This is my second post for movie reviews related to Cape Breton. My first post on New Waterford Girl can be found here

https://capebreton.lokol.me/cape-breton-movies-part-1-introducing-new-waterford-glace-bay

Before I get started I want to show you the updated list of movies I plan on reviewing in the future.

- New Waterford Girl (Done in Part 1)

- My Bloody Valentine (Part 2)

- Margaret’s Museum (eluding me)

- Johnny Belinda (I have it)

- The Bay Boy (got it)

- Going Down the Road (can’t find it)

-Down the Road Again (still looking)

- Sealed Cargo (have it)

- Marion Bridge (another one that should be easy to find but don’t have it yet)

-The Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger (looking for it)

- Candy Mountain (bits and pieces on YouTube)

- Song Spinner (can’t find)

- The Third Walker (looking)

- The Widow of St. Pierre (looking)

I hope to discover a bit about Cape Breton in these movies, and hear some stories about the people from the island in these, and the sets that were created in various places.

Thanks for all the contributions to date. Still looking to hunt some of them down. One of the comments I received is that the regional library might have some of these films. With video stores disappearing it might be a valuable resource.

So on with the film.

My Bloody Valentine 1981 Directed by George Mihalka

So this is a slasher film, one of the first that started the whole slasher movie genre. Although many people are unaware, this is arguably the most famous thing to ever come out of Cape Breton. Filmed in Sydney Mines, this film is known the world over and has been translated into numerous languages. It is considered one of the best slasher films of all time, up there with the likes of “Halloween" (1978) and “Friday the 13th” (1980), These three films in particular defined the slasher genre and the thousands of movies that followed.

Set in the fictitious mining town of Valentines Bluff (Sydney Mines dressed up with a fancy neon heart sign, red trim and streamers) it is the story of young miners with a party mentality tempting fate and throwing a Valentines party despite the dark past of the town. Harry Warden was a trapped miner that went mad in the mine while the town partied on Valentines Day 20 years ago and vowed to return to kill anyone who decides to throw a party on Valentines Day. If you haven’t seen it you can anticipate what happens next.

Now I will proceed to take you through the play-by-play of the movie.

It starts off hot and steamy with two people in a mine in full mining equipment including masks that hide their faces. One reveals here face and it is a blonde woman in full make-up and red lipstick who quickly strips down to her underwear. It gets hot and heavy with the woman massaging the hose of the mask until the other miner decides to impale her on some sharp object.

The movie starts. It’s two days before Valentines Day. We are introduced to a motely crew of young miners. There is TJ, who has just returned from a trip out to the west coast to make it big but was forced to come back to work in the mines because he was “a mess out there”. Axel, who decided to start dating TJ’s girlfriend Sarah after TJ left to find himself. Hollis - picture a young beer drinking Wilfred Brimley, and yes, Wilfred is still alive! Howard, the most annoying prankster miner you have ever witnessed, and a few others that kind of blend into the background. After a scene that combines Dukes of Hazard with Keystone Cops antics (Hollis pulling up his pants, Howard pulling them down) they leave the mine and join their girlfriends to decorate the union hall in town for the Valentines Day dance.

We then meet the mayor and the chief of police at the hall, along with the girls Sarah, Patty and a few other unmemorable sacrificial lambs. Mabel is there too, a middle-aged woman who is a spreader of good cheer helping out with the dance. The chief of police doesn’t mess around. “You guys better put those back before I turn you both upside down, especially you."

Someone has left the mayor with a heart-shaped candy box with his name on it. He is pleasantly surprised. Driving away with the chief he opens the box to find a human heart inside. They immediately turn around and speed off the way they came as if they look to resuscitate the heart or something. We find them later at the coroner’s office. The coroners words: “Belonged to a young woman, 30 years old. It looks like a butcher ripped this thing out. What’s going on over in Valentine’s Bluff?”. Meanwhile we hear the story of Harry Warden from Happy, the creepiest old bartender you have ever met. There is a flashback of Happy finding Harry in the mine chewing on someone’s arm, and how he was locked up in a mental institution. He escapes to kill the two people responsible for the accident in the mine that trapped him by cutting out their hearts and delivering them to people in candy boxes. The miners and their girlfriends laugh it off like an old tale to scare children. I guess time heals all wounds; including gruesome killings in a small town get forgotten.

Meanwhile Mabel is in the laundry mat all giddy over getting a heart-shaped candy box with a card. “Roses are red, violets are blue, one is dead and so are you!”. She gets the sharp end of a pickaxe and is later found rolling around half cooked in the dryer. “What an awful smell” was a remark the chief gave. Although the chief and mayor know this is the work of the deranged Harry Warden, they decided to label it a heart attack to minimize the damage. “We’ll have police crawling all over this place and have a Hell of a panic on our hands. You just mention that Harry is back and this town won’t be worth the powder to blow it to Hell”. I wonder is he referring to the tourism industry? Economic growth? Only the chief really knows for sure. The mayor decides to cancel the dance much to the shegrin of the miners and their girlfriends. It is decided they will secretly throw a party at the mine instead!

Romance ensues when TJ tries to get back Sarah. There is a rivalry brewing between TJ and Axel for her love. She seems to be really torn.

Happy gets killed in a gruesome scene. Saw that one coming. Hey, wasn’t the stipulation that if people threw a party people would die?

Valentines Day (evening) arrives. The party starts. Lots of Moosehead and Alexander Keiths although Hollis prefers Budweiser. One of the more unmemorable miners (Dave) with not much of a storyline wanders into the kitchen. A big pot of boiling hot dogs! People must have preferred them cooked like this back then. Leaning over to get one Harry surprises him and drowns him in the scalding pot with the hot dogs. Humiliating death! TJ and Axel get into it over Sarah. Hollis snaps on the full nelson on Axel to keep them apart.

A couple (John and his girlfriend) skirt off to get intimate in the clothing room. Lovemaking is interrupted because she wants beers. John takes off. His girlfriend says “but don’t take too long…” Two girls are excited over the boiled hot dogs. John comes in and gets beer without noticing Dave’s body in the fridge. The girls pull a human heart out of the pot with tongs. “Yuck, what is this?” It’s blown off as a silly prank by Howard. Dave arrived back with beers and finds his girlfriend impaled on the sprinkler system. He finds her with water coming out of her mouth and isn’t quite the same for the rest of the movie.

The girls convince Hollis to take them down to the mine. A bunch of people think it’s a great idea. TJ objects, stating to Hollis “ you know the rule, no women in the mine”. This seems like bad luck to me! Regardless a bunch of people head down, including Sarah, Patty (Hollis’s girlfriend), Howard, and Mike and Harriett. Mike and Harriett look for privacy.

Up top they finally find Dave’s body, which results in a mass exodus from the mining site. They now know Harry Warden is there. Silly kids should have listened to creepy old Happy. TJ and Axel stay behind to save the others from Harry. They proceed down an elevator into the mine.

The police chief is then notified by teenagers in a swerving car that there are people trapped in the mine with Harry Warden. I guess this movie was shot before DUI was a crime. He heads to the mine and calls for backup.;

This is where things get interesting. The mine is creepy, damp and dark. The perfect hiding spot for a deranged killer. TJ meets Sarah, Patty, Hollis and Howard. He tells them Harry is in the mine. Mike and Harriet are nowhere to be found. Brave Hollis goes to look for them while Howard watches the girls.

Hollis finds Mike and Harriet impaled by a drill bit. He is in utter shock and awe in a moment on camera that seems to last as long as the emperor blasting lightning bolts at Luke in Star Wars. Harry Warden is there. He loads a nail gun. Hollis loses his helmet. Bends over to get it, stands up and fixes his hair. Two nails to the head. Hollis is still on his feet. His vision is understandably blurry. We then catch up with the girls and Howard who are patiently waiting for Hollis. He stumbles into Howard’s arms dead. Patty catches that hysteria disease that many women get in movies. It only seems to happen to women and is only curable with a slap to the face. Sarah does the honours here.

Harry Warden makes his presence known to them. Howard leaves the girls to look after himself. Axel comes to help out the helpless girls. They proceed to leave. No one knows the fate of Mike and Harriett besides the viewers (Hollis is dead) but no one seems to care any more. The group runs into TJ. The four go to leave via the elevator, but the control panel is smashed. They start to climb the ladder. Patty is holding them up with her high heels. After what seem to be a few rungs up Howard’s limp body is dangled from a rope and he is decapitated. For someone so annoying and cowardly you think that there would have been a much more painful and prolonged death in store for him. They all rush back down.

Axel reveals he knows a short-cut through the sump. Why wasn’t this important bit of information brought up before? He starts leading the group, and then for some reason is at the tail end of the group and drowns in 60 feet of water…. TJ tells the girls to continue walking forward while he takes a different route. Everyone seems to think this is a good idea for some reason. This ultimately leads to Patty getting killed by Harry. It’s not really explained what TJ was up to during this time. Perhaps he needed to take a leak?

TJ then meets up with Sarah, still trapped in the mine. The police arrive. The chief and mayor lead the charge down the rail line into the mine.

What happens next? I’ll leave it there. I’ve spoiled enough.

This movie isn’t a work of art, but if you like slasher films it doesn’t get much better than this. It is a classic and is more sophisticated than most films in this genre. It does a pretty amazing job of documenting Sydney Mines during its mining heyday, and is beautifully shot. The special effects are pretty amazing at the time, and the score is really interesting. There are clearly some edits that just don't make sense, but we've become accustomed to that in these types of movies. Between this and Black Christmas (1974) Canada is well represented in horror during this period. It is severely dated in the way it portrays women in movies, and I hope that we have come a little ways in that regard since 1981.

Too bad Valentines Day falls in what has to be the coldest and wintery month in Cape Breton. I think that people would come from all over the world to experience parts of this film.

It would be really interesting to hear stories about the filming. It looked like they painted the town red for this, with banners and the likes. It must have been something to see at the time.

Chris Bellemore is a blogger from Ontario that moved to Cape Breton Island and is logging his experiences in this strange and wonderful place.

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