My Bloody Valentine 1981

With a 3D remake due in the New Year, it's time to lift a bottle of Moosehead to the quintessential Canadian slasher flick. A movie that simply would not exist without our national love for socialism, beer and well... American movies.

My Bloody Valentine was filmed during the heyday of Canada's Capital Cost Allowance incentives. Basically the government let you write off 100% of any money you invested in a local flick. Suddenly dentists and lawyers were becoming film producers as a tax shelter and Canada became a film machine pumping out B-movies, many of which were never even expected to see the light of a projector. It was amongst this flood of crap that Prom Night, Terror Train, and other cult classics were born.

The plot of MBV is this: 20 years ago some miners were killed in the town of Valentine Bluffs when the mine supervisors left work early to head to a Valentine's Day dance and neglected to check gas levels underground. BOOM went the miners save for a trapped one named Harry who after eating the dead to survive, went crazy and killed the supervisors. He also left a friendly warning to never have another Valentine's dance or he'd kill again. So guess what, it's dance time and Harry's back in town dressed to kill in full mining gear.

MBV may not be a great flick but it's got a lot of B-movie charm: a great location (it was shot in a real Nova Scotia mining town), some imaginative deaths, a decent backstory and a killer who actually has a reason to be wearing his creepy costume. But all this pales in comparison to the sheer volume of Moosehead beer product placement. If ever there was a horror movie to down pints to, this is it. It's also, like its brethren in this blog, a friendly reminder that Canadian film doesn't have to mean pretentious art house flicks.

So grab a sixer of Moose and enjoy a nice 80s slasher in all its poorly acted and gritty glory. The remake will no doubt be more polished and while I'm all for a 3D horror revival, I'm not sure a killer miner movie should look like a shiny new rollercoaster.