Valentine

by ALEXANDER WALKER, Evening Standard

Four young women start getting Valentine cards with anything but I Love You inscribed on them.

One reads: "Roses are red/Violets are blue/They'll need dental records/To identify YOU."

Humour doesn't come any warmer than that in this slasher meller. In fact, it doesn't come at all: nor does any other reason for interest, except to see by which murderous method each actress will be terminated in a dumb, incomprehensible script that avoids anything like a post-modern sub-text as in the Scream sagas in favour of straight despatch of bodies and no postmortem dallying.

The entire Z-list cast comprises kids who'll never earn bigger recognition than the cover of a down-market teen magazine and who look as if they've all been cloned from the same set of blond or beefy cut-outs.

By carving knife, chopping axe, jagged glass, bow-and-arrow and one overly complex attack involving a whirlpool bath, saw and electrocution, they are taken off screen, and not a minute before time.

The killer wears a cupid's mask and suffers a nose bleed at the climax of each execution.

Shocked? I was numbed into boredom, only slightly relieved by the inanity of lines like "You're the mail-order bride from Hell!" or a domestic crisis when one of the prospective victims, washing her hair, finds the taps suddenly and mysteriously running dry and inventively dunks her soapy locks in the loo bowl. Bridget Jones, are you listening?

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