Sightlines · reception

How My Bloody Valentine was received

1981 · George Mihalka · My Bloody Valentine on Sightlines

The arc

Dumped into theaters in February 1981 and written off as another Friday the 13th cash-in, it's since been reclaimed as one of the classiest of the early-'80s slashers — a reappraisal supercharged when its censored gore footage finally resurfaced in 2009.

What’s debated

The eternal fan fight: is the theatrical cut a butchered shadow of the real film, and does the restored uncut version finally prove it belongs above Friday the 13th in the slasher pantheon?

Its footprint

Harry Warden's gas mask, miner's lamp, and pickaxe make up one of the most instantly recognizable killer silhouettes of the slasher boom, and the title got a second cultural life via the shoegaze band and the 2009 3D remake. Quentin Tarantino has famously praised it as his favorite slasher film.

Where it stands

A beloved cult object of the golden-age slasher cycle — the connoisseur's pick that horror fans pull out to prove the subgenre's early-'80s Canadian tax-shelter wave produced real gems.

Did you know? It was shot in and around a real coal mine in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, with the cast and crew descending into actual mine shafts — and the MPAA forced heavy cuts to its gore effects, footage long thought lost until it was partially restored for the 2009 special edition.