Review of Valentine (2001) by Charity D — 10 Dec 2007

Since Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven showed us with Scream that it's still possible to make a good slasher movie, the genre has returned with a vengeance. For the most part, this new crop of splatter flicks has been much better than those of decades past. Unfortunately, the fleshed out, reasonably with-it characters and suspenseful plots have all run out, leaving us with Valentine.

Valentine is like a watered-down version of the standard 1980s horror flick. There's no nudity or serious gore, but the plot's completely predictable, the suspense is non-existent, and the characters are only slightly less 2-dimensional than paper dolls.

This isn't to say that Valentine's completely unwatchable. There are a few decent lines, one or two death scenes that are convoluted enough to check out, and the cast is nice to look at for the most part. The director apparently realized that Denise Richards was the film's only real asset, and made sure to get her in a bikini for one scene. But that's pretty much the high point of the movie, which is not good.