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you think the four friends trolling for true love in their Manolo
Blahnik's in the heartless New York clubs and tony restaurants of TV's Sex And The City have it rough? That's nothing. Five friends in the new horror movie Valentine have to contend with a deadly Rubik's cube of a problem: one of their new boyfriends might be a revenge serial killer from their past - one who strikes yearly on that most holy of romantic days - February 14th. Does the course of love ever run smoothly? Apparently not. Based on the best selling novel by Tom Savage, Valentine is a bloody slasher film in the tradition of the Scream movies. Consider that Australian director Jamie Blanks, whose debut movie was Urban Legend, fell in love with horror at the age of 11 when he saw John Carpenter's The Fog, and boasts an encyclopedic knowledge of the horror/thriller genre. It's a pretty safe bet that if the idea of a fair maiden meeting her demise makes you feel slightly ill, this isn't going to be the movie for you. Or as Blanks says, "In real life, I'm opposed to violence, but this is a movie - a very scary movie." |
actors David Boreanaz Katherine Heigl Jessica Capshaw Jessica Cauffiel Marley Shelton Denise Richards director location outtake |
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But then again, the five young women
in question are not innocents. It seems that when they were in school,
they played a nasty practical joke on Jeremy Melton - the class nerd.
Their prank set off a chain of events that were catastrophic for poor
Jeremy, who ended up in jail. Sixteen years later the lovely women have left the past behind and are dreaming about the future and meeting Mr. Right. Each one has a relationship of varying degrees of dysfunction when one of them is murdered. The surviving friends each receive morbid and threatening Valentines. Are they being stalked and targeted? Could it be that the adult Jeremy is taking his bloody revenge? No one knows if he's alive or dead - or what he looks like for that matter. So, could one of their romantic partners be the killer? What about the police investigating the crime? To quote Count Floyd: "Oooo! Scary." Director Blanks has assembled an interesting crew of beautiful, young and largely experienced actors including two of television's pretty young faces, David Boreanaz (Angel) and Katherine Heigl (Roswell). Others in the cast include Jessica Cauffiel (Road Trip), Marley Shelton (The Bachelor), Denise Richards (The World Is Not Enough) and the daughter of Kate Capshaw, and step daughter of Steven Spielberg, Jessica Capshaw (The Love Letter). As in many classic horror films, a lot of the action takes place in lush settings. Watch for some spectacularly luxurious sets, especially a spare-no-expense Valentine's Day party set in an old mansion. (This may be the first horror movie in history to have employed a 'balloon technician' as part of the crew). For fans of the genre, Valentine promises to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller. And you may never look at a cherub the same way again. - Karen Gordon |