party at the mine head. After a bartender named Happy (Jack Van Evera) is angered by the youngsters, he tries to set up a fake miner dummy to scare them, only to be brutally killed by the real miner. Soon, the miner proceeds to kill many of the youngsters, a shaken Sarah and five others decide to travel down into the mine as a diversion, while Newby, after getting information from Gretchen (Gina Dick) about the murders, begins to rush into the mines with police support to rescue the group. But will he arrive while there are still any survivors to save?!
TRIVIA: In a recent interview, actor Neil Affleck revealed that he still has the miner's helmet that he wore in the film.
Top: As Valentines Day looms, best friends T.J. (Paul Kelman) and Axel (Neil Affleck) realize they in love with the same girl, Sarah (Lori Hallier) (Above)
Canadian producers André Link and John Dunning originally tried to find a holiday which a slasher film had not been set on during the "slasher flick boom" - the holiday trend with which the slasher genre was becoming increasingly popular, through films such as Black Christmas, Halloween and Friday the 13th - of the early 1980s, and eventually settled on Valentine's Day. In order to keep the idea from being copied they made the films working title (appropriately) "The Secret", though they had the release title in mind the whole time. Next, Link and Dunning approached director George Mihalka, on the strength of his earlier movie Pick-Up Summer, in mid-1980, and, after Mihalka agreed to direct, John Beaird was bought in to write the screenplay.
Two mines were considered for the setting, one of them being in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, but the production company decided on the Sydney Mines location - which had been closed in 1975 - due to "the exterior [being] a dreary, cold and dusty area [with] no other buildings around it so it looked like it was totally in the middle of nowhere." However when the locals found out that a movie was to be shot there they decided to spend $50,000 to have the mine painted and cleaned! This, of course, diminished the reason that the production wanted the location to begin with, and the production spent $75,000 of the films budget to return the mine to its original state for shooting. However, shooting in authentic mines (which were often as much as 900 feet underground) proved difficulty - and dangerous; only certain lighting devices could be used in the mines because of the potential danger of methane explosions. In addition, due to limited space in the elevators, it would take often an hour to assemble the cast and crew underground.
Thomas R. Burman, Ken Diaz, and Tom Hoerber provided the gory make-up effects for the movie. One such effect, according to Burman, was so realistic that it made director Mihalka throw up at the sight of it! In addition, one of the makeup designers once shipped a dummy corpse to the set in a coffin, which caused much alarm when it arrived at Canadian customs. Star Neil Affleck said that the identity of the film's killer was kept a secret even from the cast because the filmmakers liked the idea of the mystery being real among the actors. However, Affleck figured out that he was the killer when, after being cast, he was sent to the make up effects department to be fitted for a fake arm that would be ripped off the killer in the film's finale.
Two mines were considered for the setting, one of them being in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, but the production company decided on the Sydney Mines location - which had been closed in 1975 - due to "the exterior [being] a dreary, cold and dusty area [with] no other buildings around it so it looked like it was totally in the middle of nowhere." However when the locals found out that a movie was to be shot there they decided to spend $50,000 to have the mine painted and cleaned! This, of course, diminished the reason that the production wanted the location to begin with, and the production spent $75,000 of the films budget to return the mine to its original state for shooting. However, shooting in authentic mines (which were often as much as 900 feet underground) proved difficulty - and dangerous; only certain lighting devices could be used in the mines because of the potential danger of methane explosions. In addition, due to limited space in the elevators, it would take often an hour to assemble the cast and crew underground.
Thomas R. Burman, Ken Diaz, and Tom Hoerber provided the gory make-up effects for the movie. One such effect, according to Burman, was so realistic that it made director Mihalka throw up at the sight of it! In addition, one of the makeup designers once shipped a dummy corpse to the set in a coffin, which caused much alarm when it arrived at Canadian customs. Star Neil Affleck said that the identity of the film's killer was kept a secret even from the cast because the filmmakers liked the idea of the mystery being real among the actors. However, Affleck figured out that he was the killer when, after being cast, he was sent to the make up effects department to be fitted for a fake arm that would be ripped off the killer in the film's finale.
TRIVIA: Actor Carl Marotte (who plays Dave) said while in his death scene makeup that no one would eat lunch near him.
Top and Above: The Miner claims his another victim!
Much has been made of the censorship issues around My Bloody Valentine. For the MPAA to award the movie with an R-rating, cuts were requested to every death sequence in the movie. Even after cutting the movie to match the requirements made by the MPAA, the film was returned with an X-rating and more cuts were demanded. There are two reasons that are frequently attributed to the extreme cutting of the film: it has been suggested that Paramount Pictures (who held distribution rights in the US) was keen to remove the offending footage due to the backlash they had received from releasing Friday the 13th the previous year — as a side note, Paramount's Friday the 13th Part 2, which premiered a couple of months after My Bloody Valentine, also suffered extensive cutting, which has never been released. - with the second reason, that Mihalka attributes, is that the movie was cut due to the murder of John Lennon in December 1980, stating that there was a major backlash against movie violence in the wake of his death.
Released in February 11th, 1981, My Bloody Valentine grossed nearly $6 million at the US box office during its theatrical run, but received mixed reviews from critics. However, contemporary reviews (influenced by the movies cult status earned during its video and LaserDisc release) have been more positive. Dustin Putman from TheFilmFile.com reviewed (in 2008), "As far as slashers go, My Bloody Valentine is fairly standard stuff. And yet, the film contains a pleasing atmosphere, turning a day dedicated to love into a day to be feared!" In a March 30, 2007 issue of Entertainment Weekly, the film was ranked 17 in a list of guilty pleasures, listed among such films as Dawn of the Dead and Escape from New York, and called "the most criminally underappreciated of the slasher genre."
Despite the relatively poor performance at the box office of the original film, Mihalka approached Paramount in 2001 with a synopsis for a sequel, which was declined. However, in early 2008, production began on a remake of My Bloody Valentine, in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, and spent 13 days filming scenes in the Tour-Ed Mines in the Pittsburgh suburb of Tarentum, a mine that has been out of production since the 1960s and now operates as a museum. Filmed in digital 3-D, the remake was directed by Patrick Lussier, and starred Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, and Kerr Smith, with Tom Atkins and Kevin Tighe. Like the original, My Bloody Valentine 3D received mixed to negative reviews, but was a massive success at the box office, grossing an impressive $100 million.
Released in February 11th, 1981, My Bloody Valentine grossed nearly $6 million at the US box office during its theatrical run, but received mixed reviews from critics. However, contemporary reviews (influenced by the movies cult status earned during its video and LaserDisc release) have been more positive. Dustin Putman from TheFilmFile.com reviewed (in 2008), "As far as slashers go, My Bloody Valentine is fairly standard stuff. And yet, the film contains a pleasing atmosphere, turning a day dedicated to love into a day to be feared!" In a March 30, 2007 issue of Entertainment Weekly, the film was ranked 17 in a list of guilty pleasures, listed among such films as Dawn of the Dead and Escape from New York, and called "the most criminally underappreciated of the slasher genre."
Despite the relatively poor performance at the box office of the original film, Mihalka approached Paramount in 2001 with a synopsis for a sequel, which was declined. However, in early 2008, production began on a remake of My Bloody Valentine, in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, and spent 13 days filming scenes in the Tour-Ed Mines in the Pittsburgh suburb of Tarentum, a mine that has been out of production since the 1960s and now operates as a museum. Filmed in digital 3-D, the remake was directed by Patrick Lussier, and starred Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, and Kerr Smith, with Tom Atkins and Kevin Tighe. Like the original, My Bloody Valentine 3D received mixed to negative reviews, but was a massive success at the box office, grossing an impressive $100 million.
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 50%
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