Leofwine_draca A predictable teeny slasher movie which scores thanks to a wealth of explicit and gruesome death sequences, a few good jumps, and some nice stalk 'n' slash routines which are handled well by enthusiastic Australian director Jamie Blanks (who cut his horror teeth on URBAN LEGEND). Blanks seems to have his heart in the right place - after all he is a big horror fan - and indeed with the right material he could be the break that the genre is currently looking for. In the meantime, VALENTINE is fairly mindless fodder, appeasing enough but nothing that you wouldn't expect from the premise. Although the movie is fairly slow paced when it comes to the action, it's plot heavy stuff with plenty of minor characters and red herrings to keep the viewer on his/her toes and the running time pretty much flies by; rarely was I having to resort to checking my watch as I sometimes do with new releases.The death scenes are the one element of the film that do show some originality about them. Victims are killed in novel fashions, with weapons such as irons, hot tubs, even a bow and arrow in one macabre and violent romance-inspired game. The appearance of the killer, in a creepy cherub mask and black clothing, is a fairly memorable one (a lot better than the boring parka-clad fencing-mask-wearing murderer in URBAN LEGEND, that's for sure) and there are some okayish suspense bits going on here, my favourite being at the beginning with the macabre yet methodical stabbing of the corpses in the body bags, whilst another murder at a weird media art exhibition is disorientatingly good.On the downside, the characters are grating and unappealing and the story appears to have been borrowed wholesale from SCREAM, following a very strict and unremarkable plot to the unsurprising end which nonetheless finishes ambiguously, which makes a nice change from the usual run-of-the-mill productions which feel it necessary to tie up every single loose end. The casting is fairly average; the young actresses are good enough to carry themselves but the ante has been upped in the youth horror genre as of late and none of them excel as they perhaps should. The biggest offender is Denise Richards who is more than happy to play a one-dimensional bitchy character and who grates on the nerves throughout. David Boreanaz appears briefly but is largely wasted, at least until the end. At the end of the day, you can safely miss watching VALENTINE and not worry about anything remarkable that you lost out on seeing; however, if you want some slick, glossy, well-made and occasionally stylish thrills then you could do a LOT worse than this, what with all the junk on the Blockbuster shelves at the moment.

Dom Nickson Spoiler Alert! OK I get it, slasher movies died down around this time and to be honest this film sort of sucks! I liked most of the creative kills and the mask the killer wears, this film just flat out sucks. The acting from the girls are just plain horrible and I didn't really care if a single one of them died! The deaths are really just over the top and yet creative. I think the thing that really makes this film stick out from the rest is the mask and the creative kills. The story is sort of stupid because if a psycho really wanted to kill somebody that hurt them I don't think they would wait a whole 10 years until they come after you. Overall I give it a 4 out of 10.

TheBlueHairedLawyer There's one in every school, that boy or girl with thick lenses in their nerdy glasses and always staring like some pervert, acting all religious or obsessed with video games, maybe even concealing their love interest. Remember Carrie (1976), Sleepaway Camp (1983) and The Pit (1981)? Well, this freaky little 2001 slasher has an antagonist equally as nerdy, a boy named Jeremy. When he was a kid, a fat girl kissing him framed when she was caught by the popular boys, claiming that Jeremy tried to rape her when he didn't. Years later, Fatty Dorothy is nothing like she was before, and she and her snobby group of friends have forgotten Jeremy. Unknown to them, somebody wants the entire group dead.Why does Valentine have such poor ratings? Well, it certainly doesn't compare to classics like Sleepaway Camp or My Bloody Valentine (1981). That being said, Valentine is a pretty good slasher film for its time. I can't say I liked the awful 21st century soundtrack but the acting was pretty good and the film managed to be entertaining the entire way through. It definitely beats movies that came out later on the next year like Death Factory and Resident Evil (2002). I'm not saying you'll want to add it to your list of favorite horror films, but give it a chance.

raisleygordon Friday the 13th. Halloween. You know what you're in for. What's new this time is that the "story" is set on Valentine's Day. I know what you're thinking: Halloween events taking place on the sweetest day of the year? And yes, there's a prologue. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but what's revealed in the last scene of the film makes the prologue disappointing and pointless. Will you enjoy this movie? Well there wouldn't be any point on answering that question if you also liked (or loved) the Friday the 13th and Halloween movies. It's just the same thing, only in February. Needless to say, the movie is also predictable. Since it's just a rehash of the aforementioned movies, there's no need to judge the acting, positively or negatively, except to say the ending of the movie is a cop-out.*** out of ****