It’s the early 1980s and slasher movies are all the craze. In particular seems to be a trend of having the killer murder folks on a holiday. The producers of what was originally titled The Secret decide to try and cash in on the trend and The Secret becomes My Bloody Valentine.
Set in a mining town called Valentine Bluffs where during a Valentine’s Day dance 20 years ago several miners got trapped in the mine due to the negligence of a couple of supervisors who went to the dance. Only one miner survived, Harry Warden, who had to resort to cannibalism to survive and went mad and murdered the supervisors he felt were responsible for the accident. The town hasn’t had a dance until now but someone remembers the horror and Harry Warden might be on the loose.
Someone dressed in miner’s gear has been murdering folks around Valentine Bluffs. The police chief Jake Newby (Don Francks) finds a local resident Mabel (Patricia Hamilton) murdered and her heart cut out. The heart is found in a box of chocolates that were sent to the police with a note telling the town to stop the dance. They wisely cancel the dance but the local youths decide to hold one in the mine anyway.
Soon the bodies start to pile up leaving and Sarah (Lori Hallier), Axel (Neil Affleck), Patty (Cynthia Dale) and T.J. (Paul Kelman) are all that’s left as the police try to get into the mine to find them and the killer.
A better than average slasher movie that director Quentin Tarantino has stated is one of his favourites. The movie was shot in a real mine in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. When the movie was released it had trouble getting past the censors because it was too gory. It had eight minutes cut out which has only been partial restored in more recent years.
