Valentine (film)
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| Valentine | |
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| Directed by | Jamie Blanks |
| Produced by | Dylan Sellers |
| Written by | Tom Savage (novel), Donna Powers, Aaron Harberts |
| Starring | Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marley Shelton |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | 2 February 2001 (USA) |
| Running time | 96 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$10,000,000 |
Valentine is a 2001 horror film directed by Jamie Blanks, who had directed Urban Legend. It is a slasher film based upon Valentine's Day. The film is loosely based on the novel Valentine by Tom Savage.
- Tagline: Remember that kid everyone ignored on Valentine's Day? – He remembers you.
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[edit] Production
At a cost of $10 million this is the cheapest film to ever have a Super Bowl spot. It was shot in 42 days, David Boreanaz shot his entire character role (Adam Carr) in less than two weeks. Katherine Heigl only had 3 days to shoot her scenes since she was already committed to TV's "Roswell" (1999).
[edit] Cast
- Denise Richards as Paige Prescott
- David Boreanaz as Adam Carr
- Marley Shelton as Kate Davies
- Jessica Capshaw as Dorothy Wheeler
- Jessica Cauffiel as Lily Voight
- Katherine Heigl as Shelley Fisher
- Hedy Burress as Ruthie Walker
- Fulvio Cecere as Detective Leon Vaughn
- Daniel Cosgrove as Campbell Morris
- Johnny Whitworth as Max Raimi
- Woody Jeffreys as Brian
- Adam Harrington as Jason Marquette
- Claude Duhamel as Gary Taylor
- Wyatt Page as Evan Wheeler
- Benita Ha as Kim Wheeler
[edit] Original cast
This project originally began at Artisan Entertainment with producer Dylan Sellers with a different director and cast members. 'Richard Kelly' was originally offered the chance to direct, but turned the offer down. Burress originally auditioned for the role of Dorothy Wheeler, but that role was handed over to Capshaw. However, Blanks still wanted Burress to star in the film. They both looked at each other eye to eye and said "Ruthie," resulting in Burress having the role of Ruthie Walker. Jessica Cauffiel originally auditioned for Denise Richard's role of Paige. In the original cast, Tara Reid who also starred in Jamie Blanks's first film, Urban Legend (1998), was to play Dorothy Wheeler and Jennifer Love Hewitt wass to play 'Paige Prescott'.
[edit] Plot
The movie starts with a scene at a Junior High School Valentine's Dance. Jeremy Melton (a stereotypical geek, described by the girls as a loser) has five big crushes in the dance. As he attempts to ask each of the girls out they all turn him down, making crude comments following the rejections (therefore foreshadowing their deaths). The five girls consist of Paige (the sexy one), Kate (the popular one), Lily (the fun one), Shelley (the brainy one) and Dorothy (the fat one). After the fourth girl turns him down, Dorothy accepts his offer and starts making out with Jeremy until some jocks find them kissing. Dorothy denies having feelings for him and says that Jeremy attacked her. The jocks chase Jeremy, humiliate him, and beat him up.
Some 13 years later we see Shelley (Heigl) having dinner with Jason, a self-proclaimed "player" who refers to himself in the third person. Shelley turns down his offer of returning to his house because she has a final to take for her class in college (she is studying to be a surgeon). Shelley later receives a death threat in the form of a valentine's card. She decides to do some cramming for her exam in the morgue, where the killer makes his or her first appearance, in a cupid mask that bears similarities to Michael Myers from the Halloween series. With the killer in pursuit, she hides in a body bag, and the killer slits her throat after discovering her inside.
The next scene (although there is a scene that precedes this with Kate and Paige going on a Speed, or Turbo, date) is the other four girls (Dorothy, Paige, Lily and Kate) at the funeral held for their best friend Shelley. The four girls mourn the death of their friend. A detective, Leon Vaughn, suspects that it might be a murder; he warns the girls and gives them his number. Later we see Lily (Cauffield) and Paige (Richards), now roommates, viewing video dating tapes of men they might be willing to date. A box of chocolates and a rose get delivered and Lily (who answers the door and finds nobody there) suspects it's for Paige since it's signed JM. She says to Paige, "You've covered more of the alphabet than I have," a jab at Paige's promiscuity. Paige denies this, saying "'Bite me' - it's definitely for you"). Lily accepts the chocolates and takes a bite of one, finding maggots inside (Lily's response to Jeremy at the dance was "Ewww"). They try to figure out who JM is and Paige brings up Jeremy Melton, but they put that thought behind them, saying that he could never pull off a stunt like that.
Kate is having trouble with her boyfriend Adam. Adam is a recovering alcoholic and Kate is scared whenever he takes a drink. Someone spooks Kate when they turn off her water supply. Later she finds a cupid mask in the elevator of her apartment. After taking a shower she, Paige and Dorothy go to Lily's boyfriend's art show. Dorothy presents her new boyfriend Campbell, as Paige tries to put a move on him. Lily's boyfriend tells the guests that men go off to one side and women to another as part of the show. After discovering her boyfriend is a sleazebag, Lily seems to separate from the group and gets lost as the masked killer closes the maze, trapping her. Lily is shot with a bow and arrow by the killer. Three shots cause her to fall off a balcony and land in a dumpster. Lilly has stated in the past that she had a flight to L.A., leaving all the other girls believing that she hasn't been around because of the trip although she is really dead.
Later on the detective starts investigating the girls and Dorothy reveals to Kate and Paige that Jeremy had not attacked her at the dance. The detective had also tried to put a move on Paige but it backfired. The detective starts to suspect Campbell (Dorothy's boyfriend) as a lead suspect and requests that he stay in the area. Dorothy is annoyed but puts that problem aside as she plans her Valentine's Day party. Dorothy asks Campbell to fix the heater in the basement where he is later murdered by the masked killer, who hits him in the back with an axe.
Dorothy is starting to believe that she has been stood up after Campbell doesn't show up. A furious ex-girlfriend of Campbell's, Ruthie, is looking for Campbell when she finds the masked killer. The killer kidnaps Ruthie, gags her, takes her to a secluded part of the house and stabs her in the neck with a shard of glass. While Kate dances with Adam, Paige is expecting a man named Brian, a guy she met in Speed Dating. Brian leads Paige upstairs hoping to get oral pleasure from her, though his expectations backfire as Paige ends up tying Brian to the bed and pours hot candle wax on his penis. Paige then goes down stairs, furious, and tells Kate that she's going to the hot tub to relax.
Paige is in the hot tub when she receives champagne and a rose from a mysterious person. She goes around the hot tub atrium trying to find who she assumes is an admirer. The guy ends up to be the masked killer. The killer throws her into the hot tub and closes the cover, leaving Paige gasping for air. The masked killer gets an electric drill and attempts to kill Paige and misses thrice, before getting her in the arm and then throwing the drill into the hot tub, electrocuting Paige. (Her death was foreshadowed by her line back at the dance when she turned Jeremy down, saying, "I'd rather be boiled alive," and that's what she got.)
Paige's death in the tub leads to the power going out in Dorothy's house, ending the party prematurely. Kate and Dorothy start arguing that each other's boyfriends might have killed Shelley. The arguing leads Dorothy to go off in a huff. Kate had previously seen Adam get drunk and grow slightly unstable. Adam drunkenly approaches Kate and asks her to dance with him (referring back to the dance when she said "Maybe later".) Kate runs away from him and a cat-and-mouse chase ensues through the house. As Kate discovers the bodies of the detective (killed off screen) and Paige, she enters a room where she finds a gun. When she is about to shoot the masked killer, the killer's body drops on top of her from a closed door, causing them both to tumble down the stairs. The killer starts to rise and we see Adam shoot him in the chest a couple of times. Adam removes the mask and Kate sees that it is Dorothy under the mask. Kate assumes that Dorothy must have been killing out of jealousy, as she said in the argument she resented being 'the fat one' while the others were all so successful. The ordeal appears to be over, however, the twist in the tale is revealed when Adam is comforting Kate and his nose begins to bleed; throughout the film, the masked killer's nose always began to bleed shortly after he killed someone, we can therefore assume that Adam is Jeremy Melton under a new identity. (The real killer was Adam; but Dorothy's death relates to what she did in the dance, how she lied and caused bad things to happen to Jeremy. Jeremy did the same and saw bad things be done to Dorothy; being 'stood up' by Campbell, losing valuable friends, and eventually losing her life).
The movie fades to black and a loud scream is heard. However it was stated in the DVD commentary that Kate didn't die in the movie so the scream was probably just for show.
[edit] Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the movie included the song Pushing Me Away by Linkin Park.
[edit] Death List Irony
When Jeremy Melton asks each girl for a dance they each state a mean comment right after he asks them. This foreshadows each of their deaths.
- Shelley
- "In your dreams"
- Dies lying down in a sleeping position.
- Lilly
- "Eww!"
- Receives maggots in a chocolate box and her body lands in a trash can.
- Paige
- "I'd rather be boiled alive"
- Get's boiled alive as she is electrocuted.
- Dorothy
- "He attacked me!", she pretends she got "attacked". She makes everyone believe that it was all Jeremy's fault.
- Jeremy makes everyone believe that all the killings were Dorothy's doing.
- Kate
- "Maybe later Jeremy"
- Jeremy lets Kate live since she is the only girl that did not reject Jeremy.
