A loose adaptation of a novel by Tom Savage, the 21st century, post-"Scream" slasher "Valentine" offers adequate entertainment, but not much more. It doesn't offer much that is fresh or interesting. Of course, it may still appeal to die hard lovers of this time-honored formula, especially the way that it concentrates on a very attractive, largely female cast. A bunch of friends start to get threatened and then killed by a mystery murderer who wears a creepy cherub mask. It just MIGHT be that geek whom the girls spurned back in junior high, but they can't know for sure.

Amusingly, many of the male characters are portrayed as being smarmy, self-serving jerks. Even nice guy Adam (David Boreanaz) has a character flaw; he's a sportswriter with a weakness for the bottle. It is because this particular slasher is so female-centric that it works to any degree. Some horror fans may appreciate the fact that director Jamie Blanks ("Urban Legend", "Storm Warning") downplays gore (for the most part, there are still some violent moments) in favor of straight suspense. All in all, the film is slick, and watchable, but hardly inspired, going through its paces with some competency but no nuance.

The cast doesn't rise above their material, but the gorgeous ladies (Denise Richards, Jessica Cauffiel, Katherine Heigl, etc.) and the hunky Boreanaz are entertaining enough to watch. Marley Shelton is the main focus as Kate, herself a journalist who is trying to learn to trust Adam (Boreanaz) again. In an amusing twist, even the requisite detective on the case (Fulvio Cecere) turns out to be a lech.

There is a prominent plot point involving nosebleeds that had some veteran horror fans recalling the 1982 thriller "Alone in the Dark", which did the same thing more memorably. The story plays out in a way familiar to any "Friday the 13th" series fan, where you have a final girl discovering various dead bodies during the final act.

You could certainly do better than this, but you could also definitely do worse.

Six out of 10.

A predictable teeny slasher movie which scores thanks to a wealth of explicit and gruesome death sequences, a few good jumps, and some nice stalk 'n' slash routines which are handled well by enthusiastic Australian director Jamie Blanks (who cut his horror teeth on URBAN LEGEND). Blanks seems to have his heart in the right place - after all he is a big horror fan - and indeed with the right material he could be the break that the genre is currently looking for. In the meantime, VALENTINE is fairly mindless fodder, appeasing enough but nothing that you wouldn't expect from the premise. Although the movie is fairly slow paced when it comes to the action, it's plot heavy stuff with plenty of minor characters and red herrings to keep the viewer on his/her toes and the running time pretty much flies by; rarely was I having to resort to checking my watch as I sometimes do with new releases.

The death scenes are the one element of the film that do show some originality about them. Victims are killed in novel fashions, with weapons such as irons, hot tubs, even a bow and arrow in one macabre and violent romance-inspired game. The appearance of the killer, in a creepy cherub mask and black clothing, is a fairly memorable one (a lot better than the boring parka-clad fencing-mask-wearing murderer in URBAN LEGEND, that's for sure) and there are some okayish suspense bits going on here, my favourite being at the beginning with the macabre yet methodical stabbing of the corpses in the body bags, whilst another murder at a weird media art exhibition is disorientatingly good.

On the downside, the characters are grating and unappealing and the story appears to have been borrowed wholesale from SCREAM, following a very strict and unremarkable plot to the unsurprising end which nonetheless finishes ambiguously, which makes a nice change from the usual run-of-the-mill productions which feel it necessary to tie up every single loose end. The casting is fairly average; the young actresses are good enough to carry themselves but the ante has been upped in the youth horror genre as of late and none of them excel as they perhaps should. The biggest offender is Denise Richards who is more than happy to play a one-dimensional bitchy character and who grates on the nerves throughout. David Boreanaz appears briefly but is largely wasted, at least until the end. At the end of the day, you can safely miss watching VALENTINE and not worry about anything remarkable that you lost out on seeing; however, if you want some slick, glossy, well-made and occasionally stylish thrills then you could do a LOT worse than this, what with all the junk on the Blockbuster shelves at the moment.

In 1988, geeky Jeremy Melton gets rejected by every girl at the Valentine school dance. Chubby Dorothy Wheeler is the only one who reluctantly accepts. They get caught making out behind the benches and Dorothy fakes being attacked. Jeremy gets stripped and hit by the bullies. He gets sent to reform school. Years later, the girls who rejected Jeremy are getting attacked by a mask man. Shelley Fisher (Katherine Heigl) is a medical student working at the morgue. She is killed by the masked man. Paige Prescott (Denise Richards) and Kate Davies (Marley Shelton) are still best friends trying to find boyfriends. Adam Carr (David Boreanaz) tries to comfort Kate during Shelley's funeral. Lily Voight (Jessica Cauffiel) and Dorothy Wheeler (Jessica Capshaw) are also at the funeral. They are approached by Detective Leon Vaughn about the murder.

None of the girls are nice enough and compelling enough for me to root for. I'm perfectly fine if they are all killed off. Even the detective is a sleaze. It's obvious who is being set up as the real killer. There is nothing surprising or original going on. There is nothing interesting or scary. There are some good talented actresses but none of them shine in this movie. The movie should center around Lily Voight. It's too scattered among the girls. The idea holds some possibilities but the movie is not imaginative enough to find them.