Valentine Film Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEwV-VN8YVY

I have chosen to make an analysis of the 2001 erotic slasher film Valentine. This film was loosely based on the novel of Valentine written by Tom Savage and it focuses on a group of five young and attractive women who are stalked by an unknown assailant while preparing for Valentine's Day. The director of this America horror piece was Jamie Blanks with production being handled by Dylan Sellers. This film contains a variety of a-list actors, which is how I first came to hear about it. The main stars of the film include Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marley Shelton, Jessica Capshaw, Hedy Burress, and Katherine Heigl. The company responsible for the distribution of this film to get it onto the market through advertisement of posters and trailers were Warner Bros. Pictures. 

The narrative structure of this particular horror film isn't entirely conventional in comparison to other horror movies. It doesn't commence at first as though a state of equilibrium between the characters is very clear as it flashes back to the late 80s at a Valentine's day high school dance where a young nerdish-looking boy, Jeremy Melton is spurned & insulted by every girl he asks to dance with him. This challenges Todorov's suggestion and opinion that stories begin with opposing forces being in balance, making it appear as though everything is okay and safe from the start as it shows at the beginning a disequilibrium between the protagonist characters involved. The boy is severely bullied and insulted leading the audience to immediately sense danger. As the film then jumps into normal time following the opening, the narrative structure continues to present a disequilibrium where the first killing takes place after not very many minutes at all. This, in effect, follows Todorov's opinion who suggests that the second stage of a conventional narrative presents a disequilibrium. This is caused by a big event taking place, (in this case a killing of the first woman), which he believes will set about in a chain a series of events. This first killing in Valentine does spark a series of events to take place throughout the film as, one by one, more women get murdered in different ways. The third stage in Todorov's belief also links in with this particular film as he believes this stage to be recognizing that there has been a disruption of the equilibrium. Within the film, after the killing of the first protagonist character, the police become involved trying to find out who this killer is. They look into what he would look like with plastic surgery, believing it to be the nerdy boy from the dance back in High School. According to Todorov's theory, after the disruption has been recognized,  an attempt is made to repair the disruption. It could be argued that Valentine follows this stage for as each character is killed, the police work harder and harder to capture the killer. On the other hand, it could also be argued that the film challenges this stage of Todorov's, as the killer never actually gets defeated or captured. He even manages to convince his girlfriend that he is not the killer when she is suspicious of him. His not being captured could ultimately be representing the start of a new equilibrium.

For audiences to appreciate a good horror film, they need to be given the shock factor or become scared at some point during the work. I find that the audience would find this work particularly scary due to the ways in which characters are killed. There is an interesting build up of suspense during the character deaths, which I believe the music and sound effects manage to create. As it is a slasher film, there are obviously parts that the audience will find revolting and shocking.I find that the deaths within the film Valentine are shocking as they are all done in unexpected and unseen before ways. I find that the death scene of the woman in the hot tub is particularly shocking as the audience see her get electrocuted. Another frightening element of this film is the use of medium close ups of the killer walking towards the camera. This is effective for the audience as it feels as though the killer is walking towards them. It therefore makes the audience imagine themselves in the situation which could make them feel quite intimidated and increasingly scared.The audience, when seeing this killer and being given a fear of the unknown because his face is not revealed. will side with the protagonist 'victim' characters as they will want this intimidating predator to be revealed and punished. 

This film quite clearly fits under the horror genre due to the consistent use of blood and gore throughout. In my opinion, the fact that the audience experience the whole deaths of characters shows that it is a horror movie. Nothing is left to their imagination which is what brings the shock element out within the film. It could be successfully argued that the horror film Valentine fits into the 1980's slasher and horror/ gore movie genre. The aspects that make this film look like a horror are that it involves numerous death and bloody violence scenes. I particularly find that the use of the mask that the killer wears throughout the film makes it more like a horror. This mask is extremely terrifying and very intimidating for the audience. This is demonstrated in the film by the deaths of every protagonist character as the character Paige for example is killed by being electrocuted in a bathtub with a drill and also jabbed with the drill numerous times before. The fact that before her death, there is a very elongated scene of the character Paige sitting in the hot tub in a bikini shows that the target audience for this horror film is possibly mainly male as they would find this the most appealing. This links in with Tunstall's and Mulvey's theory of women being represented as sexual objects within horror. Certain aspects of this movie involve a lot of gore of females. These extreme blood and gore elements, highlight the fact that this really does fit in with the 'slasher' title.

Within this film, there are about eight protagonist characters, therefore one would expect a few of these main character roles to link  successfully with Vladimir Propp's theory about character types. He suggested that within a horror movie there is stereotypically a hero, a villain, a donor, a helper, a father, a princess, a dispatcher, and a false hero. I would say that unexpectedly, within Valentine there is no hero. The hero actually does turn out to be the killer as he is not defeated; although the audience wouldn't want this. It follows Propps character types successfully however with the use of the villain; although there isn't a scene of him struggling against the hero- He is very much presented as the winner throughout. The princess character is evident within this film. She is also represented as the final girl, but she is in a relationship with the unknown killer which challenges Propp as the princess character role conventionally ends up with a hero who defeats the killer. It is interesting because the killer is actually the false hero, pretending to his girlfriend at the end that one of her best friends was the killer after he has dressed her up in his murder costume and pushed her down the stairs. He makes it look as though pushing her was an act of self defense and therefore takes the credit for saving their lives when he is in fact the one responsible. The character roles in this film are extremely interesting as they both follow and challenge Propp's theory. It is difficult to put a label on any one of the characters. 

With regards to binary opposition, this film can be linked in successfully through the portrayal of good and evil. Within this film, I would say that the evil is the killer and the women who he kills.  Some may argue that the women he kills are not evil; however the fact that they severely tormented and bullied him when he was younger makes myself belief that they are the evil ones too as they managed to drive him to kill them. The only person who shows a good character is the killers girlfriend, Kate as she was the only one not to bully him when he was younger. Another sense of opposition within the film is the divide between the sane characters and the insane characters. All of the women are shown to the audience as being completely normal; however the killer is presented as insane due to the number of people he kills. 

To conclude, I would say that the film Valentine does follow many conventions of a typical horror movie. It has a number of girls who are represented to the audience as extremely attractive as stereotypically one would expect the vast majority of males to watch the horror piece. The characters are of quite a young age, which means that the audience are able to relate to them with ease. Although this film focuses more on the gore factor of horror, it is still very scary for the audience as so much tension is created in the build up to the explicit deaths. The film Valentine has been extremely well written and therefore widely credited since its release, being labelled the best erotic thriller ever made.