Written By: Brandon Engel
While a rom-com romp starring Sandra Bullock or Tom Selleck might be the obvious choice for a night in on Valentine’s Day, there’s something to be said for sitting through a gruesome bloodbath with your significant other. Vampires have an enduring allure, and there’s a mysterious charm in the way that zombies refuse to make eye contact. Even a chainsaw can be endearing in context. Stop me before I say too much; make it through one of these frightful flicks with the object of your affection and you’ll know you’ve found a keeper.
#5: 2008’s Let the Right One In / Låt Den Rätte Komma In (dir. Tomas Alfredson) tells the tale of two children, a boy and a girl, both 12 years old and accustomed to the cold isolation of Swedish suburbia. The girl, however, harbors a murderous secret. She’s really a vampire, and she’s centuries older than anyone thinks. This film brings vampire lore to contemporary audiences; you won’t see much in the way of crosses or garlic, rather a bittersweet coming of age romance framed by brief moments of bloodlust.
#4 1980’s Prom Night (dir. Paul Lynch) stars four high school seniors who share a dangerous secret. Responsible for the accidental death of a little girl six years earlier, the group of friends are now being stalked on the most important evening of their young lives – Prom Night. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, a young “Scream Queen”, and funny man Leslie Nielsen, the film’s tale of murderous vengeance is tempered with 80’s-era antics and plenty of hairspray.
#3 2014’s Life After Beth (dir. Jeff Baena) reveals what happens when your lover becomes a zombie. Given the popularity of zombie imagery in recent years, it was only a matter of time before the undead reached the romantic comedy genre. We’ve undoubtedly pondered the question: is an unstoppable hunger for brains a deal breaker? Upon finding out that his girlfriend is not really dead, boyfriend Zack (Dane Dehaan) tries to make things work out with his newly zombified girlfriend Beth (Aubrey Plaza). Things start to fall apart, however, as a bizarre apocalypse begins to unfold around them.
#2 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (dir. Werner Herzog) is a classic art house vampire film. On the surface, it’s another retelling of the Dracula story. Under Herzog’s direction, however, actor Klaus Kinski was able to convey a greater sense of the vampire’s tragic loneliness. Doomed to immortality, he is fated to watch the ones he loves die around him. In the film a couple gain Dracula’s attention after the count summons the husband to his castle to sell him a house in their home town. The vampire moves in, bringing with him a wave of death and destruction. Herzog’s film is an homage to the original 1922 silent film Nosferatu.
#1 1981’s My Bloody Valentine (dir. George Mihalka) is the story of a Valentine’s Day party gone wrong. In a secluded mining town in 1960’s Nova Scotia, a mining accident sets off a chain of murders, all indirectly related to St. Valentine’s festivities. The film picks up again decades later, when the killing have become the stuff of legend and the town is trying to move on. Released at the peak of the “slasher” genre’s popularity, the film had 9 minutes of footage cut after being deemed too violent by the MPAA. Despite it’s grisly imagery, My Bloody Valentine’s popularity has endured. From a 2009 remake – click here for online streaming info – to an interactive replica of the set at Universal Studio’s “Halloween Horror Nights”, audiences continue to be captivated by it’s gory brilliance.
These five titles should be all you need to have a heart-poundingly horror-rific Valentine’s Day; but you don’t have to take my word for it! Check out one of these films tonight and spook your sweetheart.
Writer Brandon Engel has made a name for himself submitting film-related essays to various websites, and is a frequent contributor to PopcornMonster.com. For more of his work you can visit the following links:
The Blackest of Fridays: Top 5 Yuletide Viewing Oddities (via PopcornMonster.com)
John Carpenter: A Master of the Macabre (via PopcornMonster.com)
EC Comics and the World of Stephen King
Biting Critique: Vampire Lore as a Vehicle for Social Commentary
How Frank Miller Saved the Batman
Top 5 Films Inspired by Ed Gein
