Cupid

Bloody Valentine’s Day is just upon us, and what better way to enjoy it than sitting next to your loved one, snuggling, accompanied by some drinks and a horror movie?

Cupid is usually seen as this cute little baby that loves to shoot heart-shaped arrows at innocent victims not ready to be suckered into falling in love. The film Cupid takes from the Greek mythological story of Cupid and puts a little more of a darker twist to it. The opening fills you in on the Greek story of Cupid in an animated tale, so you get familiar with the actual history of the character. After a little of three minutes of animation, we are brought into the live-action film for the rest of the duration. Horror is quickly brought into the film when Cupid gruesomely murders a couple and a third wheel with his arrows. After these quick murders, the gore calms down for quite a while, and the story kicks in.

“Faye is in love with her teacher and casts a love spell to try to win him over…”

Faye (Georgina Jane) is in love with her teacher (Michael Owusu) and casts a love spell to try to win him over. The spell backfires on her as her classmates record her sneaking a kiss on her teacher. Unbeknownst to Faye, her teacher is actually dating another teacher at the school. The video is played in front of the rest of the class, and both Faye and the teacher are embarrassed. Faye goes back to the spellbook and looks for something more powerful. She finds a spell that will summon Cupid the love destroyer.

The love destroyer spell, as you would imagine, also backfires as Cupid terrorizes the school on Valentine’s Day. The group of students and teachers have to survive for twenty-four hours in order to break the curse. Cupid begins to murder one in his path. The murders get more gruesome during this particular act, which is probably the best part of the film – more on that later. There are survivors by the end of the film, but the ending is what killed me, even more than the campiness of the film.

There is a problematic ending. It felt like everything I had just watched was all for naught. I understand that it is a way to leave it open for a possible sequel, but it really did not solve any conflict. Now there are just questions and time felt wasted. It is something a lot of storytellers do, but it is hard to succeed in it.

Now back to the positives of the film. Although the film was quite campy, if you’re going for campy, the murders should equally be as campy, and they were. For instance, one of the girls gets a bouquet of roses shoved down her throat to where they puncture her neck. The film really needed this kind of grotesqueness to match the absurdity of the plot, so in that aspect, the murders worked, whereas they most likely would not have in another type of film with a more serious tone.

So there is probably a better way to spend your Valentine’s Day, but there is an audience for these types of films.