One star.
Coming out of the glut of teen slasher films in the years following the Scream movies and I Know What You Did Last Summer, we have this holiday-themed ripper flick from the early 2000s. Until I saw it pop up on Tubi around Valentine's Day, I had completely forgotten it existed.
And there's a reason for this. It's a forgettable movie. So much so that I had to watch it multiple times. It was so fucking boring that I kept falling asleep.
The one thing I did like about this film is it had the classic slasher intro. It dates back to a 1988 junior high dance, where a gap-toothed bespectacled nerd named Jeremy Melton is getting spurned by several girls at a VD dance. He eventually connects with Dorothy. Dorothy is seemingly also an outcast with, shall we say, body image issues? As we later discover, she belongs to the same circle of friends casting ire upon Jeremy (a plot point I didn't really understand).
The romance is short-lived, as Dorothy accuses Jeremy of attacking her when the pair are heckled by a group of unnamed bullies. After getting the holy shit beat out of him, Jeremy is sent to reform school and never heard from again. So we have the foundation for a revenge plot by a psychopath holding a long time grudge.
Cut to 2001. We're briefly introduced to Shelley (an early appearance by ego-maniacal Grey's Anatomy actress Katherine Heigl), one of the girls from the dance who's currently in medical school. She's hunted down and slaughtered by a lunatic in a cherub mask. This leads to a reunion of the other girls at her funeral! We meet the film's heroine, Kate (Shelton); super-model level sarcastic-sexpot Paige (Richards); Lily, an attractive woman who lives like a complete slob and dates a perv-creep gallery owner; lastly, adult Dorothy, who gets into spats with her same-age stepmother. As the story progresses, each woman receives sinister pop-up VD cards addressed "JM." Gee, I wonder who the mystery man may be?
The funny thing about Kate is the fact that she's so spacey, she acts just like Cindy from Scary Movie. I actually thought this actress was Anna Farris with blond hair and I had to check IMDb to find out otherwise. She goes around with this lost, blank expression through most of the movie. She has a on and off again boyfriend named Adam (played by former teen heartthrob David Boreanaz). The couple go back and forth about Adams drinking problem, which adds to the monotony of the movie.
And the dull does not stop there. For a good chunk of this film, we get to watch the characters as they go on speed dates, bitch about the deceptions of online dating, perusing video personal services, and so on. We're treated to a gala for Lily's boyfriend, where they begin making out. This is abruptly ended when Lily storms off after her boyfriend's assistant attempts to join in. I kinda wondered why this surprised her, as this guy's art exhibit is literally nothing but T and A plastered all over the walls. I'm sure this pony-tail wearing goat molester went on to a lucrative career decades later on Pornhub.
The funny thing about Kate is the fact that she's so spacey, she acts just like Cindy from Scary Movie. I actually thought this actress was Anna Farris with blond hair and I had to check IMDb to find out otherwise. She goes around with this lost, blank expression through most of the movie. She has a on and off again boyfriend named Adam (played by former teen heartthrob David Boreanaz). The couple go back and forth about Adams drinking problem, which adds to the monotony of the movie.
And the dull does not stop there. For a good chunk of this film, we get to watch the characters as they go on speed dates, bitch about the deceptions of online dating, perusing video personal services, and so on. We're treated to a gala for Lily's boyfriend, where they begin making out. This is abruptly ended when Lily storms off after her boyfriend's assistant attempts to join in. I kinda wondered why this surprised her, as this guy's art exhibit is literally nothing but T and A plastered all over the walls. I'm sure this pony-tail wearing goat molester went on to a lucrative career decades later on Pornhub.
The point is driven home that all of these men they encounter are creeps. Which the men portrayed here are some real winners. The character aptly named Scary Gary comes to mind. Overall, it's tiring and distracts from any real impact for the violence that ensues later.
We get some exposition in the form of an old-school balding detective named Vaughan. He reveals that Jeremy Melton pulled the old "escape from the asylum" routine and is possibly the man behind the . . . mask. Vaughan shows the girls a laughable series of computer aged composites of Melton, as no pictures were taken of him after 1988. After Vaughan postulates that Melton could be posing as someone any of the girls could be dating, a very flat bout of paranoia breaks out as to who the killer may be.
The killings finally pickup at a house party held by Dorothy, very much later in the film. Aside from a decent attack involving a hot tub, the film just turns into the standard slasher, with somewhat of a non-twist as to who the killer really is. I would call it a letdown, but I had no buzz to kill upon watching the ending.
Valentine has the same slick sheen many of the late 90s/early 00s horror flicks seemed to have. The characters parade with the same hip, too cool for school attitudes of the era. Literally none of these characters generate any sympathy. So it's not hard to believe this is not mentioned on YouTube top ten lists and has fallen down the rabbit hole of time.
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