My Bloody Valentine (1995)

By: Jo Gibson

Genre: Young Adult, Horror, Mystery

It’s February at Hamilton High and Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Amy Hunter and her friends are planning a big Valentine’s Day dance, complete with the crowning of the King and Queen of Hearts. However, someone doesn’t like this idea, and one by one the girls in the running for Queen die in mysterious “accidents.” As the dance draws closer, it appears Amy might be in the lead for the Queen, and that puts her life in jeopardy.

While this was a quick read, I never really found myself that engrossed in the story line. I think my main problem was the characters; they are all very one dimensional with no memorable personalities. Amy is our heroine: the good girl, sweet, and virginal, who gets good grades and is class president. Colleen is her brainy best friend. Tanya is the snooty, popular, beautiful head cheerleader. Gail is a pretty blonde who dumbs herself down to gain male affection. Jessica and Michele are nobodies until it’s their turn on the chopping block, and then they are just irritating.

All of the girls were unlikable. Colleen and Amy are the only ones who seem to have an ounce of human decency in them. Tanya is the typical, backstabbing, gossip queen, and Gail follows right in her footsteps. Jessica becomes a hateful person and tells Michele she doesn’t need her as a best friend anymore, making Michele cry in the school hallway. I felt bad for Michele, until she was walking her dog, and hoping he would keel over and die so she wouldn’t have to walk him anymore. (A dog that loves her and tries to protect her, I might add!) 

Aside from Amy and Colleen, these girls are just useless human beings, and I was honestly rooting for the killer to take them out.

Amy wasn’t exactly likable either, but that is because she’s such a boring cliché. I enjoyed reading her experiences with her first date and first kiss, and I liked how she realized who she really wanted to be with had been right there the whole time. She is also kind of dumb at times, but she pulls off a pretty smart move at the climax, which surprised me.

The dialog was awkward. I know I was just a little kid when this novel was written, but I don’t believe that high school girls talked the way these girls did. Their conversations were used to provide a lot of exposition, and that is exactly how it reads. These girls are just talking to push the plot forward, the author is talking through them, they have no distinct voices of their own.

Speaking of the plot, I find it hard to believe that after the first two accidents, the school wouldn’t call off the King and Queen contest. How can the Sheriff not suspect foul play when all the girls are wearing the same half-heart pendent? When all of the girls received threatening Valentine’s cards? I know the principal really wanted a new collection of science books (the money from the dance/contest was going to his book fund), but I highly doubt he’d risk the lives of his students for it. Also, Amy’s mother is more worried about a dress that Amy’s boyfriend picked out for her than the fact that girls are dying all over town? That makes no sense.

The killer was fairly obvious. There were three prime suspects and two of them seemed like red herrings to me. The writing itself wasn’t very good either. As I said above, the dialog was awful and the characterization was poor. The descriptions of the deaths were clunky and amateurish – there’s no suspense (which could be because I didn’t care about the characters), and wording is ridiculous. [Paraphrasing:] “A heavy beam fell from the rafters, smashing her into oblivion.” I hate the way this reads and sounds in my head. I felt like the description was similar to how I wrote in junior high – and believe me, those stories were nothing worth publishing!

This was honestly a rather silly young adult horror novel - basically the teen fiction equivalent of a poorly written, goreless made-for-television slasher movie. The characters were dull, clichéd and often mean-spirited, and the plot doesn’t seem very well thought out. Still, it kept my attention, and I cared enough about Amy to see her through the ending and root for her and Danny, so the book wasn’t terrible.

4.5/10

Butcher Knives & Body Counts (2011)

Butcher Knives & Body Counts (2011)
Essays on the Formula, Frights, and Fun of the Slasher Film

Edited by: Vince A. Liaguno

Genre: Film Appreciation/Analysis, Essay Compilation, Horror Films

Everyone is aware of the slasher subgenre of horror films. Even if you’re not a fan, you know the icons: Freddy, Michael, and Jason. You know the film that reputedly started it all, Psycho. You know the basic formula – crazed killer out for revenge, picking off teens in creative, bloody ways as they partake in sex, drugs and rock and roll. This book is written for slasher fans, by slasher fans, and it explores the genre a bit deeper than most critics would. Some of the essays bring merit to an often disregarded genre.

The book is split up into five sections: Slasher 101 (An Overview of the Genre), Films of the Pre-Golden Age, The Golden Age, The Postmodern Era, and Slasher IQ. I found Part I: Slasher 101 the most interesting as I read the theories and analysis of the genre by fellow fans. My favorite essays in this section include Evil Eight: The Secret Language of Slasher Films; Rise of the New Primitives; and Two Piles of Corpses: The Slasher and the Serial Killer.

Evil Eight explores the eight major concepts often employed within a slasher film: Family Values vs. Valued Family, Rural vs. Urban, Male vs. Female, Individual vs. the Collective, Natural Forces vs. Civilization, the Id vs. the Super-ego, Darwinism vs. Transcendentalism, and Ubermensch vs. Letzte Mensch. All are very interesting concepts, and as I read through them I could think of countless examples that fit into multiple categories.

Rise of the New Primitives compares contemporary slashers to tribal folklore by examining five elements: tribal bonding, tribal territory, the actors, the oral traditions, and the shaman heroine. Author Lucien Soulban describes in great detail how slasher films are new tribal stories by going in depth within these elements. At the beginning of the essay I was a bit skeptical, but at the end, I thought he made some great points, and thought it was a unique take on my beloved genre.

Two Piles of Corpses dictates the difference between a slasher and a serial killer. People like Hannibal Lector, Patrick Bateman and even Jigsaw are considered serial killers because they are white collar killers. They can afford to take their time and make a moral statement. They live the high life and have a much easier time covering their tracks. Slashers, on the other hand, represent the blue collar world. They hack and slash through numerous victims without an overall plan. They kill for revenge, they kill to punish. They don’t feel the need to make a statement; they just want their victims gone. I had never thought of this difference before, but I found it quite interesting.

Part II observes the years leading up to the Golden Age of Slashers. Here I discovered films that have been labeled by fans as precursors to the genre, films that date back into the 1920s. It opened my eyes and created a list of films I must see as a genre connoisseur, such as Pandora’s Box (1929), Thirteen Women (1932), Terror Aboard (1933), and The Ninth Guest (1934). This section also discusses how Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1945) is a parent to the slasher subgenre, as it employs the formula of picking off victims one by one. There’s a discussion of the two films believed to have kick-started the genre: Psycho and Peeping Tom, as well as both Italian and British horror, and of course, the classics, such as Black Christmas (1974), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Deep Red, The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and Suspiria.

Part III is the Golden Age, where slashers are explored from 1978 to the early 1990s. The section kicks off with Halloween (1978), and discusses mostly films from the early 1980s, 1980-1984 being the biggest for the genre. There are some great essays analyzing Maniac, Terror Train, Prom Night, Sleepaway Camp, Happy Birthday to Me, The Funhouse, Night School and Hell Night. There is also a fun personal essay by Harley Jane Kozak on her experience working on The House on Sorority Row (1983). She has a great sense of humor and I found myself laughing out loud at what she was saying.

Part IV was a bit of a letdown. There is no theory or analysis, just descriptions of the films that came after the 1980s slasher boom. This section starts off with Scream(1996), covering its clones, the torture porn genre, and the influx of remakes. Since this is the era of horror I’ve grown up with, I would have liked to see in-depth discussion on it, but instead I just got a rehash of the plots I know by heart.

While there were some great essays in this book, there were many that were lackluster. I loved the essays that delved deep into the subject matter and brought about a new way of seeing the films. Then there were others where the writers simply described their first experience watching their favorite slasher, which were okay, but not something that interested me all that much. A couple of the essays touched briefly on the accusations that slasher films are misogynistic, which I would have liked to see examined in more detail. I am a feminist and a horror fan, slashers being my favorite subgenre, and I don’t find them hateful toward my gender. Maybe I’ll have to write that essay myself.

My last complaint is about the editing. It looks as though the essays were just accepted and placed into the book formatting program without even being edited. There are multiple typos, a few instances where the wrong form of a word was used, a couple spelling errors, and a few missing words. The quizzes in the final part of the book, especially the first one on “Final Girls,” are all messed up with the lettering being off. It looks really unprofessional and throws off the reader when they’re engrossed in an essay.

I did enjoy most of this book, however the editing errors are glaring in places, and there is no analysis involved in the section on postmodern slashers. Still, it is a good read, full of interesting theories and analysis as well as the history of the genre. It’s definitely worth the read for horror fans.

6.5/10