It’s Valentine’s Day–the day where people feel sorry for themselves, pretend their relationships aren’t falling apart and where companies, like Nestlé, make millions off slave-labor harvested chocolate in the shape of a human organ.

And just like every other holiday, Valentine’s Day has a horror movie based around it, like the classics Halloween and Black Christmas. However, My Bloody Valentine does live up to the true spirit of Valentine’s Day by being one of the meanest and grittiest slasher films from the eighties.

The movie is set in the small mining town of Valentine Bluffs. Twenty minutes before the main events start in the movie, two mine supervisors leave their posts early to go to a Valentine’s Day dance, neglecting to check the methane levels at the mine.

An explosion ensues, with only one miner, Harry Warden, surviving by eating the corpses of his fellow miners. Driven insane by this, he gets released by the state mental hospital and enacts bloody revenge on the two supervisors; cutting their hearts out with his pickaxe and putting them in heart shaped candy containers, then threatening to kill again if there is ever another Valentine’s Day dance.

Twenty years pass by and the town tries holding another Valentine’s Day dance, but a murderer dressed in a miner outfit begins killing people.

Could Harry Warden have come back? Or has someone else decided to crash the party?

It’s a fairly basic slasher movie premise, but for the most part, it’s a fairly solid movie. While the plot and acting are nothing special, they are miles above the worst I have seen and they serve the movie well.

Same can be said for most of the characters. They are largely basic, but still fun to watch, with my personal favorite being a big mustached miner named Hollis; he steals each scene he is in and is just a fun character to watch overall.

The only bad character is sadly the main character, T.J. While he is the main protagonist, he comes off as sort of a creepy jerk, stalking his ex when she moved on with another guy, and he is acting needlessly aggressive with everyone around him. While he does become more likable during the climax, he drags the rest of the movie down due to his jerk-ish and nice-guy behavior. 

Aside from that, the other notable thing about this movie are the murders. I do not say it lightly when I say that the murder scenes are the most violent and brutal of the entire slasher movie sub genre. I won’t spoil anything for you, but let’s just say that there was a reason the MPAA mangled this movie on the editing floor. Even better, the build ups to the murders are also done fairly well with them still remaining suspenseful and frightening for over thirty years later. 

The direction of the movie, as a whole, works in its favor. Many of the scenes help sell the coldness of the town it takes place in, and helps emphasize the winding corridors of the mine. Its not that special, but it helps the movie in a way that many of its contemporary slashers fall flat, as the sub-genre is littered with shoddy directing and crappy camerawork that ruin the otherwise good movies (Many of the Friday The Thirteenth sequels fall into this category). 

Overall, My Bloody Valentine is a good slasher movie that’s worth seeking out if you like horror movies, slasher movies, or are dateless this Friday. There are many dvds available to you, but most contain the cut version where most of the kills are censored. Luckily, a new Blu-ray has been released, which is not only uncut, but has a brand new transfer, too. If you want to do something other than wallow in self loathing this Valentine’s Day, check My Bloody Valentine out, provided you’re not faint of heart.