My Bloody Valentine (2009)

   This film begins by following a group of teenagers who decide to throw a party inside of a mine where, little do they know, a murderous ex miner named Harry Warden awaits them beneath the earth. There are stories about the trapping of six miners underground and that Harry, the only survivor, murdered the other five of his coworkers in order to prolong his air supply so that he could survive. These stories are no sooner proven true when Harry escapes the hospital he was in on Valentine's Day, murdering all of the nurses and doctors in his path until he reaches the mine where he then murders nearly all of the teenagers there. Four teenagers named Irene, Tom, Axel, and Sarah, manage to escape death and it appears that Harry is shot and presumably killed by the sheriffs. The film then flashes forward ten years later, and it is presumed that Harry has risen from the dead and is now continuing his killing spree. Irene, Tom, Axel, and Sarah all struggle to figure out if Harry has indeed risen from the dead or if somebody else is taking his place, while everybody close to them is being picked off one by one.

   
    Throughout the first half of the film, the gender representation of the characters is pretty stereotypical in that the females assume the role as the caretaker or "weak link" while the males assume the role of the strong protector. This is evident even with the killer being a male individual who is so strong that he seemingly can't be stopped. There aren't any films that I'm aware of where the dreaded killer is a female. Another example of a male assuming a strong protective role is when Tom is in the mine and manages to keep a fight going with the killer, who is assumed to be Harry, the longest, while the female characters are either already killed or have run away screaming.
      The female characters in this film are typically portrayed similar to other horror films as being characters that are weak at the sign of danger and sexual objects. When it appears that Harry has somehow risen from the dead, there is a scene in a dirty motel where a woman named Irene is having sex with somebody. The entire scene is dirty and primal, and at some point while they are having sex she looks at herself in the mirror above the bed and says, "Oh my god, I look so hot today." When they are finished having sex, instead of covering herself up, Irene sits with her legs splayed open and the male character tells her he is paying her for her services, even though she is not a hooker. He proceeds to throw money at her and then leave the motel room. The statement combined with how the man reacted to Irene all help to reinforce that Irene is nothing more than a sex object.
      Like most horror movies, the sex scene is shortly followed by death when the murderer kills the guy that Irene just had sex with before going after her. She runs, still completely naked, and hides underneath the bed. I found this ironic because this is the typical place where the female characters hide from danger. It is almost child-like because children are also shown to hide under beds when the "bad guy" is coming after them. Harry finds her hiding spot and rips the mattress from over top of her, exposing her underneath the mattress frame cowering and exposed, both naked and exposed to him. This also reinforces the idea that Irene is weak due to her being naked and shown as being afraid.
      During this scene, it is important to think about the murderer as a psychosexual killer. As can be seen in the picture below and to the right, Irene is shown cowering underneath a metal frame with several holes throughout it. Shortly after the murderer has exposed her naked body underneath this metal frame, she attempts to hide behind it and try to fight him through the holes. The sight of her struggling against Harry and exposed could be similar to a rape scene. This idea is then reinforced when Harry chooses to penetrate the holes of the metal frame and stab her in her lower stomach. I found it interesting that they chose to have her die this way after she was being portrayed as a whore a few scenes prior.

     The murderer's choice of weapon is something important to notice due to the close proximity that he has to get to his victims in order to kill them. He chooses a pick axe, which he usually drives into very vulnerable parts of his victims bodies such as their face, eyes, and stomach region. Not only does he have to kill within a close range, but he chooses to stab his victims several times, even after they are already dead. I think that this small detail also helps to explain the idea of the psychosexual killer because usually people who we imagine to assume those roles are repeat offenders, similar to his repeating of the stabbing of whoever he is killing.
      One of the most interesting characters to examine is Sarah. From the very beginning she is shown with her hair tied back in a tight ponytail and a high-necked white top. The image of her wearing white and her hair being tied back further influences the audience that she is an innocent character. I may be stretching a little here, but the white top could also maybe represent her virginity. This could be influenced with her conversation with Tom when she comments that she doesn't want to be there, doesn't seem to be drinking, and doesn't seem to be a "party" girl. These are qualities that we usually associate with somebody who is virginal. The white top also makes an appearance later in a scene that takes place ten years later. Axel had just finished cheating on his now wife, Sarah, with a girl named Megan. It is assumed that they had just finished having sex and Megan is standing in nothing but her underwear and a white tank top. This contradicts the virginity appearance of the white tank top due to the fact that she is half naked.

   Sarah may have been portrayed as an innocent character from the beginning scene, but like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she constantly behaves in ways that go against her role as a stereotypical female. An example of this is in the first mine scene with Harry murdering all of the teenagers. While Sarah runs away from the killer like all of the other female characters, she also pauses a few times to try to save Tom and hit Harry with nearby objects in order to stop him. This gender reversal happens again in one of the final scenes in the film where Sarah has to figure out who the killer is, either Axel or Tom. She is shown as the final girl here, holding a gun and two people's lives in her hands, until she ultimately shoots Tom. Typically it is thought that males are the strong characters who get to kill the murderer or monster, but it is interesting that Sarah is the last female alive in their friend group, as well as the one to shoot the murderer. It is also important to notice that, consistent with the idea of the final girl, Sarah seems to be the only girl who has survived while the rest have died painful deaths.

     While she does have some instances where she behaves similar to the typical male character, Sarah also is then thrown back into the female character role, which is one that shows women as being possessions, weak, or even girly. There are several scenes throughout the film where Axel and Tom fight over Sarah like she is an object to be desired. They do this in the interrogation room, in the final scenes where Tom gets shot,

and once more when Tom is first introduced back into the story after the ten years have passed. The inclusion of these scenes helps to throw Sarah back into her role as something to be desired. 
    The terrible place in horror films typically takes the form of something dark and womb like. The major dark place to be avoided in this film would be the mines where the axe murderer resides who created this film did a good job at making the mine a creepy place by having every area throughout it dimly lit, as well has have several pathways and areas where somebody could easily hide.
   I wasn't sure how this film was going to be due to the fact that the title seems cheesy, but it was actually pretty good. I thought it was interesting how much Sarah represented Buffy in some scenes, and how her gender role switched frequently throughout the whole movie. It is surprising how, after taking this class, evident the ideas of the final girl, weapon choices, and the terrible place are. I would definitely recommend this film, although there is a decent amount of gore in it which surprised me.