In the early 2000’s, for my friends and I, Friday nights were reserved for the movie theater. It didn’t matter what movie it was— if it was playing, my friends and I would see it. Genre was irrelevant. It was just what we did.
As a result, despite not being an active horror fan at the time, I saw a great deal of scary-movie’s more mainstream entries. And, admittedly, what I had once thought of as frightening had slowly begun to transform into an experience that was… fun.
Beginning with movies like Scream (1996) and Jamie Blanks’ previous effort Urban Legend (1998), slashers in particular played for my friends and I like a whodunnit with sharper edges. Populate the flicks with the most attractive members of our demographic’s favorite prime time TV shows and, frankly, it was a can’t-lose scenario.
So it was, primed by the slashers that had preceded it over the past few years, my group entered into Valentine (2001) with smiles on our faces and a jump-scare expectation that was appropriately weighted toward post-Scream slashers.
Our initial reaction… was disappointment. Sure, it had the elements of the whodunnit slasher, but a lot less of the humor. It seemed fine all in all, but it wasn’t what we were expecting. Over the years I forgot about it and slashers were supplanted in the cinemas by a slew of J-horror remakes so that by the time I found my way to horror fandom, Valentine was not even a blip on the radar that was my horror experience.
More years passed. Eventually I found my way back to slashers, combed through the best of them and trudged through the worst, somehow finding something to love amongst even the lowest Z-grade outing. And when it was all said and done, I found myself looking back at the ones that technically ushered me into the genre in the first place. Those late 90’s and early 2000’s slashers that I viewed as fun, forgettable popcorn flicks, were now, once more, at the top of my to-watch list.
Among the last films I revisited from that time was Jamie Blanks’ second slasher flick Valentine. My recollection of it had lowered my expectations considerably and, if nothing else, I figured the nostalgia value would be worth the second look alone.
What I found was a slasher movie rooted in the tradition of the 80’s, similar to Urban Legend, employing the same outlandish set pieces but with a contrasting minimalistic use of blood and gore coupled with choreography which created situational scares more effectively than the blunt, in-your-face alternative. It’s simple, the killer’s iconic cherub-face look was deeply unsettling and, ultimately, the mystery keeps the viewer on their toes.
While it doesn’t have as much charm as something like Urban Legend or the even more serious I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), it still stands as a sleek, stylish and progressively biting take on the sort of toxic masculinity and relationship drama associated with its chosen holiday theme.
Yes, the second time around was a different experience altogether but it was the hot tub sequence that truly stood out. A slow, careful build in tension that culminates in both expected and unexpected ways, the scene works as a great example of how Valentine both builds and pays off scares in unique, violent and still more subdued ways as compared to other movies of the like. It’s a great example of what happens when a strong concept is executed with ingenuity and prowess.
Based on the novel of the same name by Tom Savage, the script opens with a direct address to the reader, “Scared of being alone on Valentine’s Day? You should be” and doesn’t relent from there. Written by Wayne and Donna Powers and revised by Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Herberts, the words on the page are intense, direct and dread-inducing. The blocking is incredibly detailed and offers a wonderful roadmap for those in the business of visualizing them to follow, while not being above the over-the-top set piece kill that slasher movies revel in employing.
On the screen, the scene comes to life with some alterations, keeping the major action beats but shifting the speed, style and tone of the approach. When all is said and done, Paige’s memorable death is realized in a scary, distinctive way that stands out even amongst the films of its time. Valentine may not have ranked amongst my favorite of its era, but it has a lot to offer fans of the slasher sub-genre and this sequence proves it well.
THE SCENE
Paige gets into the jacuzzi. She wets her hair and relaxes. She sips champaign. Someone approaches from behind. She turns at the sound of the door, frightened. No one there. She notices a rose beside the champaign that wasn’t there before and picks it up. She rises from the jacuzzi and calls out, “Hello?” She coaxes the person from the shadows, more curious than afraid. She investigates the room. Her curiosity turns to annoyance. Finding no one, she retreats. The Cherub grabs her and shoves her into the jacuzzi, closing its plastic cover. Paige flails in the hot water. The Cherub’s nose bleeds. He grabs a power drill and shoves it into the plastic cover, barely missing Paige. Paige uses the hole in the plastic to breathe. He continues to aim at her with the drill, ramming it in and out of the plastic. Finally, he connects with her arm and blood fills the water. Then, the Cherub opens the plastic cover and tosses in the drill, electrocuting Paige.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
The screenplay and the film take slightly different approaches. In the screenplay, Paige’s encounter with Brian plays out as one fluid scene. In the film, it’s cut up and interspersed with the other goings on at the party. As it is on the page, after a verbal fight with Brian, Paige slips out the French doors and moves to the edge of the terrace. She surveys the party below her where the sound of the BAND is DEAFENING. Then:
JACUZZI
GURGLES and HISSES seductively at the other end of the terrace. Paige undoes a clasp and throws back the plastic cover. The WIND whips up. Shuddering, she sheds her dress and heads for the steaming turquoise water.
Onscreen, the setting is quite a bit different. The row with Brian happened several scenes before; in fact, the scene directly preceding this one features Ruthie’s death which does not occur until several scenes later in the script. Instead of being outside on a terrace, the jacuzzi is indoors. There is no loud music wafting by, but instead complete silence outside of the bubbling, glowing blue water. There’s a quiet serenity pervading the moment.
In the script, Paige shouts “Ouch!” upon first coming into contact with the water. The film opens with a medium shot of Paige’s leg spread out across the jacuzzi as her hand brushes the water. Rather than pained, she seems quite at ease, giving the viewer the impression that the water’s temperature is comfortable as opposed to scalding. Again, the film works hard to rest Paige’s nerves rather than continuing to challenge and stress them.
The script also throws in a bit of foreshadowing, mentioning the pile of plumber’s tools that Campbell has left hidden to one side of the tub. The film moves forward with no acknowledgment of this, uninterested in logistics in lieu of cultivating tone. Then, in both versions, Paige slips into the water.
Head falls back. Bubbles rush up to her neck.
At this point, the script and the film deviate dramatically. The film observes Paige, quietly as before, as she submerges herself in the jacuzzi. The first wide image of Paige is shown from a canted angle, lying in a black bikini, the beautiful, blue water bubbling softly before her while the rear wall is lined with decorative plants obscuring the large windows behind them. She slides into the water slowly in a near glamour shot, emphasizing the air of voyeurism engulfing the sequence.
The image cuts between a straight on medium-wide shot of Paige in the water and a similar shot from behind her and continues to do so for the next handful of edits. In this way, as she wets her hair, reaches for a glass of Champaign and relaxes in the water, there is the constant notion that she is being watched. As before, there is an eerie quietness to the sequence that serves the mounting dread.
The script on the other hand keeps the action going as A JET BACKFIRES immediately as she gets in the water. After wiping, as the script notes, chlorinated water from her lips, Paige notices the wet rose petal stuck to her palm. After a paragraph break, the script reads, Rose petals cover the surface of the Jacuzzi.
Instinctively, Paige turns to the doors and sees A dark figure in the shadows. She covers herself and calls out, “Hey, freakshow—” Then, The cherub steps INTO VIEW — his knife at his side.
With very little time for Paige to get acclimated to the comfort of the jacuzzi, the action has begun and revealed the truth of itself. The film opts to build the momentum of the shudder-some occurrences without diving headfirst into the reveal, initially providing the viewer with one, hazy shot of the cherub’s mask, obscured and barely visible in the low light through the glass on the French doors.
As the door opens with a low creak, the camera continues to cut between front and rear shots of Paige in the jacuzzi. Entirely unaware, Paige relaxes as the shots track carefully toward her until her head fills the center of the frame. Whether or not the viewer is in the POV of the killer is unclear, but the feeling of being so is undeniable.
The door closes loudly and Paige gasps, turning around. She turns again and the camera pulls back across the jacuzzi to the bottle of champaign, racking focus to a red rose that now lies beside it. Rather than have the water be covered with petals, the single rose admittedly offers a less iconic Valentine’s Day connotation while still accomplishing a similar end. At this, Paige begins to call out. She calls, “Hello?” several times and leaves the jacuzzi to investigate. Less fearful and more curious (she even asks, “Does someone wanna be my Valentine?”), Paige wanders around the space as the camera continues to track alongside her, alternating between her own POV shots and angles which mirror what the viewer might think to be the killer’s.
None of this is in the script. Instead of wandering the room holding a rose, smiling as she calls for the intruder to reveal himself, the script cuts to the chase.
CLOSE ON MASK
On the eyes behind it, seeing Paige’s horror.
On the mouth, curled in mad delight.
On the drips of blood that ooze from the nose.
What ensues on the page is immediate, visceral chaos. Paige screams and stands up. The cherub swings his knife toward her chest but she leaps backward and slips, falling end over end out of the Jacuzzi. She calls for help, but The JACUZZI MOTOR and the MUSIC downstairs drown out her cries.
Again, the screen continues to offer a quieter alternative that mirrors the interaction on the page. After checking the room, Paige’s curiosity turns to annoyance. She calls Ryan’s name and finally shouts “Alright, get the fuck out!” Still, the camera jumps from behind her to before her, tightly framing her in each shot, the claustrophobic nature of the cat and mouse game unfolding onscreen coming to a head.
After pulling apart the plants to find the anti-climactic presence of no one there, Paige backs away confused. As the camera holds on a close up of her face, something comes into view behind her, difficult to discern given the angle and low light. She turns, again in a close up and then the cherub emerges, practically tackling her from the right. Paige screams and he pulls her roughly by the neck toward the jacuzzi. As he does so, the image cuts to a close up of the rose, discarded on the floor as the cherub’s foot comes down and crushes its petals. In a wide shot, the cherub throws Paige head first (and hard) into the bubbling water of the jacuzzi.
On the page, the struggle lasts longer than several seconds. Paige’s wet feet cause her to stick to the cold slate terrace and she falls hard. The screenplay uses action description headers to suggest shot progression throughout, as evidenced earlier with the description of the mask. Here, that strategy continues with:
KNIFE
soars against the starry sky.
BACK TO SCENE
Paige rolls, grabs the cherub’s knife-hand at at the wrist.
It’s easy to visualize this sequence, despite the minimalistic nature of the action description. The screenplay provides Paige with the opportunity to be prepared for the encounter, at least in spirit, and therefore follows through on that preparation with a fight. Onscreen, Paige is caught almost completely unaware and is therefore bested without much struggle. Also on the page is the constant reference to their proximity to other people, the common slasher trope that hope and salvation is inches away but impossible to reach— like a bad dream.
While that concept is somewhat lost onscreen given the seclusive, closed-off and generally silent nature of the space, the screenplay leverages this idea in expert ways that heighten the dramatic tension. For example, when the cherub strikes Paige and she falls against the terrace wall, she catches a glimpse of:
TERRACE
below. Oblivious guests smoke and laugh.
Paige attempts to yell but can’t muster the breath. In the vein of Casey Becker’s death in the opening of Scream, she instead steps back on wobbly feet as the killer closes in. She’s weakened and losing composure while the Jacuzzi blocks her way. Of course, at that point, both the screenplay and the film once again reconnect as With a vicious shove, the cherub knocks her back into the water.
From here on out, the screenplay and the film tend to match up more closely. On the page:
UNDERWATER
Her body drops. Wild eyes look up for a sign of the attacker, but he’s out of sight. Paige pushes up as—
The plastic cover crashes onto her, shoving her back under.
In the film the shots grow even more tightly framed. A medium-wide shot of the plastic lid swings down behind Paige as she falls in. A medium shot of the cherub, visible through the plastic lid as it closes over the water. An extreme close up shot of the cherub latching the lid.
Paige emerges from the water, gasping for air and pressing her face and hands against the plastic lid in the inch or two of open air that she has access to. This action culminates in a wide aerial view of Paige in the jacuzzi and the cherub beside her. The camera spins as it tracks slowly downward on the scene, centering Paige under the plastic lid as she continues her frantic tapping on the glass, begging for release.
Other than a moment of stylized acknowledgement where Paige and the cherub’s face meet through the clear plastic (which can be found as a deleted scene), the visuals bring the moment to life accurately. The biggest difference on the page are the continued references to the discomfort brought on by the water. It mentions, The hot, chemical infused water burns at her eyes as well as the fact that every time she reaches an air pocket, a new rush of bubbles and water obliterates it. Neither of these problems seem to be of concern in the film, simply the cherub-masked attacker and his horrible aims.
With little time to acclimate to being trapped in the jacuzzi, the situation intensifies when the image cuts to a close up of the cherub brandishing a power drill. He slams it down into the plastic lid above Paige, pushing her away. This again mirrors the page exactly as an:
EIGHT-INCH DRILL BIT
Punches through the cover. As soon as it’s there, it’s gone.
What follows onscreen is a quick succession of shots. Close ups of the cherub jamming the drill into the plastic and Paige darting around the jacuzzi, attempting to press her lips against the small holes the cherub is making (as scripted, Paige notes the tiny air hole. Lips close around it. Suck in a trickle of precious oxygen). The image cuts back to the aerial shot, the camera spinning in a disorienting way as it follows the cherub carefully moving around the edge of the jacuzzi and positioning himself over Paige.
The page reflects this, but with more nuance. The screenplay notes small details like the manner in which Paige’s breaths increase her buoyancy. Still, the script is quicker to reach the conclusion of this portion as before, and on the third try the cherub’s drill bit plunges through the water and into Paige’s arm.
While it may not seem like a large difference, it takes six tries onscreen before Paige’s arm is punctured, feeling a little more like an elongated set piece than it may have needed to, while also paying off the reserved nature of the sequence’s beginnings. Paige screams and blood issues into the water, rapidly turning the blue a striking shade of red. The image cuts between close ups of the cherub, Paige in the water as bubbles escape her mouth and the spinning drill.
On the page, the struggle continues. After being injured, Paige bangs the cover with her feet and the cherub resumes drilling into the cover as he aims for her. Like a starved goldfish, Paige zooms to the surface and inhales madly. After missing her chest, Paige retreats to a corner and with little left in her she takes her first underwater breath and gags. The script notes, Now, it’s only a matter of time.
Seemingly uninterested in overstaying its welcome, the film transitions from Paige’s injury to the inevitable conclusion. In a few successive close up shots, the cherub unlatches the lid and proceeds to toss the still active drill into the water. A flash and then Paige convulses in the blood-red water. A series of jump cuts depict the camera spinning back away from Paige now, electricity manifesting itself in the bubbles surrounding her, pulsing through her body. This is followed by a wide establishing shot of the house as the lights click off and an audible groan rises from the party’s many oblivious guests.
The same occurs in the script, spaced out with moments of realization and several more futile attempts at escape. In the end, however, it reads, In one move, the cherub unlatches the cover and tosses the still running drill into the tub. Sparks fly the minute it hits the water. Both scenes end in the same place, on the same tragic, over-the-top image:
ON PAIGE
Feeling the first jolts of ELECTRICITY racing into her body. Boiling her alive. She convulses. Eyes gape. A last bubble parts her lips, and her face turns a gruesome mask of terror.
Two different approaches to the same scene, both in practical execution and overall tone, that still amount to the same end. An overly elaborate murder with multiple, somewhat disparate, components (see power drills, knives and jacuzzis) that all feel at home in the slasher genre sandbox here work together to create a memorable, frightening moment that leads the viewer into the reveal of who the killer is and where their cruelty stems from.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“These scenes we’ve seen before in the Friday the 13th movies…” director Jamie Blanks said on his audio commentary for Valentine found on the Scream Factory blu-ray disc, “but what are we making slasher films for if we don’t pay respects to the conventions that have made these films so successful in the past?”
There are few horror sub-genres better suited to usher unsuspecting movie-goers into horror fandom than the slasher. Back when my friends and I hit the theater each Friday, without fail, we did not necessarily consider ourselves horror fans— but we never missed a slasher. They invite a different brand of suspension-of-disbelief, often peppered with set pieces which work on not only the basis of their feasibility to occur but on their visual execution. A well directed, blocked and practically executed kill can sometimes make up for even the poorest explanation behind it.
Director Jamie Blanks understands this better than most. As he mentions in his commentary, “Some people will say that my films are a little formulaic— there’s a reason that they are. The slasher genre has adhered to a formula all these years… and been successful.” His influences derive from the heyday of teen slasher fare, each action and kill carefully put together to foster frights while building and releasing tension.
In Thrill of the Drill, a featured interview with Denise Richards on the previously mentioned disc, the actress recalls her character and her death. “Paige was smart, she was sexy and also had one of the best death scenes ever in a horror movie,” Denise Richards said with a grin. Footage in the interview reveals the immense rig constructed over the jacuzzi set, which was said in the commentary to have been built from the ground up to accommodate the director’s complex cinematography needs.
Each shot was storyboarded meticulously, ensuring that every camera angle was planned and the action executed precisely. Small details were paramount in executing the scene, right down to the nuanced lighting the director employed. “I had these wonderful little trays of broken pieces of mirror on the ground which would bounce lights off to create an ambient rippling effect in the background,” Jamie Blanks said in his commentary track. And when it was time for the electrocution, despite knowing that CGI effects were to be added in post, the director still ensured that there was a degree of practicality in place, saying, “we had flash bulbs going off in the water as we were filming.”
The screen and the script were different entities in many ways, but perfectly aligned in others. What’s clear is that the ideas on the page resonated on screen and while liberties were taken, as they were from the original novel, the important thing is that the concept was translated intact.
All of these years later, rewatching this film that I was so uninterested in as a teenager, I’m struck by the staying power of the genre. What other type of film could travel such as this, follow me decades into the future when it so underwhelmed me upon first viewing. I can’t think of the last time I sought out a drama or comedy that didn’t stick the first time around. No, horror has the ability to be reborn and rediscovered, reemerging in relevance in the most unexpected ways.
Today when I watch a slasher film with a female led cast, deconstructing the male gaze through its leads and their indictment of the superficial dating scene all while re-contextualizing and recapturing their sexuality through their own strength and perseverance, it’s hard not to be impressed. Even if it is peppered with silly, over-the-top death scenes involving drills, arrows and mean-spirited Valentine’s Day cards.
In the end, the post-Scream slasher movies of the late 90’s and early 2000’s may not have done much to prepare me to love Valentine, but I think its safe to say that a few extra decades of slasher movie watching certainly has. And although I did not consider myself a horror fan at the time, that going to these sorts of movies was just what we did, I’m glad we did it.
After all, I’m now as far away from this movie’s release as Jamie Blanks was from many of the 80’s slashers he was referencing when he made it. There is a formula after all, and as the director himself said, paying respects to the conventions of the past are part of what makes slashers so successful.
Maybe it takes a few views to get to that point, to seek and know these conventions, but once you do, well, the reaction won’t be disappointment. Quite the opposite really, regardless of what scares you or doesn’t— like the idea of heading to the movie theater on a Friday night after school, horror will have you keep coming back. When you’re a horror fan, that’s just what you do.
Valentine (2001): Written by Wayne & Donna Powers and Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Herberts & Directed by Jamie Blanks
