My Valentine is a Neon Soaked Bad Ass Time
It’s the year 2020 and it’s as if someone poured water on Netflix and there are little streaming Mogwai popping up all over the place. With so many streaming services out there, tons of folks are trying to capitalize on original and exclusive content. One of the biggest players in this space is Hulu and when it comes to exclusive content, they have their Into the Dark series, a partnership with Blumhouse, which produces a monthly horror movie with a holiday theme. The series gives a voice to up and coming directors with new ideas and new spins on the horror genre. Releasing a made for TV movie monthly for 2 years, you would expect some hits and misses, but when Into the Dark hits, they knock it out of the park. February’s entry My Valentine is one of those hits.
I’ve watched a boat load of horror movies and I don’t recall any that are about pop singers. Actors, painters, classical musicians and way too many writers but never a happy, peppy pop singer. Perhaps it’s because happy pop music about love and dancing all night isn’t exactly the idea that comes to mind when we think about blood and guts. Maybe it’s we, the jaded horror fan, who lean towards darker music like rock, metal and emo who see the pop singer as a vapid, unoriginal airhead, a character who if placed as a lead in a horror movie we would hope for their death. Honestly, we could probably do a top 10 list of punk and metal bands in horror, but one Cyndi Lauper type heroine would be difficult to find, until now.
My Valentine follows the story of Valentine Fawkes (Britt Baron) a blue haired, up and coming pop musician in LA who has been accused of ripping off the famous pop sensation Trezzure (Ann Lore). The truth of the matter is much more sinister than a bit of plagiarism, you see Valentine has this really, really bad ex-boyfriend, Royal (Benedict Samuel) who was with Valentine at the beginning of her career. When she broke it off with him because he was violent, mentally abusive and controlling, he stole all of her songs and her look, giving them to his new girlfriend Trezzure. The film opens with Valentine playing what she claims is her song, Edge of the Knife, in front of a packed house at a local bar with the film flashing to internet message boards of Valentine trying to tell her story and rabid Trezzure fans calling her crazy. Some of these rabid fans even came to the show to boo and shame Valentine for copying Trezzure. Midway through her set, in walks Royal, bribes the bartender with $1,000 to make sure everyone leaves after the set so he can have “private time '' with Valentine. He steals Valentine and her guitar players phones, barricades the doors and has the rabid fans keep watch on the front door not letting anyone in or out.
The second act of the film is mostly the backstory of the relationship with Royal and Valentine. Him doing dickhead stuff like trying to get her to lose more and more weight, being jealous, violent and trying to get her to be more of a sex object on stage. It also covers an interesting interaction between Valentine and Trezzure, who by the way is quintessential vapid, airhead pop star. The two characters who look exactly the same discuss how they have the exact same experience with Royal, Valentine from the perspective of the girl who was once in her position who escaped and Trezzure as the girl still caught up in love, too blind to see the toxic relationship she is in. It’s really fairly interesting, while the film on the surface is about identity theft in a body snatchers kind of way, the film as whole is an examination of toxic and codependent relationships. The messaging is subtle, effective and for a purpose, which is refreshing because often time modern films will jam in the message leaving the viewer like “Why TF tho?”
The movie marches forward at a fairly hectic pace, the whole thing exploding off the screen with neon soaked, hyper colorized cinematography all backed by the cheeriest pop music tunes imaginable. As the night goes on, Royal gets more angry and more violent. Bodies start dropping and his psychotic nature is finally exposed. Valentine fights for her life and her identity while Trezzure tries to understand if her heart is leading her down a wrong path. The whole thing culminates with an extremely satisfying, ultra-violent finale that will leave your jaw dropped on the floor. As the credits roll you are treated with what you expect from a horror movie, a pop music video from Trezzure aka Valentine Back in Focus. I’ll admit, this isn’t really my go to genre of music, but this song and the main song of the film The Knife are both very catchy tunes that got stuck in my head for longer than I’d like to admit.
Overall, My Valentine is one of the stronger entries in the Into the Dark series. A very interesting take on horror from debuting director Maggie Levin. Lots of blood, lots of neon, lots of really catchy songs with characters that you will either enjoy or enjoy watching getting killed. A fantastic film that’s better than a lot of the big studio films released so far in 2020.
4 out of 5, check it out now streaming on Hulu.
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