(Director: George Mihalka. Screenwriter: John Beaird.)
Storyline
A town
haunted by a Valentine’s Day murder-curse holds its first V-Day Dance in
decades and a new spate of violent deaths occur.
Review
This hack‘n’ stab flick about a small mining town haunted by a decades-old murder is a solid, entertaining, and waste-no-time flick. The murder was committed by a miner (Harry Warden) who turned to cannibalism while being trapped in the Hanniger Mine─the town’s main source of employment─during the town’s Valentine’s Day dance. Before he was sent to a mental hospital, Warden vowed more deaths if another celebration was held on February 14th. Because of this, the town hasn’t held a dance in decades. This year, things are different.
Two days before the dance (Thursday the 12th), one of the townsfolk receives a human heart in a candy box (echoing Warden’s gory heart-in-a-box style). Chief Newby (Don Francks) calls the out-of-town hospital where Warden was interned. Seems nobody can find any information about Warden, nor where he’s located. That night, a woman (Mabel) is killed in a laundromat after reading a heart-shaped card reading “Roses are red, violets are blue, one is dead, so are you.” Her killer, like Harry Warden, is clad in a dark miner’s outfit, complete with helmet and mask.
Newby hides the circumstances of Mabel’s demise, publicly ascribing her death to a heart attack─he also cancels the dance. The miners, young, horny, and derisive of the Warden legend, party at the mine. Hijinks, romantic rivalry, heavy flirting, and bad decision-making ensues. Meanwhile, another townsperson is killed by the pickaxe-wielding miner. It’s not long before the partygoers realize something’s amiss.
The setting is real and gritty, a small town that’s in the throes of a severe economic downturn (its locale, Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, was also going through hard times during the shoot). This grimy realism lends an underlying desperation to the film, though its action is standard stalk-and-kill fare, with a few effective suspense scenes in the mix (especially TJ’s fight scene with the killer). Rodney Gibbon’s cinematography adds to BLOODY’s increasingly dirty, harsh tone, especially as the killings─striking and rapid in their execution─get more brutal, and Paul Zaza’s spare, simple and well-timed score furthers the film’s effectiveness.
BLOODY won’t win any awards, but for what it is─an Old School, solid, occasionally suspenseful B-level slasher flick with inherent atmosphere, little gore, and no explicit nudity─it’s a worthwhile watch, if you keep your expectations realistic and modest.
Deep(er) filmic dive:
Helene Uddy, who played Sylvia, also appeared in THE DEAD ZONE (1983), MRS. CLAUS (2018) and other sometimes-notable films.
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