Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and some of you may be looking for a perfect gift for your significant other. Maybe not, though, maybe you’re looking for a good Valentine’s Day horror film to celebrate the day of love. Lucky for genre fans, there are some really fantastic horror films for lovers: My Bloody Valentine (both versions are stellar!), 2001’s Valentine is a fun early-00’s slasher, and The Loved Ones is essential for horror fans looking for an amorous fright. Unfortunately, the new Valentine’s Day horror film, Cupid, from Uncork’d Entertainment, is very forgettable and probably not worth getting a box of chocolates for this V-Day.
Cupid starts strong, with a background story establishing Cupid not as the cute little love-inspiring cherub we know, but as a vengeful demon set out to kill anyone who abuses love. It’s a fun set-up and the scene that follows is also a funny demonstration of how the demon works. The film then throws us into a high school setting and builds a fairly interesting tale of a shy girl who is tricked by fellow classmates into thinking the teacher she has a crush on shares her feelings. Naturally, she becomes aware of the trick and summons Cupid to do his thing. The premise is interesting, but unfortunately there isn’t much else going for Cupid, and the film never manages to top its first few minutes.
The FX are just not great. The creature itself looks like a first-time make-up job by a budding FX artist, the kills are essentially all the same, and the use of digital FX is occasionally distracting. For a movie about a killer demon flying around shooting people with deadly arrows, it all comes off as rather forgettable, partially a result of sub-par FX work.
Cupid’s strong points are in its script. The lore it establishes has major potential and the story it weaves within those bounds is interesting. The unfortunate reality is that the film is never scary nor campy enough to entertain, the FX and kills are not creative or particularly well done, and it never seems to find its footing. Cupid is recommended for those fans who are eager to see absolutely any horror film centered around holidays or Valentine’s Day. For the rest of us, save your flowers because there’s not much to love about Cupid.
Cupid will be released on DVD and Digital February 11 from Uncork’d Entertainment.
Related Article: Scream Factory is Releasing ‘My Bloody Valentine’ Collector’s Edition
