Cody examines a less-popular Valentine's Day horror movie.
BACKGROUND
Sure, I could have picked a more popular movie to write about for this pre-Valentine’s Day edition of the Dissecting Slashers series. When choosing which movies to celebrate the upcoming holiday with, most horror fans would go for the 1981 classic My Bloody Valentine, its 2009 remake, or even the 2001 slasher Valentine. And it’s true, I would choose any one of those movies over Lovers Lane myself. But those movies already get plenty of love. Today, I decided to dig into a movie that doesn’t get much love at all - although it did recently get a Blu-ray release with some nice extras.
I don’t have a copy of that Blu-ray, but reviews of the extra features have revealed that Lovers Lane came about because the film’s writers and producers Geof Miller and Rory Veal had just lost a major source of income. They were working for CBS in the Movie of the Week department when the network decided to stop making movies of the week... which meant that projects Miller and Veal had been working on just ceased to exist. So they decided to pivot into films, which Miller already had experience with, having worked on the screenplays for Sean S. Cunningham’s aquatic horror movie DeepStar Six and the horror comedy sequel House IV. Inspired by a well-known urban legend about an escaped maniac with a hook for a hand, they wrote the script for what would become Lovers Lane. Then raised a budget of $500,000 to get it into production with Jon Steven Ward – whose only previous directing credit was a 1995 Joe Estevez action movie called Equal Impact – at the helm.
SETTING
Lovers Lane was filmed in Washington state, and while the surroundings are often obscured by the darkness most of the film is enveloped in (most of it takes place at night), there is a nice shot of the countryside at the end. The primary setting of the film is a small town in Huson County, mainly represented by the high school, a bowling alley, a restaurant, and a gas station. As the title implies, there’s a popular, secluded spot out in the country that couples of all ages like to drive out to so they can have private conversations – or, in most cases, hook up in the back seat. Or maybe on the front seat. They’re probably not all that picky.
Most of the characters make a trip out to Lovers Lane at some point in the film. Not even the fact that there’s a homicidal maniac on the loose is enough to deter them. When one group of teens finds the corpses of a couple friends at Lovers Lane, they speed back toward town and end up crashing in the woods. Their car out of commission, they’re forced to seek shelter in the nearest farm house. Of course, no one’s home. Except for some more corpses.
KILLER
Here’s the story as we know it for most of Lovers Lanes’ 89 minute running time: psychiatrist Jack Grefe was treating a man named Ray Hennessey, who had an unhealthy obsession with Harriet Anderson, the wife of Jack’s half-brother, police officer Tom Anderson. Harriet was cheating on Tom with a man named Ward Lamson – and when Ray followed Harriet and Ward out to Lovers Lane on Valentine’s Day and saw them hooking up, he flew into a homicidal rage and used a hook to murder both of them. For the next thirteen years, Ray is locked up in Meston State Hospital under the care of Jack, who tries to reach him through the anger and rage that has consumed his life. When Valentine’s Day rolls around again, Ray escapes from the state hospital, killing his way out and stealing his hook, which Jack was kind enough to keep on display in his office. Once he's out in the field, this slasher alternates between calm sneaking and relentless pursuit, between lying in wait and busting down doors. Just like the pros that came before him.
Ray’s focus is now on the teenage daughters of both Jack and Tom, the super-bitch popular girl Chloe and the quiet outsider Mandy. He kills his way through Huson County on his way to get to the girls, leaving the message “Prison Food Sucks” in more than one location. Never mind that he was in a state hospital, not a prison. Ray’s outfit pairs his blue Meston State Hospital coveralls with a grey hoodie that helps conceal his face. A reasonable enough costume for a low-rent slasher, as he happens to be.
But Lovers Lane has some curveballs to throw at its viewers. This is a story of sick, dangerous obsession, but Ray Hennessey ends up being overshadowed by other characters. The ending leaves the door wide open for a sequel where Ray might have actually gotten his chance to shine, but that sequel was never made.
FINAL GIRL
The killer in this movie is your Michael Myers (Halloween) type of slasher, and the final girl, Mandy Anderson, was definitely meant to be your Laurie Strode type. Played by Erin J. Dean, she’s smart and bespectacled, and while her classmates are filing into their high school, Mandy can be found sitting on the front steps, reading a book. Dean was not given much to work with and wasn’t able to make Mandy a very interesting character. She’s kind of just hanging around for most of the movie. She’s there, but she’s barely registering. When things fall apart, she does prove to be capable of handling the situation better than others. She does her best to stay in control, plots escape, and even plays medic to injured fellow teens.
Mandy is the daughter of Tom and Harriet Anderson, and thanks to her negligent father taking her around to crime scenes, she was even at Lovers Lane on the night her mom was killed - which gave the little girl the chance to give her mother’s bloody corpse a box of chocolates.
Teen Mandy isn’t part of the popular crowd, but she’s not too far down the social totem pole, despite having to deal with some rude comments. She’s always on the periphery. For example, when the popular kids are at the bowling alley, Mandy happens to be sitting nearby, doing her homework. New-girl-in-town cheerleader Jannelle quickly makes friends with her, and when dorky Doug needs a date for his friends’ get-together, it’s Mandy he turns to.
VICTIMS
Mandy isn’t the only person who barely registers as a character in this movie. Viewers will be hard pressed to be interested in or care about any of these folks. On the list of potential victims are Riley Smith as popular guy Michael Lamson, who happens to be the son of the late Ward Lamson and school principal Penny Lamson (played by Suzanne Bouchard). Michael has never been told the truth about what happened to his dad, but Mandy reveals it to him when she comes to realize that Ray Hennessey wants to kill them just like he killed her mom and his dad. There’s Billy O’Sullivan as the goofy guy Doug, who at least has a couple memorable moments. Megan Hunt’s Cathy and Collin F. Peacock’s Tim are they to hold on to each other, act douchey, and get killed. Ben Indra is the scheming Bradley, who is there to be a shoulder to cry on for bitchy popular girl Chloe (Sarah Lancaster) when Michael breaks up with her.
Chloe is the character who stands out most of all, and this is due to just how awful she is. She describes herself as the “best piece of ass” in town... and when Bradley doesn’t instantly jump her bones when they reach Lovers Lane, she gets especially hostile and repugnant.
Lancaster has had a successful career beyond Lovers Lane, appearing on many episodes of the comedy spy TV series Chuck, but if there’s one thing someone knows about this movie it’s probably that it features an early screen appearance by Anna Faris, who plays the friendly cheerleader Jannelle (and would go on to be married to Ben Indra for a while). Faris doesn’t really get to show her comedic abilities in this movie, but there’s a hint of it in there when she knows the killer is after her and she awkwardly grabs three knives to protect herself with.
DEATHS
Lovers Lane has a decent body count, it reaches into the double digits, but the kills are weak. The majority of the murders happen off screen, people just keep stumbling across bloody bodies. Even when someone does get killed on screen, you don’t get to see much of what’s happening to them. The killing blows will either be obscured by something, or they’ll be happening out of frame. You do get to see someone’s leg get stabbed to a table, and there’s some bloody slashing near the end of the film. I guess something positive could be said for the fact that most of the on screen violence is dished out to a killer rather than victims.
CLICHÉS
Lovers Lane appears to include the “sex equals death” clichê on a couple different occasions, but if there’s one positive thing you can say about this film it’s that it contains some unexpected swerves. Things are not always as they appear. That said, lovers lane hook-ups in genre clichê in general. So is the inclusion of comic relief dweebs like Doug, super terrible popular girls like Chloe, and the scene where characters attempt to scare their friends by smearing ketchup on themselves and pretending to have been injured. The scenario of the characters getting in a car crash and having to seek shelter in a nearby empty house wasn’t exactly thought up for the first time here. But the biggest clichê of all in this movie is also one of the most ridiculous clichês in horror: it’s the scene where someone is taking a creepy walk through a location and ends up getting scared by a cat.
POSTMORTEM
Lovers Lane didn’t turn out to be a particularly impressive movie and there aren’t a whole lot of fans of this one out there. Still, it was successful, as a distribution deal with the Blockbuster chain of video stores was enough to cover the entire $500,000 budget. Then the rentals brought profit, even though the filmmakers actually burned down a house when setting off an explosion in some of its rooms. So it’s surprising that Miller, Veal, and Ward never moved forward with the sequel that the film’s final moments set up.
Then again, it’s not all that surprising, since Lovers Lane doesn’t really deliver most of the elements you put on a slasher movie expecting to see. Sure, you have teens getting knocked off one-by-one, but these characters are exceptionally poorly written, and you can’t even get a kick out of watching them get killed off because so much of the violence is off screen. The amount of off screen kills and lack of bloody effects in this movie are a real bummer.
Lovers Lane isn’t very interesting for most of its running time, but it is almost saved by the twist(s) concerning the killer. Almost.
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