With February 14 just around the corner, hopefully, you’ve got your romantic gestures at the ready…but on the silver screen, love turns to hurt as verbal plagues take over, killers are after virgins and good-looking success stories continue to be losers in love. Nina Romain looks at the darker side of l’amour.
Valentine’s Day should be celebrated by declarations of love. However, on the silver screen, flowery cards are creepy, declarations of love might as well by death threats, and chocolates are a sign of homicidal intentions.
Slasher “Cherry Falls” (2000) (tagline: “lose your innocence…or lose your life”) sees a small town plagued by a killer obsessed with murdering virgins. Red is a colour of blood, rather than romance. Although not set on Valentine’s Day, it’s a good example of cinematic love going wrong. In the small town, the slasher takes its name from, residents are hounded by a killer who is murdering virgins, so getting into your first sexual relationship (“popping your cherry”) is a survival mechanism.
So what should we be thinking of in the run-up to the most romantic day of the year?
Writer and director of the comedy feature “She’s the One”, (2020) Fredi Nwaka explains the (mis)adventures of his lovelorn hero, Treyvon, who is successful in life but a loser in love. Nwaka says:
“With Valentine’s Day coming up, everyone’s thinking about that special someone who is – or could be – in their lives, and that’s what Treyvon is worried about.
“He’s a successful, good-looking middle-aged bachelor and thinks he should be in love – but his life is of course completely fine just how it is! He’s got a fast car, a good city job, model looks, and even a good sense of humour. The only thing missing is that special somebody.”
Nwaka adds:
“How would Treyvon celebrate Valentine’s? We could see him going on another series of hopelessly-doomed speed-dates, in search of true love. Or he might meet the woman of his dreams – and then be shocked to discover her wild brood of screeching kids. Then he’d realise the path of true love never did run smooth.”
Much as hopeless romantic Treyvon might imagine, true love could involve getting away from it all with the one you love. “Mr Jones” (2013) sees a loved-up young couple trying to do just this when they escape the inner-city madness to live deep in the woods. Here they watch gorgeous sunsets while gazing besottedly at each other with voiceovers along the lines of “don’t you wish you could kiss your wife like you did the night you first met”?
But despite the beautifully-shot romantic walks together in the forest, there’s something waiting for the loved-up couple outside their isolated cabin at night, and it’s out to spoil the romance. (Possibly Treyvon would be safer staying in London).
A more obscure romantic-themed horror, “Pontypool” (2008), is set on a freezing cold Valentine’s Day in the titular snowy town, where shocked Jock Grant Mazzy starts his on-air shift by mentioning how a resident’s cat, called Honey, is missing. After sardonically discussing this as an example of how small-town his job is, Mazzy looks around the underground, grey studio decorated by a red paper heart and red cherubs on the studio walls while the doomed studio colleagues give each other Valentine’s Day cards. He starts to hear accounts that locals are acting violently and attacking each other. It becomes obvious that the madness they’re experiencing is being transmitted verbally, by anyone using any Valentine’s Day theme-based love talk.
Now under siege by zombies, Mazzy decides to try to stop this verbal plague by alerting residents so he goes on-air to warn anyone against using “terms of endearment such as ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart’. He then remembers announcing earlier the name of the missing cat and realises his unwitting role in starting this nightmare.
So in the run-up to 14 February, enjoy the chocolates, but remember in horrors, gore and bloodletting is more to be expected than romance. Stay away from the woods and any small towns, especially those called Cherry Falls, ditch the sweet-talking, and get ready for a cinematic Valentine’s Day Massacre!
Nina Romain is living proof that small children shouldn’t be taken trick-or-treating in Alabama – they tend to end up obsessed with the creepier side of Halloween! Her horror microshorts tend to be shot half in the seedier side of Los Angeles and half in the darker side of the UK. Usually working behind the camera on horror-comedies, she is generally found finishing off her latest quirky lowbudget foundfootage microhorror, usually set somewhere picturesque off the beaten track…. She has plans to eat her own bodyweight in chocolate on 14 February and will probably unwisely dress up as a Serial Killer Fairy again in a costume party (right). After all, who says romance is dead? You can find her on www.girlfright.com or IMDB
