I didn't think it possible to cry in fury, but once again my movie watching adventures have taught me something new about myself, namely that movies with David Boreanaz make me weep like a Japanese schoolgirl with a dead Digi-pet. For those unaware of Boreanaz's fine work, he's best known for starring in TV's Angel, as the vampire private detective who alternates between saving the lives of the innocent, brooding, and, judging by his lumpy complexion, rubbing his face with molten chocolate until bees sting it off. His acting abilities have always been as dubious as his never-changing Vanilla Ice hair-cut, but at least on Angel he gets to kill monsters, whereas in Valentine all he does is walk around smirking and fumbling with his lines. At least in that he's not alone, because he's co-starring with Denise Richards, who seems so confused by the fact that she's not required to remove her shirt that even her limited talents seem restricted, in that she's wearing a bra. Valentine is a late entry in the slasher revival started by Scream, and in the spirit of Scream's endless references to past teen horror flicks, Valentine has taken equal parts of Prom Night and Terror Train and combined them into a really crappy version of Halloween, which is a rather impressive feat of plagiarism, if you ask me. The first clue that the thrills and chills will only have you on the edge of your seat if you pause to tie your shoe while leaving the theatre is that the killer's two trademarks are his Cupid mask and perpetually bloody nose. Even taking into account the 'killer-clown syndrome' of childhood imagery being scary and evil as long as the lighting's right, a Cupid mask is still about as scary as Porky Pig, and the bloody nose thing is only terrifying compared to a killer using eye-drops to control excess dryness before every homicide. The plot, such as it is, concerns a group of four or possibly five identical Heathers-esque girlfriends who are systematically being knocked off by a David Boreanaz-shaped killer with a black robe and a penchant for bad Valentine's poetry. While the ending is as predictable as a WWF Raw wrestling match, there were a few surprises along the way, namely that nobody fired Denise Richards half-way through the film when it became apparent that even pornographic videos would stretch her acting talents, and that somebody actually thought that Valentine's Day would be a scary holiday on which to set a horror movie. I mean, granted, all the good holidays have been taken already, like the titular Halloween, Silent Night, Deadly Night's Christmas season, and of course Uncle Sam's Veteran's Day massacre, but I really think they should give up before we have to sit through Jennifer Love Hewitt in I Know What You Did Last Quanza. On the plus side, however, this may be the perfect time to pitch my new idea for a screenplay, entitled Labor Day, which features a killer with a Barney the Dinosaur outfit and an ear infection butchering non-unionized workers.
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