THIS IS A TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED REVIEW BETWEEN MARIAM BASTANI AND MONIKA ESTRELLA NEGRA.

 

Monika:  Welcome to a special Holiday film review from Audre’s revenge film collective. As always, we will be covering various sociological issues that affect our everyday lives that play out in some of our favorite horror movies.

 

Mariam: We are reviewing the original 1981 version of My Bloody Valentine. Before continuing please note that all of reviews contain spoilers and we also anticipate that you have seen the movies we review. There will be no long synopsis.

 

SOCIO-ECONOMICS AND SCENERY

 

Monika: So we are going to cover a series of issues that we noted while watching the film. One of those issues is socioeconomic issues that are within the film. This obviously takes place in Canada, in a post industrial town where physical labor is definitely the main part of life. So you go to high school then you end up doing the same job as your parents did. That is something that a lot of us don’t understand in this day and age and in this economy. So the story follows TJ, (played by Paul Kelman) the son of the person who owns the mine where most of the murders occur.

 

TJ left for the big city, though we don’t understand why he actually left, except maybe being disenfranchised or lost interest in trying to live the same life as his father. In the end, he didn’t end up succeeding in the big city and he decided to come back. In that process he left his girlfriend who is the main love interest or the main “piece of property” in the movie, that spawns a lot of fights and discomfort in the town  - specifically with Axel (played by Neil Affleck).

TJ wanted to have a another life, he came back and felt he would be welcomed back in old arms by his girlfriend who is dating Axel.  This causes a lot of major rifts between him and a lot of other people in the town. The movie takes place in the ‘80s, so perhaps it was education or the fact that mining is a manual labor job, that made TJ feel that it limit any type of freedom or mobility. If we compare that to how life is today  - where a lot of jobs are being outsourced, we are definitely looking at a sociological shift where a lot of people were moving from doing the jobs that their parents were doing and moving to a different realm where they could express themselves and build their lives around something that they dreamt that was possible.

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Mariam:  Another interesting fact is that it takes place in 1981. It’s supposed to be a small town in Canada and a mining town. It alludes to the fact that TJ did something wrong when he left and he couldn’t make it. Everyone keeps saying to him, “You couldn’t make it, so you came back.” There was never a hint that he even missed home, but that he did something wrong while he was gone which caused him to return. We don’t know what because it doesn’t matter, what matters is that TJ strayed and that TJ always had the safety to come back. In this town you go to high school, you get a job at the mine or plant, you marry your highschool sweetheart, you have kids, you have a dream life and you do not deviate from the formula. Unlike others though, TJ can come back. He never really took the risk that anyone else in this town would take leaving, plus he is a cis het white guy, he must have really fucked up out there not to take advantage of that privilege. Perhaps his failure was based on education and the reduction of industry to white collar jobs? Anyway, when TJ comes back, he wants to start up where he left off, take back what he had, fall in line again...

 

Monika: ...and make amends in some way. We should also mention that this is all within the heteronormative nuclear family scale so to be even queer in a town like this wouldn’t be possible. I’m sure there are a lot of down low folks, but it’s not a life that we were actually made for. If someone wanted to make an offshoot film where TJ is actually queer and wanted to get the fuck out of his small town, that could totally work! We are looking at something similar to a dying town of middle america. In this day and age with Trump coming up playing on the fears of a lot of towns like this one who are directly affected by outsourcing work by corporations, capitalizing on cheaper labor overseas, the growing disparities between the rich and poor, it is important to look at the degradation of comfortable American lifestyle that is definitely coddled by White Americans, so to speak. TJ fits perfectly because while he still left because he felt some discontent, he is still a cis white het male who has a rich dad that owns everybody in the town by giving them jobs. Something to look at.

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Mariam: A few things to note... I’m not entirely sure how quickly Canada is being affected, to be honest, but I’m sure these jobs are being phased out to some degree similar to the U.S.  It’s really important that this takes place in a mining town, I mean how many slasher or horror movies have any working class settings to them? It’s a small town and working class, not small town and suburban like most slasher movies are which is awesome, because the movie doesn’t rely on pristine sets to show corruption on small town values. Another thing is that Canada has a shitload of natural resources being extracted on a shitload of stolen land. This movie only touches on the plight of the miners, but does a good job showing how gritty and dangerous the work is. The claustrophobia that the film induces in its scenes in the mine probably mean more to Canadian people who have ties to mining families, but for any working class person, the suffocation seems familiar.

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TOXIC MASCULINITY AND WHITE FEMINISM

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Mariam: Another prevalent theme here, as in many many horror movies, is toxic masculinity.

 

Monika: My favorite.

 

Mariam: In the very beginning we learn about this love triangle between TJ, Axel  and TJs ex Sarah. When TJ comes back, people are resentful of him, because his existence has always been a critique to the townsfolk in a way. He is the boss's son then he leaves and returns they see him as belittling their way of life, so his failure reinforces their way of life, but also scares them because if the rich kid can’t make it out there, then everyone is in trouble. It’s reinforcement to never leave the town even though there is a murderer loose! So we have Sarah who is caught between these two men, completely devoid of any autonomy whatsoever. When TJ comes back he just expects to reclaim her as if she would wait for him, which she didn’t. You would think her moving on would be a show of autonomy, but it is not. You see in this movie that women only exist in this town in service to men. Sarah didn’t make a decision to move on, rather the next big dog in line claimed her as the main prize.

 

When TJ returns, Axel is threatened by his presence as Axel seems to have taken over TJs life in every way. Alex becomes TJ, he becomes foreman, takes the girl, he’s making some money. During this whole conflict, Sarah is bewildered and confused (she has the vapors…), but also the focus of their male rage. The first real conversation these two men have about her takes place while the dudes are all partying and getting wasted in a junkyard. TJ and Axel are sitting in a junked car and start having a civilized conversation about, “What are we gonna do man? We got a real problem here…” and never mentioning once what Sarah wants, because clearly she doesn't know what she wants.

 

Monika: That’s right, she has no idea, which is a basic plight of white feminism…This woman ultimately has these options of being taken care of…

 

Mariamt: Hahah, yeah, this is her main conflict in life…

 

Monika: Yes, this is her main conflict, that she is beautiful, thin and has these two men fighting over her eventually killing people over her love, which is really confusing, but at the same time being treated as a protected property. One significant scene in the movie is when they are at a party and no one intervenes when Axel expresses his jealousy and starts to physically harm her and shake her.

 

Mariam: violently shake her…

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Monika: Nobody really gives a shit! People are just sitting down like, “What the fuck did she do? Why is she causing this rift between these two men?” Only when Axel and TJ begin to fight with one another that is when the other men step up and have the “bros over hoes” mentality saying, “you two have been friends for a very long time, you can’t  do XYZ.”

 

Mariam: Another interesting aspect of this scene is that TJ, who supposedly loves her and is witnessing the abuse  from Axel on Sarah, doesn’t step until it escalates and when he does, he doesn’t stop the abuse, he just demands that Sarah tell Axel what decision she has made. The decision was made by these two men but then when she is undergoing abuse, the men both put the blame on her. Instead of the chill conversation prior when they were ‘broing’ down in the junkyard, they are both being abusive to her.

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FAMILY VALUES

 

Monika: So at the end of the day, this movie is about a failed bromance between TJ and Axel.There are also underlying themes of Christian morality, especially in one scene when Sarah is walking home and is having an internal dialogue about what she should do and she is being stalked by this character. She is almost killed. ‘80s movies have this underlying ethical code that the promiscuous teens die first because they are “sinning.” This was the unfaithful woman who can’t decide who she wants in her life and is worthy of being killed or treated like shit by either Axel or TJ, and not having a choice.

 

Mariam: Even though there is a constant theme of horror movies, well, slashers of the time that support the nuclear family and family values, in years prior we saw horror movies showing the break down and critique of family values. (a good example being Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was full of family values).  From the beginning of this movie - with TJ leaving and his return, MBV reinforces that you should never leave. If you do leave, don’t come back. This highlights that throughout the movie it’s the adults with their traditions versus the children trying to break with these traditions which obviously can get them killed. During the crisis the murders bring on, the Sheriff and the Mayor take on two opposite approaches. One wants to protect the town by keeping things hush hush while the other wants to be honest and open about the events. While the two adults in power are squabbling about the past and the future, a lot of people are murdered. It’s the same shit as not taking action until an issue affects you. We are seeing that a lot nowadays...

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COMMUNAL ACCOUNTABILITY

 

Monika: Another theme is one of Communal Accountability. The backstory is that a man named Harry Warden is the sole survivor of a mining accident when the methane levels were high and the two foremen in charge of the mine at the time were negligent and careless with the lives of the miners who were eventually trapped in the mine collapse because they were so excited about getting to the town’s Valentine’s Day dance. *whew*  I know… So after Harry was saved he took his revenge the next Valentine’s day  on the two foreman who were responsible for the tragedy and killing his crew members. It turns out, and this is a Hella Spoiler Alert, one of the people killed was Axel's Dad.

 

Mariam: And remember Axel is now a foreman.

 

Monika: right. That in return made Axel go crazy. It also just so happens that when TJ comes back, the town decided to resurrect the Valentine’s Day Dance, but it seems like common knowledge that Axel's dad was killed as a result of  the last Valentine’s Day Dance? This touches upon sociological development of collective amnesia, of forgetting that awful things happen to people, but moving ahead with it because that’s just what everybody want to do. To put it into context, like when Black people talk about slavery. There are some sensitive subject that we just can’t touch upon because we as a community have not healed from that transgenerational trauma, but the apathy that comes along from people who have not directly experienced that type of trauma and going ahead to do the things they want to can definitely cause a rift. I’m not saying it’s gonna be homicidal, I’m not gonna go chop off someone’s head or whatever… But that is a strong premise in the movie. How insensitive can these people be as far as having their own fun, even though this person was directly negatively affected by that. The other theme is that cis males are not able to feel any type of emotions that harbor Depression, fear, sadness, etc. You are a man, you do a man job and you repeat the same toxic behaviors. That was the big twist at the end, that Harry Warden was the one that killed Axel’s father so it only makes sense that Axel would take his revenge on everyone for forgetting the fact that if they had not had that party after the accident, Axel would have his father today.

 

Mariam: Yes. Also in regards to communal accountability, I mean…this takes place in Canada where it’s all stolen land too. Just saying… Look at Standing Rock!  What we are seeing here is similar to a lot of horror movies where opening that can of worms where people have to actually come to terms about how they have denied accountability and are continuing trauma is harder than sacrificing their children. It’s similar in this aspect too - keep the genocide going because it benefits some, regardless if we are sacrificing the future.

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REVENGE VS. JUSTICE

 

Mariam: What’s weird is that Harry Warden becomes a cannibal in the mines to survive, which is supposed to be the most perverse thing in the world, but there is no mention of it. It doesn’t come up and he doesn’t eat the people he kills that are those who were directly responsible for those whose negligence directly contributed to the accident. Harry Warden even gave them a warning not to have the dance, so it seems pretty fair to me. Forgetting the tragedy, the murders and the warning, the town decides to have the Valentine’s Day Dance again twenty years later even after multiple warnings not to have it before the murders even begin. When they finally do shut down the dance, the young people of the town are never given any reason as to why the dance is canceled. No one is honest with them, so how are they supposed to make any informed decisions about their safety? This is the result of this collective amnesia and the danger it creates. With the storyline in this movie, I would say that from one perspective it’s a mad killer, right? But another perspective could be that this is justice.

 

Monika: I mean Axel is doing this as a form of revenge against everybody’s apathy towards what he is going through... especially since TJ came back and he is the prized playboy whose dad owns everything. It brings into question, what are the acceptable types of revenge when people are constantly berating you?

 

Mariam: What happens in this town is pretty much what has happened throughout history, specifically speaking to colonization, capitalism, orientalism… People do bad shit, then they don’t understand why the people fucked over want justice. Often any and all action is labeled as revenge by the recipients because there is no understanding that they are the origin and perpetuation of the trauma. If it’s not revenge, the person or persons affected by a trauma is an unpredictable monster, murderous, mad, cannibalistic, crazed which is all dormant until it’s set off. Survivors are discarded, but possibly a source of fear. That was heavy, but I sympathize with the motives of the murderers here.

 

Mariam: Just because my critique is harsh, I love this movie. I really do. It’s ridiculous and gross, but it’s awesome.

Monika: Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun :)

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