Review: Valentine (2001)

People in the Movie: Marley Shelton (Deathproof/Grindhouse, Pleasantville), David Boreanaz (TV's Angel, TV's Bones), Denise Richards (Wild Things, The World is Not Enough)
Director: Jamie Blanks (Urban Legend)
Pigeonhole: Thriller / Slasher / Horror

The Basics: Talking place just prior to Valentine's Day, a group of 5 single women receive disturbing Valentine cards, and are then subsequently stalked by a murderous psychopath who is seeking revenge from an incident that took place during a middle school Valentine's Day dance, years ago.

Recommendation: While pretty formulaic, it is still an entertaining hour and half slasher flick, with a fair amount of star power in the cast.  'R' rating is for violence, language, and brief sexuality.

My Take: Ever wonder what happened to the geeky kid who asked the popular kids to dance at one of your school functions, only to get made fun of?  Valentine's Day will clear it up, and will make you think twice about all of your broken-hearted classmates.
**spoiler alert**  The movie opens in 1988, in a middle school gym where a Valentine's Day dance is being held.  We see Jeremy Melton (the geek) asking Shellie, Lily, Paige and Kate (the popular girls) to dance with him to which he receives varying levels of refusals.  Still undeterred he asks Dorothy who is sitting alone (likely due to the fact she is overweight) to dance.  They venture under the bleachers to make out.  Several classmates see and proceed to make fun of the two; Dorothy, now embarrassed, promptly states Jeremy was attacking her.  The group of onlookers then proceeds to strip and assault Jeremy.

Fast forward to 2001, Shellie (Katherine Heigl) is a now med student.  Studying late one night she receives a threatening Valentine card, which she quickly shrugs off, but is then chased through the medical building by a person wearing a cherub mask, and killed.  At Shellie's funeral Kate (Shelton), Paige (Richards), Lily (Jessica Cauffiel), and Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw) all talk to a detective briefly about Shellie, and it seems she was somewhat estranged from the other 4 friends, likely because of med school.
We are soon introduced to Adam (Boreanaz), Kate's ex-boyfriend, who apparently is alcoholic, and his addiction is why they are not a couple right now.  We also meet a man named Campbell, a friend of Dorothy, whom she invites to stay at her house after he is supposedly evicted from his apartment - but it seems there is more to Campbell than just a good-looking-down-on-his-luck wayward "friend".  
The four girls head to an art gallery to see Lily's boyfriend Max open his new exhibit.  After a fight with Max in a video "maze" at the gallery, Lily is cornered by the cherub-masked suspect, and is killed.  Her body ends up in a dumpster, and with no witnesses around, her friends are none the wiser - thinking she has gone to Los Angles for an audition she had spoken about earlier in the evening.
With several other tension builders, and some red herrings thrown in about who the killer is, we are now ready for the final act - a Valentine's Day party at Dorothy's mansion.  Dorothy is despondent thinking she has been stood up for her own party, but the audience witnessed earlier that Campbell has already been killed.  Kate and Paige try to console her, but to no avail.  Adam shows up drunk, so Kate walks away from him.  Paige's date arrives at the party, but she quickly "leaves" him after spurning his sexual advances, in particularly funny, but painful-to-watch scene.  She then makes the horror movie mistake of wandering off alone to go get into a hot tub by herself.  Predictably Paige is killed after the killer attacks with a drill, then throws it into the tub which electrocutes her.  This attack also causes the circuit to break, so with the power out, the party begins to break up. 
Dorothy and Kate begin to argue about who they think the killer is - Adam or Campbell.  Kate, now thinking Adam could be Jeremy Melton, grabs her cell phone to contact the detective and runs outside.  Kate comes back into the house and flees from Adam, only to discover the multiple dead bodies littered through the different rooms we have previously observed.  With tension now peaking, Kate finds a gun and wanders out into a hallway, but is tackled by the masked suspect and they tumble down a flight of stairs in the front room.  Adam comes into the room, picks up the gun and shoots Kate's assailant.  The cherub mask is removed to reveal Dorothy.  Kate and Adam embrace - but the last shot before the credits roll is that Adam was, in fact, Jeremy Melton, the killer.
Final Thought: My single biggest criticism of Valentine's Day lies in the fact that the killer was not "hidden" well enough with either different/alternate suspects, or scenarios.  There were opportunities to build up suspicion on several other characters specifically Jason Marquette (a man who took Shellie on a date), Campbell, or even Max (to some degree), but unfortunately it did not happen.  And it is possible that some of this 'material' could have hit the cutting room floor.  But instead I feel that the proverbial arrows all point to Adam throughout the film.  I will note that I did enjoy the way the ending played out, which was a nice touch to reveal what we suspected all along.

Extras:  Heigl and Capshaw have both been main characters on TV's Grey's Anatomy... The girl's deaths are predicted by their lines spoken at the middle school dance...