Hedy Burress | Through the Shattered Lens

A holiday slasher, 2001’s Valentine tells the story of five girls and the nosebleed-prone incel who has never forgiven them for not dancing with him in high school….

Well, no, actually, it’s a bit more serious than that. In high school, dorky Jeremy Melton asked four popular girls to dance with him at the Valentine’s Day dance. Shelley, Lilly, and Paige rejected him and were rather rude about it. Kate was polite and promised that maybe she would dance with him later. Only Dorothy agreed to dance with him but when Dorothy and Jeremy were subsequently discovered making out underneath the bleachers, Dorothy falsely claimed that Jeremy forced himself on her. School jock Joe beat up Jeremy and humiliated him in front of the entire school. Jeremy ended up in a reform school and was eventually sent to a mental institution.

Years later, everyone has grown up. Shelley (Katherine Heigl) is a medical student. Lily (Jessica Caufiel) is dating an artist named Max (Johnny Whitworth) and having to deal with Max’s angry ex, Ruthie (Heddy Burress). Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw) is insecure and dating the caddish Campbell (Daniel Cosgrove). Paige (Denise Richards) is still living her life as if she’s everyone’s favorite mean girl. And Kate (Marley Shelton) is in an on-and-off again relationship with Adam (David Boreanaz), a recovering alcoholic and writer. No one is really sure what has happened to Jeremy but when someone starts picking off the members of their group and they start to get morbid Valentines in the mail, everyone starts to wonder if maybe Jeremy has returned.

Of course, this group isn’t going to let the fact that a murderer is stalking them keep them from throwing a big Valentine’s party as Dorothy’s house. These are extremely stupid people, as you may have guessed. It’s a bit of an awkward party, largely because everyone is having relationship issues and Ruthie Walker shows up and yells at everyone. Things get even more awkward when the a killer wearing a cupid’s mask shows up and starts killing everyone at the party.

I always remember Valentine as being a really big deal when it was first released but, when I was doing a little research for this review, I discovered that Valentine was actually considered to be a flop at the box office. Maybe I just got in into my head that it was some sort of huge success because Valentine was one of those films that used to show up on Showtime constantly. I think I’ve seen the film’s ending over a hundred times, just while waiting for the next movie to start.

As far as slasher films go, it’s adequate without being particularly memorable. The killer is creepy but the victims are all so shallow that it’s difficult to have much sympathy for them. Probably the most interesting thing about this film is that all of the supporting characters are so strange and perverse that it almost feels as if they’ve wondered over from an old giallo film. This the type of film where everyone’s either an ex-addict or a notorious con artist or an underwear thief. Undoubtedly, the best supporting character is Ruthie Walker, if just because she’s the only character in the film who is willing to call out everyone on their shallowness. Unfortunately, Ruthie doesn’t come to a good end but she does get the best death scene in the film and, when it comes to something like Valentine, that has to be considered a triumph.

Anyway, Valentine ends with the set up for a sequel but it never happened. Valentine’s Day remains an awesome holiday! Don’t let any killer cupids ruin it for you.

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 2000’s Cabin By The Lake! It can be viewed on YouTube.

Screenwriter Stanley Caldwell (Judd Nelson) has been hired to write a slasher film and, to the concern of both the film’s director (Bernie Coulson) and Stanley’s agent (Susan Gibney), Stanley is taking his time to write the script. Stanley says that he’s determined to write something more than just a typical “dead teenager” film. His script is about a murderer who kills his victims and then dumps them into a nearby lake. The killer spends his time tending his underwater garden.

What is taking Stanley so long? Stanley is doing research, which means that he’s kidnapping women, holding them prisoner in his cabin, and then dumping their bodies into the lake. Along the way, he’s observing how the victims act and he’s incorporating his research into his script. Though Stanley tells himself that he’s just doing research, it’s obvious that the script is no longer his main concern. Now, Stanley is just enjoying working in his garden.

Stanley’s latest victim is Mallory (Hedy Burress), a young woman who works at the town’s movie theater and who has a long-standing fear of the water. While Stanley is holding Mallory captive and studying both her and her fear of water, Deputy Boone Preston (Michael Weatherly) is searching for Mallory. And, of course, Stanley is running out of time to finish his script.

Cabin In The Lake was produced by and originally aired on the USA Network and, as a result, it has a much darker sense of humor than one might otherwise expect to find in a made-for-tv horror movie from 2000. Most of the humor centers around the pretensions of the film industry, with both Stanley and his film’s director trying to turn their little slasher movie into something more than just another dead teenager film. A good deal of the film centers around a group of special effects and makeup artists, who are recruited to help capture the killer and they’re all likable in their dorky way. The scenes of Stanley’s underwater garden achieve a certain dream-like grandeur and, as someone who has a morbid fear of drowning, I could certainly relate to Mallory’s fear of the water.

That said, this is one of those films where the parts are definitely greater than the whole. I think the film’s biggest problem was that Judd Nelson was a bit bland in the role of Stanley, flatly delivering his lines and barely bothering to show a hint of emotion. If anything, Nelson appears to be a bit bored with the film. Hedy Burress is sympathetic as Mallory and Michael Weatherly is believable as the upstanding deputy but a film like this lives or dies based on its villain and Nelson sleepwalks through the role. As well, for all the humorous moments that do work, it soon becomes obvious that this is a one-joke film and portraying Hollywood as being a place full of shallow people is not creative enough a joke to sustain an entire film. The end result is a film that is ultimately frustratingly uneven.