VALENTINE

A masked maniac sows terror and death in a quiet small town. The killer targets a group of beautiful girls, sending them disturbing Valentine's Day notes before brutally massacring them. However, the assassin appears to be under the effect of a severe shock that occurred years earlier, precisely on that fateful Valentine's Day. When it was released in cinemas, it met with very poor success, to the point that it was deemed utterly disastrous by multiple critics and by both horror and non-horror audiences. "Valentine" disappoints minute after minute, sequence after sequence; if it hadn't been for some decent ideas (including the well-executed morgue sequence, and a few good murders) the film would have received a substantially poor rating. Starting with the prologue: it repeats for the umpteenth time the classic "childhood trauma" memory (see "Deep Red"), a young boy mocked and isolated by his female classmates, who will be the victim of a tasteless prank, the same prank we saw in "Carrie" in which the protagonist had pig's blood hurled at her from a bucket. But as if that weren't enough, director Jamie Blanks ("Urban Legend") following in the footsteps of his beloved Carpenter proposes the overdone serial killer complete with mask and costume (see "Halloween" and "Scream"). Moving to the technical aspect: a cast decidedly below zero, whose acting literally makes you cry, despite the presence of major-level actors, including David Boreanaz and Denise Richards ("007 - The World Is Not Enough"). The screenplay is ridiculous and predictable, as if it had been written carelessly or rather hastily, and it's a shame, because the premise promised much. So, a misstep by the semi-discreet Jamie Blanks, who seemed to show promise after directing the good thriller-horror "Urban Legend". If you're in the mood for slashers, you'd better look elsewhere, perhaps rummaging through the classic films of the 70s/80s, which will surely offer something better...