Fab Five: My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Favorite Five Scenes

1) Hard for me not to mention the most creative kill of the film even if a bit implausible. The psychopath in the miner outfit lifts a female victim named Sylvia off her feet, carries her to the showering area of the mine, and plants her skull right on a running water pipe (the pipe is the "shower head"; it is a cheap set up, because miners aren't exactly fitted with the finest accommodations). But I liked how the miner killer sets up the fear in the victim, with mining suits and the face mask dropping down in number to strike terror and conceal her within her little area so that she can't get away. It is quite a visual, to say the least. Her body discovered by the boyfriend, who went to get some beeeeeeer, as water flows from her very open mouth caps off the kill quite effectively.

2) While I think the twist isn't as much a surprise (I think, even my '81, it was rather a given that Harry wasn't the killer), how he knives his arm off after it gets pinned under rocks during a capsized wall in a room considered off-limits due to its danger and giggles as he gets away (and the flashback to how when he was a child his pops was pick-axed by Harry, with the heart ripped from the chest (blood spattering on the kid's face!) unveils just why the psycho has went maniacal during Valentine's Day) is quite a way to close the film. It sets up a potential sequel that never happened.

3) Nail-gun alert! I don't think it tops The Toolbox Murder (1978), but I like how it comes out of nowhere and is rather unexpected. The pick-axe is the weapon of choice for the Harry Warden clone, so the nail-gun's appearance kind of works as a surprise. Hollis, the jolly-belly mining wiz, so beloved by girlfriend Patty, has no clue whatsover what awaits him. He turns around and gets the nail right in the temple. The camera fades to show that the lights are going out, and the cold-blooded loading of the gun with a second nail really allows us to realize just how vicious the killer really is. It is a rather horrible way to go...

4) Off goes the head! There's a clever series of escape ruinations thanks to the killer, but perhaps the most brazen comes when the remaining survivors in the mine are climbing a ladder to hopeful safety, only for the film's clownish Howard to fall forward with a rope tied around his neck causing his decapitation. Careful to notice that Axel gets far enough ahead on the ladder to be a potential suspect in causing this. When he's away bad and out of sight, bad things happen.

5) Not just the clothes are in the wash! The chief is in the laundromat when he notices a heart turned upside down and stuck to a particular drier. A distinct rumbling sound soon unloads the body of the Valentine's Day organizer, Mabel! That body is severely, hideously damaged from the beating and heat of the drier. It is wonderfully grotesque. A showstopper.

Sure you have bloody hearts delivered in Valentine's Day choco-candy boxes which horrifies the chief and mayor, there's a certain refreshing feeling of the mining town setting, and the ballad at the end is a fabulous way to conclude the film. The old campfire story told by the town bartending creep about Harry and why Valentine's Day should not be celebrated (and his fate when he sets up a scare tactic that leads to a pick-axe to the throat, knocking out his eye!), and the love triangle that puts the pretty Sarah at odds with the two men who love her (jerk-off Axel who is a bit abrasive but has a right to be defensive since the returning T.J., her former beau, had left Valentine Bluffs for a hopefully different and successful life elsewhere) add dramatic weight to the film. I think the film remains a favorite due to its unique location and characters, simply put. The added gore only gives the film extra pop to go with the story and the young people (not teenagers, another refreshing decision, I thought) who populate the dead-end mining town. I think you can make a claim that remakes have a good purpose: they often bring awareness back to the films that inspired them and special edition releases result.