My Bloody Valentine

Plot synopsis:
Two miners in full gear, including face masks, are seen going down into a deep mine shaft, each carrying a pick axe. They reach an alcove and one of the figures takes off the mask, revealing that she is a young woman. She removes part of her uniform and stands in a state of half-undress in front of the other figure, presumably a man, who does not remove the breathing mask that covers his head. The man sticks his pick axe in the wall beside her as she does a strip tease, fondling the man's mask and breathing tubes in a sexual manner. Finally, the man suddenly grabs her and violently slams her against the pick axe, the blade impaling her through her chest.The small town of Valentine's Bluff is seen preparing for a Valentine's day dance. The town is home to a coal mine where many of the local men work, both young and old. Hanniger, the town Mayor, discusses the Valentine's Day dance with a woman named Mabel Osborne, who runs a laundromat. Hanniger makes a vague reference to a past tragedy associated with Valentine's Day, and we learn that this is the first Valentine's dance to be held in decades. 20 years prior, a mining accident trapped five men underneath the ground. The accident was due to the negligence of two supervisors who were anxious to get to the Valentine's dance, having left their posts while the men were still below - and having failed to check for dangerous levels of methane gas. Of the five men who were trapped in the explosion, four of them died. A survivor named Harry Warden was rescued, found in a state of mental collapse; the rescue took so long that Harry had resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating the bodies of his dead coworkers. Harry took revenge on the two supervisors, attacking them with a pick axe and tearing out their hearts, leaving them in decorative Valentine boxes and warning the town to never hold another Valentine's dance.The warning had been heeded until now, and the town tries to put the past behind it by having another dance. The younger people of the town are excited about it. Three of these young people are involved in a love triangle: T.J. Hanniger, the Mayor's son, has recently returned from an unexpected departure where he tried to leave Valentine's Bluff behind, including his girlfriend Sarah. In the meantime, Sarah has begun a relationship with T.J.'s friend Axel. Sarah still has feelings for T.J., infuriating Axel and causing tension between the two men.Meanwhile, Mayor Hanniger and the town's chief of police, Jake Newby, get an anonymous box of Valentine's chocolates, and when they open it, it contains a human heart, presumably that of the young woman at the beginning of the film. A note warns against having another Valentine's day dance.That evening, Mabel is also attacked by the killer, still dressed in the mining gear. He corners her in the laundromat and murders her with the pick axe. The next morning, Jake finds her body stuffed inside one of the dryers, her heart ripped out and her skin scorched from the heat. Newby tries to hush up the incident in the hopes of avoiding a panic, releasing information that Mabel died of a heart attack. Newby phones the mental institution where Harry Warden was incarcerated, but there is no trace of him there; his records are lost and his contact cannot tell Newby where Harry is or whatever became of him. Newby and Hanniger fear that Harry Warden has come back to continue his killing spree, and their worst fears seem to be confirmed when the coroner tells them the heart in the box was indeed a human heart - of a woman, approximately 30 years old.With the death of Mabel, the dance is cancelled. T.J. and his group of friends gather at the local bar, where they hear stories from the bartender about Harry Warden and his rampage. They scoff at him, angering the bartender Happy, who overhears them planning on holding their own party at the mine after hours. When they leave, the bartender rushes out to the mine ahead of them and sets up a gag dummy with a pickaxe to scare them. But the real killer lunges at him and murders him, driving the pick axe into his head.The following night, when the large group of young revelers arrives at the mine, T.J. and Axel come to blows over their rivalry. A young man, named Dave, is murdered in the kitchen, drowned and scalded in a pot of boiling water by the killer. The killer cuts out his heart and throws it in the boiling water, where it cooks alongside a large batch of beef franks. One of the girls finds it later, thinking it to be a gag, and Dave's body initially goes unnoticed in the freezer of the kitchen. Chief Newby also gets a hint of trouble when another candy box, apparently containing a blood-soaked heart, arrives at the police building with a menacing note - 'You didn't stop the party!'. The chief, unaware of the party at Hanniger mine, can only ask, 'What damn party?'.A young couple named John and Sylvia are making out in the shower area of the mine facility. When John leaves to go get beer, Sylvia is attacked by the miner, who first traps her by dropping miners' coveralls from the ceiling, then ambushes her and viciously impales her head on a shower nozzle. John returns to find the killer gone and Sylvia hanging impaled from the shower nozzle.One of the miners, Hollis allows some of the others to convince him to take them down into the mine. He heads down there with his girlfriend Patty, Sarah, Howard, and another couple, Michael and Harriet. After they descend into the mine, the bodies of Sylvia and Dave are discovered. Gretchen, Howard's love interest, finds Dave dead in the freezer, and then John runs in telling everyone about Sylvia's murder. Axel warns that Harry Warden is probably responsible and is prowling the premises, and the party disperses in a panic. T.J. and Axel find out that the others went down into the mine, and they take an elevator down to warn them and lead them to safety. While down there, Michael and Harriet go off into the engine room to make love, and the killer impales them with a large drill bit. Hollis discovers the bodies and is attacked by the miner, who uses a nail gun to drive two large nails into his head. Patty and Sarah discover him and they catch a glimpse of the miner, who disappears into a tunnel. Howard runs off in a panic, leaving Patty and Sarah alone.Axel and T.J. appear shortly thereafter and try to lead the two girls to safety, but the control panel to the mining cart has been tampered with. The elevator has been similarly disabled, so they climb up the service ladder. Halfway up, they are startled when Howard's body drops from somewhere above them; a rope around his neck decapitates him, spraying blood all over Patty and Sarah. Thinking Harry Warden is now above them on the ladder, they retreat. While rounding a bend in the mine shaft, T.J., Sarah and Patty hear Axel scream behind them. When they go back, it seems as if Axel has fallen into a well; his mining helmet with the light on it sinks down into the abyss, which T.J. says is too deep to traverse. T.J. says Axel is surely lost, and they continue.Above ground, Newby has learned of "Harry Warden" reappearing at the mine when he pulls over a car for speeing where three of the partygoers, Tommy, John, and Gretchen tell him about the two murders. Newby rushes off to the mine with support to rescue the survivors.In the mine, the killer steps out from a doorway and kills Patty with a blow to the stomach from his pick axe. Sarah and T.J. fend him off in a series of confrontations and chases, until they face off with him inside a small alcove that leads to some kind of abandoned tunnel. The fight destroys the outdated wooden supports, and the tunnel begins to collapse. The miner's pickaxe gets caught in a support beam, and he draws a hunting knife. As the miner threatens T.J. with it, the killer is then revealed to be Axel. T.J. and Sarah are stunned, and a flashback reveals Axel as a very young boy--the son of one of the supervisors murdered by Harry Warden. Axel was in the room and saw his father's violent death while hiding underneath the bed. The shock apparently snapped his mind, leaving him unstable, his potential for violence unleashed by the recurrence of the Valentine's dance.The entrance to the old tunnel collapses, trapping Axel underneath a great deal of debris, apparently killing him. Newby and the police arrive as T.J. and Sarah start to walk away, but Axel screams; Sarah, who is still emotionally attached to Axel, rushes back to see him. Only his arm is visible, and she holds his hand, but it pulls away from the rubble; on the other side, Axel has amputated his own arm with a knife to free himself from the cave-in. Through a hole in the debris, the others can see him as he stumbles backwards toward the abandoned tunnel, babbling aloud about Harry Warden and threatening to return. As the one-armed Axel runs off to find another way out of the mine, he says: "Sarah, be my bloody Valentine...!"

Tags: cult, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
Well, this movie doesn't, which makes it very neat.I'd say that it's lush photography, good acting, frightening set pieces and killer, and brutal deaths make this is one of the most impressive slashers of the 80's, maybe of all time..
It's also one of the better holiday themed horror movies around!A crazed miner is determined to stop the celebration of Valentine's day in a small Nova Scotia town, with the help of a trusty pick ax that is.
More than just a guilty pleasure -- this one's actually good!By the time 1981 had rolled around, the horror genre had gained much momentum with holiday-themed slasher flicks such as "Halloween" and "Friday The 13th." Never ones to shy away from a good cash-cow, Paramount (the same company to bring you "Friday The 13th") hired George Mihalka to direct the Valentine's Day themed "My Bloody Valentine." Pre-dating much of the camp and excess of the 80's, "My Bloody Valentine" is a pretty innocent film in it's own right, a glimpse into a time before the genre was completely saturated with masked killers and dumbed-down teenagers.
Sure, the film has it's fair share of clichés; in fact, some of the dialogue and plot-points appear to be ripped straight out of the original "Friday The 13th." The story of a deranged killer returning home years later to exact his revenge on a town is hardly re-inventing the wheel.
Truth be told, even if you are viewing the heavily edited theatrical cut, the film works just as well without the heavy special effects, which is a testament to the overall quality of a film that was conceived, created and released in under half a year's time.Sure, it's got it's flaws, but nothing fatal.
Twenty years ago, Harry Warden went nuts and slaughtered a bunch of people on Valentine's Day. The mining town he hailed from canceled subsequent V-Day dances, but when they try setting one up again, Warden seemingly returns with his pickax, ready to hack the local kids up and leave his mark.
i had seen this film a couple of times back in the day and had always thought it was a alright 80's slasher but was disappointed by some acting and the gore value, well recently they had released a special edition extended cut of the movie so i picked it up just cause i collect old school horror and thought it would be an alright piece to my collection, well little did i know i was right, there is so much gore that was taken out of this film i was in shock and dumbfounded to know that for 30 years no one has actually really seen this movie.
Pretty soon, the mayor receives an eerie warning and a heart-shaped candy box filled with a real human heart, and not long after young people left and right start dying in increasingly horrific and creative fashions - a laundry machine, a nail gun, a shower head, ropes, hot dogs (yes, hot dogs!), and the killer's trademark pick-axe figure into some of the most gruesome ways the characters in this movie are dispatched."My Bloody Valentine" was directed by George Mihalka, and his direction and production design are what is largely responsible for making this an above average slasher flick.
Like in "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th," the viewer is many times party to the slaughter of young people because of the fact that the film is often shot from the point-of-view of the killer; so we often hear his deep breaths from behind a gas mask as he stalks and slaughters his victims.The second half of the film is set largely underground, in a real mine in Nova Scotia, Canada.
These underground scenes are generally very creepy and claustrophobic, dimly-lit and you get the feeling that every time someone strays from the group or wanders down a dark tunnel alone, something could jump out of the darkness to dispatch them; these creepy and claustrophobic scenes of darkness remind one of the underground scenery in the recent British horror movie classic "The Descent" (2005) - which is also one of my all-time favorite horror movies.In terms of pure slasher movie goodness, "My Bloody Valentine" doesn't disappoint.
(Huh???) Strange but true, people die in some incredibly gruesome ways in this picture, but there's no gratuitous nudity anywhere - they aren't really sex scenes, but actually they're more like make-out scenes and the most "skin" we see is a girl in her bra and panties - so "My Bloody Valentine" gets bonus points from me for that.Lastly, "My Bloody Valentine" has also been the source of much controversy in the 28 years since it was released, largely due to the fact that at least five minutes of on-screen gore were cut from the film (additionally, none of this lost footage contains any extra sex or nudity); virtually every death scene in the movie was trimmed in some fashion by the MPAA.
If this movie were released today, I seriously doubt that these cuts would be enforced by the MPAA, but I guess one can understand why they were made back in '81; they are quite nasty and will surely please gore-hounds, but with this new extended cut of the film you get the feeling that you're watching the complete movie, one that is finally free of the ugly influence of censorship.I'm glad to say that now, especially since I saw "Drag Me to Hell" yesterday, I have yet another summer horror movie to add to my list of movies to watch during the Halloween season - "My Bloody Valentine."P.S.: "My Bloody Valentine" was remade earlier this year as a 3-D movie.10/10.
It has a great setting in a small Canadian mining town - which has it's streets and buildings drenched with red and pink valentine decorations - which is a surreal contrast to the cold and sombre setting that foreshadows the real pumpers that eventually pop up in crimson heart shaped candy boxes.The scenes filmed in an actual mine - where the protagonists are trapped with the killer lurking around with a sharpened pickaxe - are expertly filmed with plenty of style and a menacing atmosphere.
You want them to have their valentine party that has been denied them for obvious reasons.Notorious for being one of the most censored films by the MPAA at the time of release to avoid an 'X' rating, it is now available in an uncut form on Lionsgate DVD.
Notorious for being the slasher film most tortured by the censors upon release, MY BLOODY VALENTINE has become something of a cult classic with legions of adoring fans.
The movie began filming in September 1980, but the set designer took the time to make sure that everything was decked out in hearts and banners and they made things look like it actually was Valentine's Day. Mihalka makes good use of the spooky mine as a setting and most of the murders are imaginative and well thought out.
Recently the company asked people to give them ten films that we want to see unleashed and apparently one of those ten was MY BLOODY VALENTINE UNCUT; so we'll just have to wait and see if they come round to our way of thinking.
Slasher movie about a coalminer who axes numerous victims in a little mining town which becomes pretty sinister with the miner killer appearing .
This bizarre little horror movie is set in a mining town , on Valentine an explosion of methane gas took the lives of a group of coal miners working in the Hanniger Mine .
It was re-premiered at video-market in 2009 , an original uncut , then it was a real success in America and all around the world , thanks to 3 minutes gore added , even Quentin Tarantino has named My Bloody Valentine as his all-time favorite slasher film .
Unfortunately the film had the grave misfortune of being distributed by Paramount, the evil enemy to all slasher fans, and suffers badly from blatant cuts which were administered to secure an R-rating.Despite that, My Bloody Valentine is very entertaining to fans of slasher films; the film has a creepy mood all the way, decent actors and some top notch set pieces that are sure to give you a jolt on occasion..
As such the characters are smarter, more bitter and, in many ways, better than their college co-ed, teenage counterparts.In the ranks of slasher films 'My Bloody Valentine' ranks high.
A small-time mining town in America has a legend (don't they all?) – this one tells of a miner who went berserk years ago on Valentine's day and killed a bunch of people.
Also it seems there's a guy wandering around in a miners outfit killing off people because the town is celebrating Valentines Day despite a terrible tragedy that happened 20 years ago.The plot is a little bit confused but it doesn't matter--this is a great little horror film.
What makes "My Bloody Valentine" better than the usual slasher of the era are good production values (looks more expensive than the usual slasher), some nice location work (especially the mine), and it does have some gritty atmosphere.
A much better slasher than this is "Madman", a film with impressive night sequences we can actually see.The mine location is suitably creepy and probably had potential, but there's no point crying over wasted scenery when quite clearly nobody was up to making much of this thin premise that was probably an easy sell to a studio (Paramount) that was hot for special occasion-based/date-based horror after "Friday The 13th" poured millions into its coffers.The idea of "My Bloody Valentine" is much more interesting than the reality of slogging through its turgid scenery.
We also had a couple of characters Howard and Sylvia who had little introduction and then promptly slaughtered.The other issue i had with My bloody valentine was the thin motive the killer had we get a brief reveal at the end but is hardly satisfying.Your common or garden slasher movie the killer has his trademark kill, here victims are dispatched using various ingenious methods, which we are not allowed to see.Now that the movie is over 30 years old it needs a re submission to the censors like others of the time and the cuts re-addressed to make the movie more complete..
It is well made 80's slasher films from George Mihalka it is a Canadian slasher that is happening on a holiday "Valentine's Day" about a crazed killer killing people in a miner suit.
This is one of Quentin Tarnation's favorite slasher movies.A crazed miner is determined to stop the celebration of Valentine's day in a small Nova Scotia town, with the help of a trusty pick ax that is.I love the setting that fact that takes place in the mine is a great setting, great idea, great atmospheric, great claustrophobic and it is a great place dark mine shaft running people for their life's who are been chased by crazed killer.
I love the ballad about Harry Warden, who killed two people two supervisors and he cut their hearts, stuck them in candy boxes and sent them to the authorities.The cast are fine I like Paul Kelman so much as 'T.J.' Hanniger he did fine job.
Time is cemented with the titles of such great films as The Burning, Halloween, The Prowler and the rather stupid Friday The 13th.However criminally overlooked My Bloody Valentine is the best of them.Lost inside F13's popularity in 1981, MBV went mostly unwatched.
However it's unique premise and deliciously devilish kills deserved as much, if not more praise than those of F13.Remade in 2009, the plot focuses on a mass murder legend in a small town on Valentine's Day. As always a group of teenagers decides to do something stupid and the supposed dead killer returns.It's one of my favorite slashers, not without small flaws, but still entertaining and better than most the 80's had to offer.
While My Bloody Valentine is assuredly a straight-forward slasher flick that offers nothing fans of the formula haven't already seen countless times before, the gruesome bits that the Special Edition re-inserts provide the cheap thrills that the original presentation of the film was sorely lacking.Even without the truncated gore, the film already had some nice elements working for it.
One of the originally trimmed murders is extremely murky in its uncut state, and I'm still unsure exactly what happened to the victims (it looks like they were speared by a giant corkscrew, but I'm not sure where the killer got one so massive, or why he took it down into the mineshaft).Uncut or not, My Bloody Valentine is still far from perfect, but fans of the early-'80s splatter cycle will likely glean plenty of enjoyment from this decent descent.
My Bloody Valentine UNCUT is now a classic slasher, or even classic horror film!
No.Last night,I rented this movie for $1.99 and it was worth it.But to tell you the truth,It's no where close to being as good as the remake.It's not even as bloody.Well,the deaths aren't bloody,but there are some close up shots of hearts and dead bodies that are pretty gory.The first hour of the movie was pretty good,but then it descends into the so-so area.Some of the acting is also kinda mediocre.But since this is a 1980's slasher flick, there's always gonna be some bad dialouge.I would skip this and watch the remake if I were somebody looking for an awesome movie.Original- B+Remake- A+.
Well needless to say (it is a slasher movie after all) on the eve of the Valentine's dance, people begin to be murdered by a killer disguised in a mining uniform and armed with a pick axe.
My Bloody Valentine is middle of the road, blighted by cuts to its gore scenes, it's a film that has had to work hard to earn its cult following.
That aside "My Bloody Valentine" remains one of my favorite simply because the death scenes are gory and good, I like a cheesy story with minimal acting and it is from my favorite decade of horror films.
i like both of em but the original is better i think, the one thing that disappointed me in both movies is this,, why didn't either movie, start where it happened, in other words go back and start the movie right before the mining accident instead of those crappy flashbacks,, actually show harry in the mine, where all the workers get trapped,, show how he escapes and what he has to do to survive, they could have done this in say 10-15 mins film time..
Of course, that it what this slasher is most known for, and you will most likely be seeing the film without much gore at all."My Bloody Valentine" truly succeeds in its small town atmosphere that is very similar to that John Carpenter created in "Halloween" or Sean S.
If you love horror movies and especially slasher films you better not miss out on 1 of the best ever.
If you've seen other slashers then you know the routine formula but here we have some different twists like a mine and decent acting, pacing, directing which elevates this film far beyond others of its ilk.If you love horror movies and especially slasher films you better not miss out on 1 of the best ever.
As a result Paramount was able to consistently release films that seemed vaguely familiar in a comforting way, yet dealt with a wide variety of unique subject matters within the expansive slasher genre.My Bloody Valentine is an exploration of the environment and lives of modern day miners, an idea rarely touched by the horror genre.
Mediocre slasher from the early Eighties, this one has a crazy miner (or so it seems) returning after twenty years on Valentine day exacting his vengeance over the minerary town that cause the death of many of his collegues.
So now theres a killer with a pickaxe and a gasmask slashing up the kids in valentines bluff (you just gotta love that gasmask!) This movie has everything you could expect from a slasher-flick ; the pretty girl,the heroic boy,the stupid fat guy,the (not so) funny guy,the old guy that warns everybody and alot of horny teenagers having sex in very odd places.
A useful companion to fellow-Canadian slasher film, "Black Christmas", "My Bloody Valentine" borrows a little from "Friday The 13th" in terms of historical events determining plot and moulds itself into an effective and suspense-driven movie.Unfortunately the only version available over on this side of the world is the pre-Video Recordings Act butchered US version (released 1982) which contains a few trims.
Yes, the bloody effects really do make that much of a difference!The setting for the film is the sleepy mining town of Valentine's Bluff, where twenty years before, demented miner Harry Warden murdered those responsible for the Valentine's Day cave-in that buried him alive for six weeks, with only the bodies of his dead co-workers for food.With Harry safely locked away in an asylum for the past for two decades, the townsfolk have finally decided to ignore the killer's threat to return should they ever hold a Valentine's party, and begin to prepare for a lavish February 14th bash.
But that really has nothing to do with the film, which could have been shot anywhere.The only miner (Harry Morgan) to survive a mine explosion came out of an asylum to kill the next year and warned the town not to hold another Valentine's Dance.
Being released in 1981, however, when the slasher film was still a fairly new concept, My Bloody Valentine is actually a very significant for the time period.
It's too bad this movie was edited down so much on it's release since the gore and special effects in the uncut version are what make it a good slasher film.