canada gave birth to the slasher film with black christmas in 1974, but confirmed the strength of the true north's horror lineage seven years later with its sinister second-born, my bloody valentine. the pride and joy of nova scotia is canadiana at its best: maritime accents, lumberjack jackets, and sponsorship from none other than moosehead! from bottles and cans to actual neon signs advertising the fact, the green and gold abounds as these good canadian kids get their eyeballs pickaxed out. this flick has more beer-soused douchebags in plaid jackets and trucker hats than my local taphouse on a tuesday afternoon. no doot aboot it.so pardon my jingoism when i declare my bloody valentine one of the greatest slasher flicks of all time. there's a reason that one of the greatest bands of all time took its name a couple of years later. the film literally opens with blood on tits (and a pickaxe through them), and the kills only get better. drowning in boiling hotdogs? check. death by nailgun? check. head impaled on a makeshift shower spurting blood and water? check. MBV has some of the most creative kills in the genre - the laundromat scene alone is enough to warrant its legendary status (and the extra spin-cycle footage on the special edition dvd is worth whatever you pay for it).
the characters are ridiculous. teutonic axel loses his girl and his mind in a bad case of stockholm syndrome, taking on the persona of harry warden, the lone survivor of a mining accident who offed axel's dad in a post-traumatic-stress induced fit of vengeance. his rival TJ is the strong, silent type who returns to town to claim his girl after an unexplained absence. their mutual love interest sarah is a girl of classic '70s braless proportions and possessed of a rather remarkable survival instinct. and the poor barmaid harriet gives up her chariot on the dubious promise of ten minutes alone in a mineshaft with some douche who manages to get them doubly screwed. she should've listened to TJ, who knows and recites the rules well: "no women in the mine." but can you blame them? they hail from a mining town called valentine bluffs, where every day is the worst day of the year. i'd happily take a pickaxe to the face too.
the film ends as brilliantly as it begins, with an old-timey bar ballad about the life and times of harry warden and the residents of valentine bluffs. you can practically sing along. and as far as psychokillers go: a nutjob in a gasmask with a pickaxe? yes please. beats that bagheaded retard hands down.
