In the Canadian town of Valentine Bluffs, the moment of the Valentine's Day ball is approaching, a particularly felt festival and at the base of the town's tourist economy. But the discovery of a corpse with its heart torn out plunges the town into terror: twenty years earlier, in fact, a miner named Harry Warden had survived an accident in a mine where some of his colleagues had lost their lives and which the authorities did not provide the necessary help because they were busy with the celebrations of Valentine's Day. Awakened from the coma, Harry had gone mad and had killed several people threatening the town with returning to reap victims if they continued to celebrate Valentine's Day, before being interned in an asylum. Now the mayor decides to suspend the preparations for the party, fearing that Harry has really returned, but a group of young people do not want to give up the ball, thus unleashing the wrath of the killer.
In full slasher fever, when "Halloween" already had a couple of chapters to its credit, as did "Friday the 13th", a myriad of clones began to invade the market hoping to replicate the lucky earnings of the prototypes: "Compleanno di sangue", "Sleepaway Camp", "Horror Puppet", "Il giorno di San Valentino" and many others... all products that, more or less, were born from a branch of the better known (and long-lived) films dedicated to Michael and Jason. Among the many, "Il giorno di San Valentino" is one of the most celebrated, also for a couple of favorable words that Quentin Tarantino has spent on it, who defined it as one of his favorite splatter (splatter?) films.
The work of Hungarian George Mihalka ("I viaggiatori delle tenebre"; "Psychic") tries to forcefully insert itself into the genre by exploiting every minimal recognizable characteristic related to the slasher; therefore, if the plot that sees a group of people prey to a mysterious masked serial killer and a rather substantial body count seems obvious, some "secondary" elements are actually inserted, such as the childhood trauma of the killer and above all the desire to use a particular day of the year to develop the story and, naturally, highlight it in the title.
"Il giorno di San Valentino" is, therefore, a bit of the "usual soup", the classic imitation product inserted in the market at the right time, which has some elements of undeniable charm, but also several flaws.
Let's start by finding those small variants that enhance the product in question. First of all, the mining setting is an element of originality not to be underestimated, especially if one considers the almost singularity of the choice in the panorama of slasher movies; then, the look of the killer, although conforming to the rules of the genre, is rather well chosen and original, not to mention disturbing: black miner's suit, gas mask, protective helmet, pickaxe in hand and an unmistakable heavy breathing like Darth Vader's. Some scenes featuring the killer are certainly memorable, starting with the story that presents the genesis of Harry Warden and some of his murders, especially the one in the suit room. The choice of not making the usual teenagers the protagonists of the story, but rather a group of miners, is also appreciable, although, unfortunately, the unfortunate path of characterizing these characters as if they were the usual teenagers has been chosen, making them therefore somewhat unconvincing: we will therefore have the funny guy who enjoys playing pranks on everyone, the athletic macho of the moment, the horny couple ready to have sex anywhere, rivers of beer and a lot of desire to have college parties. Starting from this little-shared choice, the "problems" of "Il giorno di San Valentino" begin, which continue with a rhythm at times too slow, accentuated by a real massacre that, at the time of its release in America, was carried out by the censorship. In fact, the film is completely devoid of violent scenes, which were cut to avoid applying the major ban to the film; unfortunately, however, the scenes in question (it is said that they are almost ten minutes of footage) were never reintegrated and only recently Paramount has reissued (only for the American market) the complete version of "Il giorno di San Valentino". Thus, a film of this kind loses a great part of its "raison d'être", resulting irreparably compromised in its final success.
"Il giorno di San Valentino" presents a first part all in all enjoyable, but it is in the second that it loses much of the potential accumulated. Strangely – and against the trend – it is precisely in the progression of the minutes that the rhythm drops, due mainly to the repetitiveness of the action, and the solution of the mystery regarding the identity of the killer is particularly disappointing because it is highly predictable and garnished with a too banal motive. The open ending also leaves a bit baffled for the clumsiness with which it has been put together.
In short, to sum up "Il giorno di San Valentino" does not appear to be a great film, a slasher too conventional that to some undeniable merits opposes as many, perhaps greater, flaws. To be recovered especially for the die-hard slasher movie fans.
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