By
Mark Betancourt
Teen body-count movie should have been axed
Somewhere, deep in the mountains of West Virginia, a team of monkeys works year-round writing screenplays. Their work is sent to a second team of monkeys that makes each script into a film. The tragedy is, the monkeys are non-union and therefore largely unaccredited for their efforts.
The latest simian creation is "Valentine," a lovesick murder movie with a plot even the monkeys should be ashamed of. Boy gets rejected at Valentine's Day junior high dance. Boy grows up and starts killing the now-college-age girls who dumped him back in the seventh grade. That's all - no side plots, no character development and no occasional thoughts from characters regarding what's going on. Just a guy in a Cupid mask using various household items to snuff out his ex-crushes in unimaginative, brutal ways.
But alas, monkeys did not think of this one. At least then, they might have received a D+ for their effort. Jamie Blank, the genius behind "Urban Legends," directed this one. Donna Powers, who was part of the juggernaut think-tank responsible for "Deep Blue Sea," helped adapt the screenplay. That's right, "Valentine" was a novel first - and what a novel it must have been.
Enter a world where busty, young medical students perform autopsies without the aid of overhead lighting - everyone knows that moonlight finds its way into every morgue - where lights start flickering when there's a killer nearby, where said killer spends three to five minutes walking around off-screen bumping into things before he finally reveals himself to the terrified student, and proceeds to calmly chase her around the morgue.
Of course, no killer-crush movie is complete without an all-star cast of soft-porn actresses playing themselves, and a few Gap models-turned-actors playing their strapping boyfriends. "Valentine" is no exception. There's Paige (Denise Richards), the sexy one; Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw), the used-to-be-fat one; and Kate (Marley Shelton), the sweet, pretty one. There are a few more, but they get killed before the movie really gets going.
The girls spend the movie either gossiping about their boyfriends, fighting over their boyfriends or blaming each other's boyfriends for the pesky murders that keep happening. There is also a detective (Fulvio Cecere), whose only contribution to the anti-murder effort is to make a pass at Paige.
"Valentine" poses an interesting question for its viewers. At what point does marketing fail to interest the public in a sex-filled-murder-fest? Showing half-naked girls and the split second before they die on the trailer usually gets people sufficiently riled up about a film. But even the public, whose manipulation marketing depends on, knows when it has seen a genuine media bomb.
A movie can be bad and still not deserve to be completely ridiculed. That kind of movie may have some redeeming qualities. The acting may be bad and the plot may be stupid, but maybe there are a few worthwhile ideas stuck in there somewhere, or even a few funny moments. Don't look for them in "Valentine" though - they're not there.
There is a lot of cleavage. There is brutal violence at regular intervals. There are some loud, startling noises. But this film just can't be considered good - no matter how naked Denise Richards gets.
