Valentine (2001)

Episode 289, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw.  I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Well, here we go again, Craig geeking out because it is Valentine’s day. And what do we love more than to find some, sorry, excuse for our in decisiveness, by like, oh, there’s some holiday. Let’s just go and see if there’s anything related to the holiday.

And actually also this was spurred by our loyal listener and good friend, Heather who handled. He sent us a list of Valentine’s day films. Last year, we did my bloody Valentine and that remains one of my favorite episodes because that movie, you know, we, we were even remarking at the time. How many Valentines have gone by, on this darn show?

And we haven’t done a Valentine’s day theme and my bloody Valentine is so notorious. And then we did it. We really enjoyed it a lot and had a lot to talk about. So that I’m sure just started this long tradition that we’re going to have of the next six more Valentine’s day. The movies we have to choose from, hopefully they’ll make a few more in between.

Um, but from that list, uh, Craig and I chose 2001’s, aptly titled Valentine. Now, uh, I had never even heard of this movie. It came out in 2001. So that puts it squarely around this late nineties sort of post scream, I think, uh, re fascination with mainstream slasher movies. So. This particular style of young, beautiful people in it.

And this, this, like, it’s so funny how this movie was cast. So Valentine stars, Denise Richards, Katherine Heigl, Jessica Capshaw, people who, you know, when you look at the trivia on this movie and you see who was almost cast in there, they’re all like from the same pool, right? Yeah. Like Tara raid was almost in here.

Jennifer Love Hewitt was almost Denise Richards’ character in here. So, uh, in fact, the director, uh, came off of urban legends, which had a what’s her name in it. Um, who was that woman? The Noxema girl. Rebecca Gayheart. And she also was, uh, he wanted her for this movie, but, um, that didn’t end up happening either.

So just go to that pool, find a bunch of attractive looking 20 something hot actresses at the time who had also been another slasher movies and put together this Valentine’s day themed film, and then just load it to the brim with characters. Oh my gosh. Just throw as many people as will confuse two poor guys who were trying to put on a podcast about.

Craig: So many 

Todd: characters, I like almost ran out of paper, trying to write down just the names of everybody in this. And another character would come into the screen. I’m like, oh shit. I’m like another person to remember, try to figure out their name so that we can recount all this for you guys. This movie, I had never seen it before.

Had never heard of it before, uh, was a very interesting little time capsule. How about you, Craig? Do you have any history with this at all? 

Craig: Uh, yeah, I’d heard of it and I remembered that I had seen it and I thought I remembered who the killer was, but that’s all I remembered about it. I didn’t remember anything else about the plot or anything.

I would imagine that the main draw for me for this movie was David Briana’s. First of all. Gorgeous to look at, but he got his big break on Buffy, the vampire Slayer. He was out walking his dog. And I don’t know if it was a casting person or the direct, I don’t know who it was, but somebody just saw him on the streets of LA walking his dog and said, you should come audition for this part.

And he got the role of angel on Buffy, the vampire Slayer, which was a show that I absolutely loved still love. I think it’s one of the, my favorite TV shows of all time. And then he of course, went on to star, uh, in the titular role of the spinoff angel and his career just blew up from there. And he still, he works all the time.

He’s he’s got some. Big show where he’s a big masculine guy. I think it’s called like seal team or something. I don’t know, but that was probably the draw. In addition, just to the fact that, you know, always all my life, I have kept up with horror and this was kind of an exciting time, um, in horror because it w screamed through it back into the main stream.

And so we were getting these big theatrical releases. And you’re right. They’re all very similar in that. They’re all very polished and I’m full of gorgeous people. If you were young and watching television and movies, uh, in the late nineties, early aughts, you’re going to recognize pretty much everybody in this movie from something.

And you know, many of them are still very much in the public eye, but here they’re all young and gorgeous. Um, I don’t know that Denise Richards has ever looked better. I mean, she’s just stunning. Uh, in this movie, you 

Todd: watch this for David Borealis. I was, I would have watched this for Denise Richards. I had a huge, huge crush on her at this time.

I mean, probably pretty much ever since Starship troopers. And this is a, this is a pre-boot job, Denise Richards, which I mean no judgment there, but, uh, right. I do, I do have my preferences. So anyway. Yeah. Uh, she, you know, Denise Richards. The best actress on the planet, quite honestly she’s but, uh, and that’s pretty obvious in this movie, but I sure enjoyed watching her.

Craig: I don’t blame you at all. I mean, she looks amazing. Um, but she’s just, she only exists in the movie to be a sex pot, you know, like, yeah. And, and not even, you know this. Okay. So the director of the movie, like you said, had done, uh, urban legends, but he wanted to do like an old school, eighties slasher. He wanted it to be a throwback and, uh, in many ways that very much is it has a lot of the elements.

And 80 slasher. You’ve got a backstory where something terrible happens and is an excellent setup for revenge. And then that’s what it becomes basically is a, a revenge slasher with the masked killer. And, you know, it’s a mystery who is the killer. It was initially intended to be much like many of our favorite slashers from the seventies and eighties, very gory and lots of really violent kills.

And they filmed them that way. But then, uh, it wasn’t, I think that they had to trim a little bit to appease the MPA MPA, but it wasn’t even really so much that even when the NPAA was appeased, um, the studio requested that they cut more of the violence and gore, at least in part in response. To the Columbine tragedy.

I think that they were concerned about too much on screen violence, uh, in the wake of that. So they toned it down a little bit, which is kind of unfortunate and suppo you know, there are a lot of cut scenes, deleted scenes. I think that some of them are available on some release. I didn’t look for them. I read about them.

And it just sounds like mostly, they were just extended a little bit more, you know, you saw a little bit more of the carnage. It didn’t really seem like we were missing a whole lot, but that he was going for this type of thing. And that you can tell that that’s what he was going for. It’s just a little bit disappointing that it got neutered a little bit, but you know, such as the industry, it happens all the time and, and ultimately what we’re left with.

I don’t really know how, I don’t know what to say about it. Um, there it’s fine. Like there’s nothing wrong with it. Aside from maybe the fact that I do think that there are too many characters and. I think maybe it tries a little bit too hard with the red herrings and some of the red herrings. I didn’t even get like, there, there was one red herring in particular.

I’m like, who is that guy? And they keep, they keep throwing suspicion on him, but I don’t have any idea who he is. And then you never really find out he was just some rando that they thought maybe did it. Like, 

Todd: I don’t know. Yeah. I agree with you. I, I finished watching it and I was just kinda trying to wrap my mind around why I was so underwhelmed by it.

I thought was I just not in the mood for it? You know, what was it about this movie that I just felt so blah about? Because like you said, it pretty much checks all the box. It does. Yeah. And it 

Craig: looks 

Todd: good. It’s just kind of. I don’t know. I don’t want to say boring, but maybe having so many characters in it, you never really latched on to any one particular person.

It doesn’t really focus around any one particular person. And I remember in a previous episode you had kind of pointed out something to me that was a bit of a revelation. You were like, you know what? This movie did not have a protagonist. It just bounced between all these people. And now I’m not going to say that this movie doesn’t have a protagonist, but it’s pretty damn close because it’s like, it’s the story of Jason Shelly, Kate page, Adam Lily, detective Vaughn, Campbell, Dorothy, Kim.

The step-mom who’s in there for like 10 seconds, Gary, Jeremy Melton, max, and Amy. And like all of these people have their moment, you know, the, I, I didn’t just list off five main characters and a bunch of extras. Like all of these people are kind of popping in and out throughout the whole movie. And so it’s hard to kind of maintain a focus on anything besides the plot.

And then the plot itself, like you said, it’s just a revenge plot from the very beginning. There’s a, there’s a sort of what you might call a flashback sequence to many years ago. I actually 

Craig: liked the, yeah, I liked this. The setup was good, 

Todd: right. Because it was kind of cool how it’s like, you sort of know who the killer is more or less, but you don’t know who he is.

You can kind of guess like, sort of rooted in history after science intro scene. Oh, clearly this is the person getting revenge on all these people, but now this person’s an adult. And so you don’t know. Guy it is, or if there’s a weird twist where there’s some girl who has some reason, you know, to do it.

So it was a cool setup, even though 

Craig: I thought that I knew who the killer was going in, it still kept me guessing there, there were parts where I was unsure. Ultimately I remembered correctly, but it did, uh, keep me guessing. But I do like, um, that, that set up scene. It feels very, very much like something we would have gotten the eighties it’s set at like a middle school dance.

Um, and there’s this young boy who’s supposed to be like this big nerd, I guess like the school nerd. And, uh, I think they may be, I don’t know. I didn’t read anything about it. I think maybe they put some prosthetic, uh, teeth on him to kind of make his teeth look a little bit janky. Um, other than that, He was a nice looking kid.

Yeah. 

Todd: Like all the nerds back 

Craig: in high school. Yeah. I CA I kind of didn’t believe that he would be getting as much flack as he was the kid you feel for him. It’s sweet because he’s at this dance by himself and he’s going up to all of these girls and asking them to dance, which having been an awkward adolescent and teenager, I know what a nightmare that is like, it’s, it takes so much courage just to do that, to put yourself out there and to ask these pretty girls to dance.

And he does, he asks what I can only assume are like the popular girls. And it turns out to be all of our main girls. Later in the story, but not only do they reject him, they’re really mean about it. Like most of them. Yeah. I remember the girl who grows up to be Denise Richards and they paint up this young girl to look like Denise Richards.

It’s funny. 

Todd: I thought that was basically her biker. He’s going around to all of these like child actors. And then one of them is like, Denise. But with pigtails or something, that’s a bit of a shock. 

Craig: Uh, I don’t know. Anyway, they’re there mean dance with me in your dreams, loser, would you dance with me? I’d rather be boiled on the, all of them are mean except for one that, you know, the one who looks nice and she’s wearing a nice dress and, um, her name’s Kate, and instead of rejecting him outright, she just says maybe later, which almost like he gets so happy about like, oh, maybe later, like, uh, I felt so bad for this kid I did too.

And then the last girl that he asks is a girl who’s sitting by herself in the bleachers. And she’s a pudgy girl. I mean, she’s. Again, she, she looks fine. Um, but she’s a little bit heavier than the other girls and you know, clearly not as possible, just having 

Todd: enough to tease. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. And she’s reluctant, but she’s alone too.

So she says, yes. And then I don’t know if we see them dancing, but the next thing we see is them under the bleachers, making out a group of boys, catches them and starts making fun of them. And I guess her being desperate. To not be teased, which I also understand. She claims that he, the boy attacked her.

And so this group of boys, you know, grabs the nerdy boy and pulls him out and strips all of his clothes off, down to his underwear right here in front of everybody, and then beats the crap out of him. Um, and, and is often the case. Types of movies. I really felt bad for this kid. And like, yeah, you get your revenge they’re mean they deserve 

it.

Todd: Yeah. It’s a mean kid thing to do. And 

Craig: then it cuts to the future and we figure out right away that, uh, one of those girls from the dance, her name is Shelly. She’s played by a very young Katherine Heigl, who is a very outspoken actress and that’s gotten her in trouble. Um, sometimes she’s been called difficult to work with.

She has said, uh, that she regrets making this movie. She hates it. She thinks it’s stupid. Um, she didn’t read the whole script. She only read the part that she was in, which was just the first few pages or something. And, um, she was really disappointed with the end product, whatever, but she’s, she’s a med student and she’s out on a date with this annoying guy named Jason.

And he. Douchey. And he always refers to himself in the third person. Right. Okay. Well, thank you, Jason was nice to meet you. What? That’s it? What’s it. Do 

Todd: I get a kiss? Excuse 

Craig: me. Let’s just a little fricking kiss. Oh God. Look this hard to get shit. Doesn’t play with Jason. You know, Jason, I’m not a doctor yet, but it’s my considered opinion.

You seek psychiatric help soon.

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: he, God, he’s such a douche. And so she calls off the date early, I think, and goes back to her med school and is going to be she’s working on this cadaver, getting ready to disect, to cadaver. Where’s the, where’s the noise. Yeah. You know, you 

Todd: really struck out on this date when your date would rather go back and cut open cadavers at like midnight, as opposed to go home with you when you’re done.

Oh 

Craig: God. He, but he was really, really awful. I don’t blame her at all. 

Todd: I don’t 

Craig: either. I was just cut up a cadaver. I was 

Todd: just like, man, she works late. Yeah. 

Craig: True. And that’s it like, uh, so she’s there and then she hears the. And she looks around and there are a couple of jump scares. The director has said in hindsight, that he wished that he hadn’t done so many cheap scares, uh, and, and made some of the attempts at humor that they made.

Um, he wished they had been a little bit more straightforward about it, but you know, it, it is what it is, but she gets chased around by somebody dressed in all black and wearing, I guess what I would just what it’s described in everything that I read as a cherub mask. I was thinking since it’s Valentine’s day it’s Cupid.

Yeah. But whatever. I mean, it’s just a mask, 

Todd: I guess Cupid’s a cherub. Yeah. 

Craig: And he, and he chases her around with a knife and eventually she ends up in another part of the morgue where there are a lot of body bags laid out on. Uh, rolling tables and the killer comes in and starts going through each body bag.

And at first he starts unzipping them and then he just starts going and stabbing everyone. And he finally gets to live the last one or the second to last one or something. He opens it up and she’s in there. She has hidden in there and he slit her throat. And this is one of the scenes that was cut pretty extensively, I guess, before we were supposed to see her neck get sliced and the blood splurt out.

And it’s really mostly just suggested now, but it sets the tone for what the movie is going to be. You know, they get a slasher kill in there. So we know that this is how it’s gonna play out. And then it introduces us to the characters that we’re going to be spending. The most time with, and it’s the remaining girls.

There’s Kate played by Marley Shelton, who I very much recognized. And I realized after I looked her up, that what I recognized her from, she plays the sheriff in scream four and scream 20, 22. And she is kind of like you said, it, it really is an ensemble piece, but if there’s a central character that follows it’s her, and then Denise Richards plays page, she’s the sex pot, one Jessica Coffield who worked a lot and still does very recognizable face.

She’s a very funny actress. Um, I remember her as Reese. Witherspoon’s one of Reese. Witherspoon’s two ditzy friends in the, um, legally blonde movies. Um, she’s like the wild funny one. Dorothy played by Jessica Capshaw who I think has done. Or maybe it’s still on Grey’s anatomy. I think she plays a Dorothy.

She was the overweight one. She’s not overweight anymore. And that’s it. Right? It’s those four main girls and all of them, except page the hottest. Have boyfriends that we need also and, you know, and have to keep track, 

Todd: oh my God, it’s a nightmare. Well, she also received a Valentine, uh, shortly before, uh, 

Craig: um, the first one Katherine Heigl did.

Todd: Yeah. Shelley’s character. She received one of those Valentines. It was, uh, you know, you open it up and then there’s a saying in it, that’s actually kind of twisted and they’re interactive Valentines, you know, they’re the, the really expensive ones from hallmark where you gotta like a pull tab or something.

And, uh, I don’t remember what this one was just like 

Craig: ideal. The, the journey of love is an arduous Trek. My love grows for you as you bleed from your neck,

Todd: which, you know, actually, um, I thought that, uh, her kill. Was the most suspenseful, one of the whole film. I actually, unless I’m mistaken, I thought it was kind of a disappointment that what I considered one of the most compelling of the stocking scenes was pretty much done at the beginning. 

Craig: And they’re all kind of the same because they project themselves so much, like, you know, oh, okay.

She’s going to die. Like they’re going to get it. Yeah. Yeah. As soon as the scene starts, when somebody is going to be killed, you know, they’re going to be killed. So you’re just waiting for it to happen. So it’s not particularly suspenseful in that way. Yeah. I don’t really even know. Gosh, how did we 

Todd: go through every little, 

Craig: because there are so many characters.

Okay. So, uh, Kate there speed dating. Well, Kate has like. Not a boyfriend, but a guy that she still like, they’re on again, off again. And that’s David Boriana us and his name is Adam. Um, and the reason that they’re not together now, she says is because he has a drinking problem. And when he drinks, he, she doesn’t, she doesn’t get into any specifics.

Um, but she says that he scares her when he drinks and he’s still around. Like they all go to the first girl’s funeral and he’s there and they talk and they’re still very friendly. There’s still clearly chemistry between them. And, and he clearly, I mean, it’s not hidden at all. He wants to still be with her.

And he’s, he claims that he’s cleaned up, that he’s been sober for three weeks or something, any, I think he asks her out and she kind of, she says, no. Um, but, uh, she also says, I’ll call you so it’s not like she’s completely closed off to it. She’s just a little. Hesitant. 

Todd: I mean, you sort of feel like she really still wants him.

She, you know, doing the she’s doing what she kind of feels is right. Or whatever. And I felt like his alcoholism was treated almost comically in this. Like, like you said, we don’t really see much evidence of it until later, but it’s all, it’s like, you know, they talk at the funeral and then they go back to the car and she looks in his, in his car and she sees like, uh, a newspaper, she picks it up and underneath it’s a tequila bottle.

And she’s like, what is that? And he’s like, oh, we’ll, uh, you know, it was just for a friend. I was going to give it to a friend, like, 

Craig: right. He’s like my buddy got a promotion. So I just got it for him as it gets where it could be true. I don’t know. Cause he seems like a really nice guy. 

Todd: He seems like the nicest guy in this whole 

Craig: show.

Yeah, for sure. And so, you know, I thought maybe he really is trying and as the movie goes on, they spend more time together. And they kind of go slow, but, uh, it seems like they’re working their way back together and he’s really nice. They keep getting Valentines. Um, Dorothy. Gets one, her says, roses are red.

Violets are blue. They’ll need dental records to identify you Paige and Lily lived together, I think. And so they just get one together, uh, and it says TIS a well-known fact that beauty is skin deep, savor the taste. You are what you eat, which is very sloppy. Poetry 

Todd: know? Yeah, that’s true. They don’t actually die for meeting anything, but it’s included.

There’s like some chocolates included with that, like a heart shaped box of chocolates and they open it up and they start eating the chocolates and then realize their maggots crawling out of them. And I love, I mean, more than anything for a theme movie, it doesn’t just touch on Ballantine states. This whole film is dripping with Valentines.

It’s 

Craig: Val. Yeah. Valentine’s dance. Valentine’s party. Yeah. I’ll all kinds of stuff. And it’s fun. 

Todd: I mean, you know, I liked that bit of it. I really did. You’re getting, gotta go all the way with this sort of thing. You know, the thing Valentine, all of the Valentines are very clearly signed J M with two initials.

So that’s something that kind of keeps you guessing. And I think it was kind of interesting how the characters themselves are also guessing Paige and Lily sit there and go J M who could that be? It’s like Jason Moore. No, James Madison. No. And like the list off like 10 people they know with, with the additionals jam.

And I’m like, man, these girls get around. That was one of the silly or red herrings. 

Craig: You come up with it. It’s uh, Jeremy, it’s the kid, Jeremy Melton. It’s it’s the kid from the dance. They do figure that. Once they all get called in to meet with the detective. Who’s the smarmy guy who shows up at the 

Todd: funeral as detectives always say, oh my 

Craig: God, to interrogate people at a funeral, always.

But, um, he tells them that the parents of the first female victim got a sympathy card that said, like it was a regular symphony card on the outside. But then when it opened it, when they opened it up just written in big red letters, it just said too bad, so sad. And it was signed Jeremy Melton, not just jam.

So they’re pretty sure that has something to do with him. Why would Jeremy Milton one hurt you? Well, he attacked me at a dance in junior high and he got sent to reform school because of it that would explain why he threatened you, who do go after Shelley while your friends? No, but he is, he was first sent off to reform school.

And then I think he did some time, like in an institution or something, and then he fell off the map. Like they have no idea what happened to him. They have no record of him for years. And they immediately jumped to the conclusion that he must have had a bunch of plastic surgery to look totally different.

Right. So that he could come back and nobody would recognize him. And he couldn’t exact his revenge, the. Detective is very he’s skeptical of the boyfriends. Kate is like, well, it can’t be Adam. I know him. She’s like, I know I’ve known him for a long time and she has, and she’s like, you know, I know what his parents do.

I know where he’s from. I know everything about him. It can’t be him. And, um, they’re all a little suspicious of Dorothy’s boyfriend because he’s just this random stranger that she met at yoga class. And then he immediately came to her door and gave her some sob story about how he couldn’t pay his rent.

So she moves him into her house. Like she doesn’t even know his last name. Granted he’s really good looking. So. I get it, but 

Todd: might as well, 

Craig: they’re all suspicious of 

Todd: him. Would there kind of comes a point where the girls are openly, like sort of accusing each other, like of harboring, you know, the guy, you know, I think it’s a little later in the movie, but it’s interesting how during the film, they’re all openly discussing this throughout, and that might be something about, what’s a little annoying about the red herring is they’re kind of constantly throwing this in your face that it could be any one of these guys, which also made me wonder, could it be.

Right. Could it have been one of those girls who had a reason to be upset? And I was actually waiting for the guys to get bumped off as well. I figured, well, most of these guys that were either being introduced to, or have not yet been introduced to throughout the movie must have had something to do with beating this kid up.

Right. And so I thought, okay, it’s going to be like a combination, like kill the girls and kill the guys until the. You know, didn’t refuse you is left. And then, you know, who knows what he’s going to do with her, but I mean, it’s, it’s sort of a pattern that’s projected, but then it sort of turns out, you know, spoiler alert, the guys really don’t get bumped off.

And, and that was surprising to me. Why would this kid who comes back for revenge? What a kill the girls who refused him as opposed to the dudes who were responsible for kicking his ass? 

Craig: Yeah, I guess that was a major criticism of the film and it makes sense. It didn’t even cross my mind, I guess I just wasn’t putting that much thought into it, but apparently at some point there was a scene either written or filmed that just didn’t make it into, um, the movie that explained that at least one of those guys had died prior to the events of the movie under mysterious circumstances.

So maybe, I don’t know. The killer is going after them too. I just didn’t 

Todd: get to them in time or 

Craig: whatever. Yeah. So everybody, nobody knows who it is. They go to this, um, art exhibit, it’s this weird like video screen art exhibit, very pretentious LA. And it’s being thrown by this guy named max he’s the artist.

He is played by Johnny Whitworth, who was the main guy in empire records. I mean, these, these are just the hot people of the moment and, and he’s a big douche bag, but he’s with Lily. And so they are in this exhibit, like making out, like there’s tons of people there at this exhibit, except for when. There shouldn’t be like, like, like there’s tons and tons of people.

And then all of a sudden there’s nobody around. Right. She gets mad because she’s making out with her boyfriend and this other girl shows up and is watching and she notices and she’s like, get out of here. And he’s like, oh, I invited her to come. Like, he thought you was going to like, have a threesome in his art exhibit with all these people around or something.

And so she gets mad and she leaves, but she gets lost in the exhibit. It’s like a amaze, like a maze of video screens. And not only that, but like the panels of the walls, she doesn’t see it, it keeps happening behind her, but they keep moving. Like, I think somebody boxing her in there. Um, it’s very, eventually, eventually she gets like to a dead end and she turns around and she sees the Cherokee killer standing at the other end of the passageway that she’s in.

And he shoots her. With a bow and arrow. Okay. Why not? 

Todd: I thought that was cool. 

Craig: He shoots her several times in the abdomen with a bow and arrow, and it strikes her with such force that it pushes her through the video screen out a door, onto a ledge over the railing and her body falls several stories conveniently into a dumpster that then slams closed 

Todd: so nobody can find her.

Craig: Right. And I guess that, uh, th this actress, Jessica Coffield, uh, sustained injuries, um, filming this death, I guess that she was wearing some sort of protective vest, but the arrows still hit her with such force that they knocked the wind out of her. And then she had two. Hit her back up against that rail and lean back over it.

And I guess she got all bruised up there. It sounds like, I don’t know about there a stunt supervisor 

Todd: really shooting arrows at her by God. I 

Craig: don’t know. They’re shooting something at her, but yeah. So, so she’s gone, but conveniently, she was supposed to be leaving anyway for a business trip the next day.

Anyway. So the fact that she’s gone doesn’t worry anybody cause she was supposed to be gone. I, I, in the back of my mind, I don’t even know how many days this is supposed to span, frankly, just a couple, two or three, I think. But if there I thought, okay, fine. It makes sense that she’s away on business, but if there’s potentially like a murderer out there, like wouldn’t somebody call her, like they have cell phones, they have, you know, big, clunky, flip phones.

Why don’t, why doesn’t anybody call her, but they’re not worried 

Todd: about it. So nobody, he knows that she has been killed the detective kind of calls them back in and assembles them all to discuss this a little bit more. One of the things that kind of bothered me about this movie and made it a little boring is I felt that everything was a little slow.

And I mean, like literally the scenes were slow, the pacing of one person talking to another, especially in these groups, when you have the five girls or whatever, sitting in the police station with this guy, like it’s like 10 minutes. That could have been three. I just, I was just like, well talk already.

Okay. Like finish your thing, stop giving a look like, oh my God. So that was, that was annoying. And as soon as I noticed that, and that was at specially in this detective scene, I realized the whole movie is like that. The editing on the dialogue scenes is really. Really slow. It 

Craig: felt long. It’s not a long movie.

It’s only an hour and a half ish, but it felt long. And because there were so many characters, it took me, it seemed like forever to watch it. So like I, I’m sitting here watching it on one computer screen, typing my notes on another computer screen. My partner is sitting behind me doing a puzzle. And at one point I checked the time stamp, um, on the movie and I’m like, I, I said, oh my God, this movie is so long.

It’s only an hour and a half, and I’ve already been watching it for two weeks. 

Todd: That’s how it felt. I mean, I thought at one point I thought, are they really stretching it for time? Are they choosing these dialogue scenes to just fill in a couple extra seconds here and there to just stretch it for time? It was just.

Arduous. 

Craig: And they think like that’s, cause that’s the thing like th there’s only one lead. It’s the Jeremy what’s his, but Mount lead, Jeremy Melton lead, but then there’s these gosh, darn red herrings. So at the party, the exhibit party, uh, Paige and Kate walk in and they noticed this good-looking guy looking at them and we see the shot of him.

It’s the creepy dude. That the first girl was out with in that early scene. 

Todd: James and Jason likes you. Yeah. Jason. 

Craig: Yeah. The talked about himself in the third person and his name is Jason Marquette, J M. And they see him and he’s like smiling at Kate, like making eyes at her. But then when he sees Denise Richards, he looks at her and like glares at her and turns around and walks away.

What’s why 

Todd: you made the wrong choice there. I have to say. And then 

Craig: they, well, but I just didn’t understand, like, who is this? Are we supposed to be suspicious of this guy? Just because he has the same initials and like, why is he looking at Kate with googly eyes? And then not, it’s not like he just looked at Denise Richards and like rolled his eyes, like, oh, not good enough for me.

Like, he looked at her with disdain, like, Ugh, I hate you and then walks away. So the. Detective is investigating that guy. They’re trying to find that guy. Then also Kate has this fricking creepy ass neighbor that only speaks to her in rhyme. And she tells her boyfriend, Adam, that like her panties have gone missing and like weird stuff.

And then very soon after that we see a killer POV coming into Kate’s apartment. The kill, the creepy neighbor is in there putting on her underwear and stockings. And, uh, the killer kills him brutally with an iron scary girl like that kill you don’t see a lot, but it was really violent. And so then I’m thinking, oh, well the killer has to be Adam because he was the only one who knew about the creepy neighbor, but then.

Kate comes home like right after this happens. And Adam’s like standing outside her apartment, like knocking on the door, like he’s trying to get in. And I thought, okay, that could be a ruse, but then she goes upstairs and she opens her bathroom door and she’s frightened because pages in there and I’m like, well, maybe Paige did it.

Like just so many red herrings. I, I, I had no idea. That’s 

Todd: right. And then I don’t know if this was supposed to mean anything, but there’s sort of a meaningless bit where the police detective is coming on to Denise Richards character page. He has a moment with her where he asked her to, to stand back. So, Paige, what are we going to do about 

Craig: this?

I thought that was your job. You were the detective, right? I’m not talking about the case page. Don’t be coy. I’m talking about this, this tension, the tension sexual tension. Let’s be Frank detective Vaughn, please remove your hand from my thigh. All right. What would you like me to put it? Okay. 

Todd: How about up your ass?

And I was thinking, do these two, have a history, you know, is there a thing here that, that we’re about? That’s about to be revealed, but no, right. There’s nothing. It’s weird. 

Craig: Kind of drops every man that she interrupt interacts with, it just seems like they just expect her to just drop her panties. The second they say a word to her, which I don’t understand, like, she’s way out of all of their leagues.

She’s pretty much out of anybody’s league. Really. I guess all of that kind of leads up to the Valentine’s party. Right. Yes. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s just, there’s a bunch of weird shit that happens that you kinda end up scratching your head by the ad. Like Dorothy and Campbell have a, have a, you know, like a little confrontation because we’re supposed to suspect Campbell.

And then he gives her a cherub necklace and they kind of make 

Craig: out that’s after. Okay. So. She’s desperately trying to hang on to him. Like, that’s a point of contention. Like she’s mad at her other friends because she thinks that they just don’t want her to be happy or something when really they’re just concerned about her.

Um, so for Valentine’s day, she gives him an expensive watch and he’s. Yeah. And he says that he doesn’t have anything for her, but then they start making out and it cuts to them in bed. And it’s obvious that like, he couldn’t get it up for her. It’s just, which is stupid. Um, so she goes to take a shower and he comes in, he opens the shower and he’s like, oh, I do have something for you.

And it’s this cherub, 

Todd: Netflix, this was so slow this whole like, oh God, they should’ve just cut all that out. They should’ve, it was dumb. It was like 15 minutes of nothing between these two characters. 

Craig: W w they both shower. And then like, he, uh, goes downstairs now, as it turns out, we hear him, we overhear him having a phone conversation, and he’s trying, he’s trying to scan that he is a bad guy.

He’s a, he’s a grifter. And, um, he’s trying to, uh, transfer all of her rich father’s funds out. The F the father’s accounts into his own account. And I guess his plan is just to do that and then take off. But, uh, she calls him on one of their like house phones and asks him, she says, you know, the hot water is out.

Will you go light the pilot light? And so he goes down there and like, oh, okay, well, here’s where what’s his name gets killed. And he does. An ax to the back, um, while his back is turned. And so I guess, you know, there there’s one suspect down, I suppose. 

Todd: Yeah. I suppose. And I guess that’s the thing, but you know, does the killer kill these two guys?

Because they’re just a, just happened to be in his way at the time, because there’s really no motivation ultimately for him to kill scary, Gary, the neighbor or this guy, none of them were associated with what happened at the dance. Right? I mean, yeah, it was confusing. I thought their desks themselves were kind of red herrings.

Like, Ooh, why would the killer be motivated to kill these guys too? Uh, as it turned out, I’m still not really 

Craig: sure I’m not either. And I’m not really sure why the killer. Yeah, especially this one. Why was he even there and why bother? Why would he bother with this guy? 

Todd: Why was he there? Especially, he was like hanging out in their basement.

Right? That’s a big, 

Craig: and then there’s the party, the parties at Northeast house. Cause she’s apparently the richest one, well altered dad’s house, but, uh, and it’s a huge Valentine’s day party, you know, decorated like crazy. I mean, it looks, it looks great. It looks fun. It looks like a movie party, you know, um, people Dorothy’s bummed out because Campbell hasn’t shown up.

Um, and at this point I was really starting as like. I was starting to get suspicious of Dorothy. Yeah, me too. I thought that that would kind of make sense because ultimately she was kind of humiliated at the dance too. Or even if she wasn’t so much humiliated, it, it, it certainly spoiled her night. You know, she was getting some, 

Todd: I was actually thinking that maybe she had, uh, you know, ended up later on in, in the intervening time sort of having a relationship with this boy and, or on his behalf, you know, taking revenge or working together.

I thought we were going to have like a scream moment there at the Edward turned out to be a couple that took, took everybody out. But, uh, yeah, 

Craig: so I was suspicious of her and like, you know, her, her sad act at the party, I was like, you know, maybe. Maybe it is kind of an act. Maybe she figured out what he was doing.

And so she took care of him. Um, but now she has to pretend to be sad because he’s not there. Whatever Adam shows up to meet Kate there, as they had agreed, Paige meets the guy you, you mentioned, and I cut you off earlier much earlier in the movie, they sh Paige and Kate had gone on a speed dating thing.

And there had been one guy that page had been kind of interested in and he shows up at the party and she’s dancing by herself. Very seductively and oh man, God, she was so hot. Huh. Uh, but he comes up and starts dancing with her and immediately as his hands, all over her, which I thought was really gross, but he says, I, you know, I’d really like to take you upstairs.

And she’s like, okay. And she’s like, but why? And he’s like, well, I got a surprise for you. I want to show you something. 

Todd: Uh, yeah. So original. 

Craig: So she goes upstairs with him and they’re like standing there kissing a little bit. And then she’s like, I thought you had a surprise for him. And he’s like, I do. And she’s like, okay, well what is it?

So he steps back and in the least sexy way possible strips down and drops his pants and just stands there. And she’s like, you brought me up here to show me your penis. And he’s like, yeah. And then they just stand there. And he’s like, what are you waiting for? And he’s like, what are you talking about?

He’s like WEX it like what? The, like, nobody says that, but as it turns out, it’s a setup because she plays him, she starts acting seductive and she tells him to finish undressing and lay down on the bed and he does, and she kind of gets on top of him. And then she pulls out these scarves. I don’t even know where they came from and she, she ties them up to the bed.

At which point, if you hadn’t realized already, you realize now that the bed is completely surrounded in candles. And so she blinds holds in this. Do you still want me to wax it? He’s like, yeah. So she takes a candle and pours hot wax on his Dick and leaves him 

Todd: tied up in the bed. Don’t you don’t you love these movie parties in these giant mansion type houses where just some random bedroom you could walk into conveniently as candles lit all around the bed.

And there’s like a room with a hot tub that nobody’s in, you know, I mean, just like all this stuff. 

Craig: It’s so fun. This other girl who looks very, oh gosh, I don’t know. Preppy, I guess would be the right word, uh, shows up and she’s pissed off because she’s Campbell’s ex I guess she was the last rich girl that he tried to scam.

Um, and she sees Dorothy and she’s like, that’s my necklace. He stole it along with all my other stuff and they throw her out, but she immediately comes back in through another door page, goes off by herself because she’s not having fun. Max, the artists. Tells Kay that Lily never showed up in LA. I mean, it’s just it’s 

Todd: plot.

It’s just like plot of plot. Who is it? I can’t remember who it was. Who stumbled into the man-cave, which again is total it’s 

Craig: Ruthie Ruthie. Is this girl that Campbell’s last mark. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. Her. She was funny. She was very uptight, but she goes through his stuff and takes his watch, which, you know, do it.

I mean, if he scammed you and took your stuff, take you whatever you can get. Um, but she then sees the killer dragging the dead made. And it’s so funny because of course you don’t expect to see a killer and a body. So she’s like, oh geez, who are you supposed to be? 

Todd: Right. Oh 

Craig: God. But then she soon realizes that, uh, it’s a killer with a knife and the killer starts chasing her.

And I thought that this scene was pretty suspenseful. 

Yeah. 

Todd: This one wasn’t bad. Actually this was, she 

Craig: runs and is being chased and she eventually hides in a sauna and she hides underneath the slatted bench. And so you get one of those cool, like slats of light across her face as she’s. Cowering behind there and the killer looks in the window, but doesn’t see her and then kind of goes away, but then pops back in, like maybe he missed her or something, but then he leaves.

But then she realized that she crawls further under the bench and she finds Campbell’s body under there. And I don’t know, she comes out the killer finds or. Smashes her through a shower door and then smashes her face into the shards of glass. Um, at the, 

Todd: there are two shards sticking out, but I thought for sure, it’s going to be two eyes in there, but, uh, no, it wasn’t a full cheat movie, I guess, after this, um, Adam, guzzles a bunch of wine.

It gets weird. And this is again why I say like his alcoholism was treated really hilariously because it’s like he downs. I don’t know. I don’t really, he, maybe he had a bottle who knows, but suddenly he’s like, 

Craig: Ooh, Ooh. 

Todd: I’m like, oh, this is such a movie thing. And it doesn’t make 

Craig: Guinea since why? Like, it’s not like something set him off, like.

At this particular moment fell off the wagon, like tarred 

Todd: on the ground. Yeah. It just, it is just so contrived. I thought it was dumb. I didn’t think his acting was particularly great in the scene either, but yeah, so he gets pissed off and runs away. 

Craig: The page gets, um, she’s in the hot tub by herself in a bathing suit.

She looks fantastic. She hears something. And then a rose appears on the side of the hot tub. And at first she thinks, you know, she’s like, Ooh, to someone would be my Valentine, but then she gets mad. I mean, I have to 

Todd: say this, this killing scene was extremely elaborate. I mean, 

Craig: frankly, it was stupid. 

Todd: It’s so stupid, but it was cool.

Like, and, and you remember, she was w as a girl, she was a person who told the boy I’d rather be boiled alive. And so her fate is to be chucked into this hot tub. And then the lid of the hot tub, which is. Like plexiglass on the top gets locked down over her. So she’s like not really drowning, cause there’s a little air in there, but she’s trying to kind of remain above the water and then he’s got a drill, huge, enormous drill he brought along.

I mean, how could you possibly plan all this out? Let alone know that page is going to be alone in a hot tub in the middle of this giant party anyway. Yeah. He goes in and he drills a bunch of holes through the top, which I’m thinking, well, at least she’s got some air now, but you know, he’s trying to drill her through it and she’s screaming.

And then finally he opens it back up again and just shucks the drill in there. Uh, which of course electrocutes her, which. I didn’t see that bit coming. I just thought she’d get drilled the desk eventually, but no. And the hot tub, blood water turns red, which I did see coming. Yeah. Well, and 

Craig: this as stupid as it is, like where did this drill with a three foot long bit come from 

Todd: with an extension cord, you know, to reach as far as it 

Craig: was stupid, but it was fun to watch.

It was, it was cool. Denise Richards, stunt double got injured filming the, the hot tub stuff. Seriously. They’re there. Their stunt coordinator has some explaining to do. Then Dorothy and Kate have kind of a fight. Dorothy says, you know, Adam could be the killer and Kate’s like, uh, what? Uh, well maybe Campbell’s the killer.

And then Dorothy’s like, you all just don’t want me to be happy because I’m just the fat one. And that’s all you ever thought of me. And she’s like, you know what? You all, and then she storms off and we don’t see her again for a while. 

Todd: No. Well, the party empties really quickly, because as soon as that drill was tossed into the hot tub, apparently circuits, breakers don’t work well in this house or something.

Cause the entire house, uh, all of the electricity goes out. And so then that causes everybody to immediately leave, like right away, like within five minutes, there’s just a few people left in the house. Conveniently all of our main characters of womb. There aren’t 

Craig: many left here. There’s not you’re right.

Goes out into the backyard and tries to call the detective because the detective is supposed to be on the way to the party, but he hasn’t shown up. And so she calls his cell phone, but she hears it ringing. So she follows and finds the phone and it’s like right next to this coy pond. And she looks in the koi pond.

And there’s this note that she had given Adam earlier, why would this be there? And she’s already had a confrontation with Adam about his drinking. She’s pissed that he’s been drinking, then the detective’s head floats up. And so she screams. And then it’s the classic eighties slasher where the final girl runs around and finds all the bodies.

Todd: I called that 

Craig: too. And really, really the only people left are Adam and Dorothy and Dorothy. Is Mia and Adam, all of a sudden is acting super creepy. Like what, why? Like all of a sudden he’s very menacing. Like he’s like lurking in the shadows and he’s talking to her in a way that you could, if there weren’t a killer around, you might just think, why are you being weird?

But because there is a killer around you, like you’re giving off like major killer vibes, bro. Like, and he is like talking about how he just wants to be with her. And she’s, she tries to get away from him and she runs away from him. And while she kicks him in the nuts first, and then she runs away from him and he’s chasing her, I guess we’re supposed to think.

It’s just because he’s drunk. Like he’s making poor choices, I guess. But eventually, uh, she obviously thinks it’s him with good reason. That note is completely unexplained. He’s chasing around, chasing around, chasing her around. She eventually ends up like at the top of a staircase. And there’s a door directly in front of her.

And I think that she pulls open the door and the cherub killer lunges out at her, like tackles her and they both go rolling down the stairs. Um, and they’re both apparently stunned for a moment she starts to get up and the cherub killer sits bolt upright. And all of a sudden you hear a bunch of gunshots and you see the chaired killer shot like four times right in the chest.

And you look over and add. Has a gun and he’s basically like it’s over and he comforts her and he goes, and he takes the mask off and it’s Dorothy. And I was like, I knew it. I knew it was her. 

Todd: I knew it wasn’t well, 

Craig: I was trying to set up a big surprise 

Todd: Tosh. Oh yeah. And I also was like, okay, it’s over now?

Craig: No, I was still, I, I just thought that was too easy. Like, it was just too easy. Like there was no big fight. Um, and uh, Kate’s like, why would she do it? And Adam’s like, oh, can someone is that lonely? 

Todd: And that angry? 

Craig: I can learn to hide it, but inside it never dies. Just stays there. Eats away at you 

Todd: until one day you have to do something.

Craig: Oh, my God, we left out a huge plot point. We sure 

Todd: did. 

Craig: Um, all throughout the whole movie, every time the killer kills somebody, blood runs out of the nose of the mask. It’s important. And we forgot to tell it 

Todd: is important and it matches the same. The same thing happened to the kid when he was young. That’s how we know it’s definitely that kid, right.

Because yeah, he bleeds. W what was it? Does he bleed what he’s horny? What, what, what was the word though? Those pleats happen when there’s something, but yeah, I mean, that was a key element that really made me realize. Pretty early on like, well, it can’t be anybody, but that boy, like, it can’t be any of the girls, even when I thought, well, maybe it is one of the girls, I’m like, no, cause this nose bleed thing that, um, that mask is apparently really tight fitting in order for, for it to bleed out.

But like, that’s a key element. And I knew like, probably about halfway through the movie, I said, all right, we’re going to have a moment where the killer is going to be revealed because there’s going to be some sort of face off or something. And his nose starts bleeding as he is, as Adam is caressing her and saying these, these things, uh, suddenly you see some blood dripping on her face and you, the camera pans up and his nose is bleeding.

And I was like, yep. I thought so. 

Craig: And then it cuts to black and credits. Yeah. I, I remember. That it was him. But then I, honestly, as the movie went on, I started to question myself because especially in that scene where he was acting so strangely and I still don’t understand why he got drunk. Like if you’re carrying out that, I mean, I guess if you’re on a mission, he’s crazy, but yeah, if you’re on a mission, why would you get drunk?

I, whatever. Um, but I do kind of like. That he gets away with it. I do too at first. And I totally didn’t put this together until I read about it when he’s being very menacing, but she’s, she’s trying not to be too obvious that she’s scared of him. He asks her to dance and they do, there’s no music, but they do dance.

Um, and then as he’s holding her, he’s got like her head to his chest. He says, I love you, Kate. I always have. So he did events, you know, when he asked her to dance in there, a kid, she said maybe later he did eventually get his dance. And presumably they ended up together, I guess. Yeah. 

Todd: I mean the ending, like that aspect of the ending, I really liked, you know, it was a little, I mean, it’s not unusual for the killer to get away, but it is kind of satisfying in an, in a sick way that this guy got his revenge followed through with it and managed to get the girl.

And I mean, there was something kind of obviously poetic about the fact that, uh, they ended up together at the end and something really twisted about the fact that she may never know. Right, right. Yeah. I, I, when he said, and I’ve all loved you and I always will. I thought that was going to be her moment where she looked up and said, wait a minute.

I was so waiting for that to happen. And it went right by her. And I was like, well, there’s no question now. Right. So 

Craig: yeah. I mean, I. I the, the, the truth of the matter is I didn’t like it very much. And I thought that I would, and, you know, when I told some people we were doing this, people were excited about it.

And so I don’t want to, the acting is okay. You know, I think that it was limited by some things like, for example, David Borealis was only available to shoot for 10 days. And so there was only so much they could do with him and he wanted to play. The masked killer, but his schedule just didn’t allow for it.

And so the stunt man who does play the mass killer is noticeably smaller than him. And like you said, the pacing, it just in addition to the fact that there are so many characters, like, honestly it’s an hour and a half. It took me probably well over two hours to watch it because I kept having to pause it, to try to figure out who people were.

I’m going back to the IMDV page. And I’m looking at their headshots, which are of course, current headshots. So they’re older now and the girls, it’s not like they all look the same, but you know, they’re, they’re mostly. Pretty blondish girls. It was, it was frustrating in that way. All of the red herrings were frustrating.

The kills were, were pretty good. I would have preferred to see them in their original form. It’s not a bad movie. There’s nothing wrong with it. And it’s, it’s a fun movie for Valentine’s day. If you’re a fan of horror and you want to watch a Valentine’s movie on Valentine’s day, watch this. It’s not bad.

And it’s got a major Valentine vibe to it. I mean, it really centers around the holiday. Um, and so that was fun. There are movies that we watch sometimes that I walk away and I’m angry that I spent the time watching it. I’m not angry that I spent the time watching it, but I certainly never need to see it again.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, again, I thought this was going to be a bit of a time capsule for us at the very least. And it was in a way. But I just, I just think there were too many characters. There was really no strong focus thread throughout the movie because we had to bounce back and forth between all these people.

A lot of the stuff was a little implausible, you know, with what the killer was. Some of it’s even still head scratching when we go back and analyze it, like, why did he kill him? Why did he kill that person? He killed the made like why just to be killed. Yeah. I didn’t understand that either. And then like, there’s kind of a big moment between a, was it Dorothy and her step-mom and her dad.

Which, yeah, there must’ve been stuff cut out there because I thought that was going to be a, some kind of point, you know, but there’s nothing. And the whole movie, it just felt like meandered on with all this interrelationship kind of 

Craig: stuff. Well, there are so many scenes like that, like that the whole scene with Paige and the detective that was entirely unnecessary, it added nothing to the plot.

It was really just kind of gross. Like what was the point? There was no point to it. I don’t know. It kind of did feel like they were padding for time, which is 

Todd: so, so, you know, I’ve had some interesting kills, uh, Denise Richards was happy to see her in a beautiful for a while. That was really nice. But yeah, at the end of the day, I felt the same way as you and I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I think I’ve kind of parsed it out.

I think we’ve kind of parsed it out. Yeah. Well, thank you again for the suggestion, Heather, and thank you all happy Valentine’s day to you folks. I hope you had a good one. We love you all. This is our balance side to you. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. We have more surprises coming your way.

Particularly towards the beginning of March, I’ll be watching for something special there. Share this podcast out there in the ether and find us online by Googling two guys and a chainsaw podcast. Leave us a message. Share some love with us as well. We want to accept your Valentines no matter how much they might be.

The more macabre the better, really. Until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw. .