Valentine (2001)

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After reading the sad news about filmmaker Jamie Blanks, I felt compelled to revisit some of his work. I’ve already written about Urban Legend (one of my all-time favourite slasher films), with its irresistible premise, top-notch cast and slick execution, and his eerie eco-horror Long Weekend, so thought I’d turn my attention to his early 2000s slasher, Valentine. It tells of a group of girlfriends - Paige (Denise Richards), Kate (Marley Shelton), Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw), Shelley (Katherine Heigl) and Lily (Jessica Cauffiel) – who, in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, are targeted by a mysterious killer wearing a cherub mask.

A solid slasher with a strong cast, creepy masked killer and several frenzied set pieces to get the adrenaline flowing, Valentine is a real throwback to classic, holiday-themed 80s slashers, such as My Bloody Valentine, Terror Train and Prom Night. Despite coming in the wake of a slew of post-modern, self-referential slashers in the late 90s, beginning with Scream, Valentine boasts an unyielding adherence to the form, conventions and structure of the sub-genre, right down to the flashbacks revealing the incident that sparked the killer’s motive, and characters acting like they’ve never seen a horror film before. We slasher fans still stan an unironic throwback though: there’s comfort in the familiar. Besides, Blanks' direction and the game cast ensure Valentine rarely deviates from being a fun, brisk chiller that ratchets tension all the way to the Gothic mansion-set grand finale. 

Based on the novel by Tom Savage, the screenplay by Donna and Wayne Powers, Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, exhibits camp humour as it follows the friends through the perils and pitfalls of the dating scene as they look for love – or just a decent date - in the run up to Valentine’s Day. The screenplay never really mines the subject of online or speed dating to its fullest potential, only ever hinting at the sinister side of meeting tall, dark, handsome strangers. While the characters are painted with the broadest of strokes and basically defined by their search for a suitable partner, it’s quite refreshing to spend time with women characters in a slasher film who are active in seeking to obtain their goals. They may lack nuance but they still have agency, speak openly about sex and their wants and needs, and are not just dumb objects of desire peered at through the male gaze. That said, in one of the more outlandish scenes of terror, the male gaze does fix itself to Denise Richards’ character’s body as she’s menaced by the killer while soaking in a jacuzzi. 


The dynamics within this close-knit group of friends are tentatively explored, with issues of body-image, rivalry and jealously hinting at tensions between several characters, and there’s knowing humour at play when one of the characters refers to the others as ‘the popular one’, ‘the sexy one’, ‘the fun one’, ‘the smart one’. Like the concept behind Tori Amos’s ninth album, American Doll Posse (2007), characters are distilled into archetypes/personalities, and the screenplay never allows them to be all things at the same time. They still garner sympathy though, because when they’re not dealing with the simmering tensions between each other, or indeed the crazed killer offing them one by one, they have to contend with the various men in their lives, all of whom are untrustworthy, manipulative or downright threatening. From Kate’s pervy neighbour (who incessantly hits on her and even sneaks into her apartment to go through her underwear drawer), Lily’s conceited boyfriend who tries to coerce her into a threesome, to Dorothy’s gold-digging, philandering boyfriend and Kate’s ex Adam (David Boreanaz), a recovering alcoholic with a shady past, the women are surrounded by constant threat that is wholly male. 

When the killer strikes and their numbers begin to dwindle, and the police, who, in classic slasher film tradition are useless and patronising, the women have only each other to rely upon as they actively try to figure out who the killer is. With a screenplay choc-full of red-herrings and potential suspects, we’re kept on our toes regarding the killer’s identity, while Blanks injects proceedings with a sense of fun and style, his slick handling of events ensuring a swift pace and various moments of heightened tension. Marley Shelton makes an excellent final girl, suffusing Kate with the necessary determination and eventual grit to evade the killer, though her fate is left uncertain with a twist revelation that hints at a set-up for a possible sequel. While it doesn’t quite reach the dizzyingly deranged heights of Urban Legend, Valentine is a well-crafted and glossy slasher flick for those who like their slashers straight-up and unironic. It's clear that Jamie Blanks had so much fondness for the classic slasher films of yore, and indeed the Italian gialli that inspired them, and it's a fondness that emanates from Valentine. 

RIP Jamie (29th November 1971 – 16th March 2026) 🖤 

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