MonstersHDTV's video: My Bloody Valentine 1981 Special Edition DVD The Original Cult Classic is Back Uncut

By 1981, the slasher film had already propelled the horror genre along a path that it would follow for the next several years, waning for awhile, as genres tend to do, only to be once again reignited by the success of Scream in the latter half of the 90's. But any slasher flick produced during the early 80's was showing up relatively late to a very popular party late enough that suburban teenagers and virginal heroines being hacked up in peaceful, idealized neighborhoods had already become the shorthand of the sub-genre. A few of the major holidays had already been given over to the slasher archetypes Black Christmas, April Fool's Day -- but the one that had yet to be taken proved to be a mildly successful breakaway from a fairly young tradition. My Bloody Valentine, while certainly not as legendary as films like Halloween, offered up a tremendously gory thrill-ride in a blue-collar setting. Set amongst the coal mines, miles and miles away from quaint towns like Haddonfield, the film told the story of a Valentine's Day massacre in a small community with bloody ties to a tragic past event. When Harry Warden went on his famous Valentine's Day killing spree, nobody thought that 20 years later, the killings would begin again, but when the town decides to hold its first Valentine dance in two decades, the blood once again begins to flow. The film's iconic killer the Miner dressed in black with obsidian goggles and a Vader-like breathing apparatus, remains as frightening today as he was nearly three decades ago. Presented here in an extended edition with a number of stomach churning special effects reintroduced into the film effects which were originally cut by the MPAA before the film's theatrical release -- My Bloody Valentine is as scary as ever, endlessly benefiting from the raw, dated feel and blood soaked practical effects work. And now with the added footage both gore-hounds and those who appreciate straightforward, eerie, slasher-film suspense will have plenty to set them on edge. Certainly, the performances are cheesy and the scripting decidedly non-Shakespearean, but the film remains a terrifying and entertaining offering to the god's of 70's/80's horror. And those gods were good, indeed. "Bloodlust" provides a fairly insightful 15-minute history lesson on the rise and fall and subsequent resurrection of the 1970's-style slasher film. There's some very evocative background information provided by historians, directors and special effects artists about the roots of the genre and where, precisely, My Bloody Valentine fits into the timeline, as well as how it differed from established genre archetypes. "Bloodlines" continues the history lesson with an interactive flow-chart of sub-genres, both defining the content of each particular type of film and providing classic examples. The fact that it's a text feature is a bit daunting, as some video would have made it more viewer-friendly, but it's a fairly accurate assessment of how one genre bled into the next, which bled into the next, until the genre had bled out entirely and demanded some new life.