My Bloody Valentine

Director- George Mihalka

Cast- Paul Kelman, Neil Affleck

Country of Origin- Canada

Distributor - Scream Factory

Number of Discs - 1

Reviewed by - Scott MacDonald

Date- 02/03/2020

    20 years ago a mining accident killed 4 miners who were abandoned, while their supervisors went dancing at the Valentine's Bluff annual town dance. The one survivor Harry Warden was committed, the next year he escapes and goes on a Valentine's Day massacre.  The Valentine's Day dance gets banned in the 'Bluff for 20 years, on the year they bring it back murders start happening again. Harry Warden who was recommitted cannot be found anywhere, has he escaped, and is he behind the latest string of Valentine's Day killings?

    My Bloody Valentine is an early slasher classic. It is a Canada-lensed slasher film, picked up by Paramount and put out in 1981, it was cut massively by the MPAA, but managed to find an audience via video rentals and late night TV (looking at you USA UP ALL NIGHT!).  The killer in the film is dressed as a miner with helmet and breathing apparatus, which looks creepy as Hell, and carries a pick axe as a weapon. In the cut version the mask is seemingly never utilized, due to those cuts. The more explicit version present on the Scream Factory disc really shows off the splatter as it should have from the beginning.

     Now, don't exactly going into this thinking My Bloody Valentine is a cheap, slasher, splatter fest, director/writer George Mihalka went into the making of this film trying to make something that stood out, and tried to create a town that felt lived in and real with a history behind it, and characters with a similar lived in feel, and history. As such the characters feel more than just meat for the miner's pick axe.

    Scream Factory presents My Bloody Valentine on a splendid 1:85:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the OAR of the film in both theatrical and unrated cuts. Everything looks fantastic here, blacks are deep, detail is excellent, and I could not pick apart many issues here. Audio is handled with a Mono DTS-HD MA track in English, the audio sounds decent, more decent in the theatrical, and comes out a bit lower on the uncut, but it's still a solid mix. 

    Extras include a commentary on the unrated cut by director George Mihalka, a My Bloody Valentine Cast Reunion, a live performance of the ballad of Harry Warden, a comparison of the unrated, and theatrical versions, tons of interviews, trailers, TV spots, radio spots, and MORE. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.