My Bloody Valentine didn’t quite live up to the hype, though I can at least see how it became a cult classic and why it has a passionate fanbase, for myself there were parts which were kind of bland.
My Bloody Valentine
— Collector’s Edition —
(1981)
Genre(s): Horror
Shout Factory | R/Unrated – 90 min. / 93 min. – $34.93 | February 11, 2020
Date Published: 01/31/2020 | Author: The Movieman
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Shout Factory provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 3.0/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: On Valentine’s Day, someone always loses their heart. Twenty years ago, this small town lost more than that. When supervisors abandoned their posts and attend the town’s first holiday dance in decades, a tragedy claimed the lives of five miners. The sole survivor, Harry Warden, was institutionalized, but returned for a vengeful massacre on the disaster’s first anniversary. Quick Hit Review: My Bloody Valentine was released in the midst of the slasher craze ignited in part by 1978’s Halloween followed by the much lower brow, but still highly entertaining (in the guilty pleasure sort of way), Friday the 13th. This is a movie I hadn’t watched before but know has a certain cult following. I will say, at the very least the killer’s miner outfit was pretty damn cool. Everything else on the other hand I found to be rather bland, even dull with no real build-up and worse yet, not one once of suspense. The characters also are pretty forgettable and it hurts not having one clear lead within the ensemble, although arguably Paul Kelman’s T.J. was the closest to one. The other issue are the kills, While I did view the “Uncut Version”, the nonchalant way director George Mihalka went about them didn’t disturb me nor give any sort of chills that even the thinly plotted Friday the 13th series had, and that franchise had some real turkeys. And yet still, beyond all of that… the killer’s motive was lame and kind of out of nowhere, at least I don’t recall any of the character’s mentioning his father was killed by Harry Warden. I don’t know, in some respects I can see why My Bloody Valentine gets the following it has. For me, outside of the killer’s look, not much worked and there were some spots I even became distracted, my mind wandering to thinking about other things I needed to do… |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 4.0/5 |
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This release, from Shout Factory’s “Collector’s Edition”, comes with a matted slip cover. The interior artwork is available with the film’s original poster art. Disc One (Theatrical Version):
Extensive amount of interview footage, all of these are new interviews, each one talking about their roles in the film and reflecting their time on location in Canada. No one standout, although good to hear from Kelman and Affleck who were MIA in the cast reunion feature. Holes in the Heart (12:29) is a comparison video between the Director’s and Theatrical Cuts. Also included is the Theatrical Trailer (2:11), TV Spots (1:32), Radio Spots (1:01) and a Still Gallery (11:41). Disc Two (Uncut Version): My Bloody Valentine 35th Cast Reunion (46:54) brings together most of the cast, along with Mihalko, discussing their memories of working on the production. Thomas Kovacs Performs “The Ballad of Harry Warden (5:03) — The actor plays this song at the “Valentine’s Dance” at the 35th anniversary event. |
VIDEO – 4.25/5 |
| Shout Factory releases My Bloody Valentine onto Blu-ray where it’s presented in its original 1.85 widescreen aspect ratio. This 1080p high-definition transfer was restored from a 4K scan taken from the original camera negative, goes for both the theatrical and uncut versions. As such, this often looks brilliant, detail is relatively sharp and colors appear natural in appearance with seeing to be artificially bolstered, a good balance between the brighter, well-lit scenes to the darker elements, especially in the mine for the bulk of the climax. |
AUDIO – 3.5/5 |
| The disc includes a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track and while I didn’t find this to be as impressive as the video, considering this is a nearly 40 year old film and that I can’t think they had high-quality sound design going on, this wasn’t too bad. There didn’t seem to be any hissing or pops so on that front, pretty good, but the audio itself was a tad soft even coming out of the front speaker. |
OVERALL – 3.5/5 |
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My Bloody Valentine didn’t quite live up to the hype, though I can at least see how it became a cult classic and why it has a passionate fanbase, for myself there were parts which were kind of bland, even the deaths, outside of one (hint: eyeball). Even so, the “Collector’s Edition” release from Shout Factory does offer up great video and adequate audio transfers, and also including a fine selection of bonus features. |