Dir: Scott Jeffrey
Release Date: 2020
“After being horrendously embarrassed by the mean girls at school, Faye, a practicing witch, summons the evil Cupid to take revenge on all those who wronged her”
I love love and I love those who love to be in love.
Such is our love for love, we even covered the 2001 Jamie Blanks slasher movie, Valentine on a deep-dive podcast episode but that is a much better film than this one.
I will not be offended if you choose to go and listen to that immediately.
We start this one with an animation and the promise of telling us the real story behind the legend of Cupid. I think this is code for, 'we just made this bit up', as it says he is a demon who wreaks vengeance on those who abuse love. Just accept it.
We start with a date between an obnoxious, self-obsessed guy and a pretty girl which is similar to how Valentine starts as well after the initial exposition scene. This one is interrupted by the girl excusing herself and climbing out of the bathroom window.
The guy is also interrupted by his daughter who turns up apologising for something or other. Turns out, she called a demon on him and her mom due to them getting divorced. Seems a bit harsh to be honest.
Not as harsh as Cupid is when he turns up in all of his CGI glory.
He fires an arrow into the eye of the guy's date who had only just got through the bathroom window, though it does look a little like a candy apple.
The guy and his daughter escape - by running through a field instead of jumping in the car and driving off - when the daughter says they only have to survive until midnight as it's a 24hr curse.
Regardless of that breakthrough, they are quickly caught and killed by Cupid. She gets her face impaled on an arrow sticking out of his leg and he has his heart punched out.
Fun Fact: Bao Teiu, who plays Cupid, has also played a Leprechaun and a Djinn, both of which also required him to wear a mask. Poor guy
This film appears to have been shot in the UK but is full of American actors or at least I think they are American. At first I thought they were British pretending to be American. To be honest, I don't know and I guess it doesn't matter. Thanks for humouring me.
We cut to a teen (?) girl reading a Love Spell out of a book of witchcraft and a caption telling us it is '2 days before Valentines Day'. This girl is Faye.
Faye is relentlessly bullied by a top-notch super bitch called Elise who notices, during a class about Romeo and Juliet, that Faye has a crush on their teacher, Mr Jones (that's who the spell was for), and decides to steal his phone to cause some malicious mischief.
Sadly, Mr Jones is embarking on a pretty obvious secret affair with fellow teacher Miss Drake. Faye tells all to her own secret admirer, Matt who I believe is not an actor and clearly cannot do an American accent so he doesn't try.
He declares that Mr Jones is the most charismatic guy going, which the actor playing him seems determined to disprove in all of his scenes.
Here is Mr Jones, apparently so overwhelmed by his own charisma whilst in class, he's fallen into a coma. Let's hope Kelly LeBrock doesn't find out....
Faye gets home to find her mother is having sex with some guy which turns out to be Elise's dad! Woah! Hence the hatred from Elise.
Turns out it is the 1st Valentine's Day since Faye's dad died but her mother says it is unhealthy to wallow in the past, clearly believing that not even a year is more than enough time to deal with any grief she may have felt.
Faye receives some text messages from Elise pretending to be Mr Jones and we get the text bubble effect. 'He' tells her he felt a connection and all the usual shit.
"But you better stop calling me Mr Jones. Names Duncan", a message reads, which as an English teacher is a terrible example of grammar and would have given him away had the student been any good.
Fun Fact: Duncan Jones is the name of David Bowie's son, the award winning Director of Moon, Source Code, Warcraft and Mute.
'Mr Jones' then solicits photos of Faye in her underwear which are laughingly received by Elise and her gang of bullies. Uh-oh, trouble brewing.
'1 day before Valentines Day', says the caption and we see Mr Jones handing Miss Drake a red rose - he is clearly either useless at reading a calendar or he is just laying some groundwork for the next day.
It works as it happens and they enjoy a drink later that evening for some excruciating flirting talk. Charisma levels off the charts.
But before all of that, Faye turns up in Mr Jones' room while he's marking some papers and kisses him. He tells her to get the fuck outta there but very kindly. All while being filmed by Elise on his 'misplaced' phone!
Faye goes home and reads the spell about 'Summoning the Love Destroyer' and we are off to embrace Valentines Day at school....
In the middle of more Romeo and Juliet chat, a friend of Elise plugs the phone into the projector and they show the fumbled kiss attempt to EVERYONE!
Embarrassed, Faye runs out of the class only to find the photos of her in her bra plastered all over the walls. Elise is quickly on the scene to add some loud mocking to the mix.
Naturally, they have a fight and Faye runs away to a dark room and summons up that demon she was messing with earlier. She demands him to bring about the End of Love for everyone in that school. She agrees to the T&Cs which the demon double checks.
Elise is given detention along with her friends and Faye during which time, they will have to remove all decorations for the Valentines Ball they were planning to hold. Bit late notice seeing as most kids have already gone home presumably to get ready for the Ball.
One of Elise's gang, Lina, heads off to the bathroom, maybe for a shit, maybe not. Either way I've written it as 'Unconfirmed' in my files. She looks under the stalls when she hears the door open and she sees some sandals! Jesus! Nope, it's Cupid.
She peeps through an hole in the wall and gets an arrow rammed into her eye for her troubles. He then uses a heart shaped cookie cutter on her back for some reason.
In the school hall, Elise and her friends are moaning about stuff, Faye is talking to Matt who has stayed to make sure Faye is alright and they find some heart shaped 'cookies'. They say they taste like chicken which is a weird taste for cookies in my opinion.
Elise makes like a tree and gets out of there, hotly pursued to her boyfriend's car by Principal Harper. The car doesn't start but they are drawn to a noise in the sky.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a small masked Chinese man with wings, wearing a diaper and sporting a bow and arrow. Not Again?!
Principal Harper gets an arrow into the eye which at least shows Cupid's competence at archery and penchant for eye related wounding. As they run back to the school, Elise's boyfriend, Brett takes an arrow to the leg and back.
"PRINCIPAL HARPER'S DEAD!?" shouts Matt in a truly hilarious exclamation. Brett is turning black where he's taken arrows which alludes to some kind of poison arrow thing going on.
Another teacher takes a couple of fatal arrows in the school hall (not a euphemism) with Matt taking one in the arm while the kids scatter and Brett dies.
Elise finds Faye's book, Faye and Matt find 'Love Kills' written on a bathroom mirror and Elise's friend, Britt is hit in the face and seemingly chokes to death on a bouquet of roses being forced into her mouth.
Matt decides that he should now take a massive risk and confesses that he has feelings for Faye and that when she stayed over as a kid, he spooned her on purpose and not because he missed his mother. Wow. Adding that to my list of how to get a lady.
Elise chooses to bully Faye even more and blame her for the whole thing while Mr Jones cuts off Matt's infected arm with a saw they happen to find. We get a 'tastes like chicken' cookie reveal and Elise's friend, Daryl, is killed by a nasty papercut to the throat.
Faye confesses that she summoned the demon from her book which is cleverly titled, 'Black Magic'. Miss Drake takes this opportunity to give Mr Jones a big old kiss which seems a little insensitive as Faye is right there.
"I'm so over that", Faye reassures us all.
Remember the whole 24hrs thing they mentioned at the beginning? Well it is 11 minutes to midnight so the curse has almost run its course.
Fun Fact: Charles Bronson was in a 1983 thriller - almost a slasher - called 10 to Midnight and Dame Judy Dench is in a 2020 drama called 6 Minutes to Midnight. 100% irrelevant!
Cupid has Miss Drake at arrow-point (?) when Faye summons the demon again to chat about stopping this whole thing, warning the others not to look at it or it will take their soul. Any bets being placed here?
The demon, turning out to be Death himself, says 'Thou' a lot and says a sacrifice should be made for the curse to be broken early. Faye readies herself for the offering while Mr Jones reminds everyone there's only 2 minutes to go.
Fun Fact: Iron Maiden did a song called 2 Minutes to Midnight which would have been great to have blasted out here but they don't bother. Shame.
Elise turns around, presumably to see if anyone was going to put Iron Maiden on, and incurs the attentions of Death. I mean, there was 1 rule and it was only mentioned a few minutes ago but, that's Elise for you. A law unto herself.
Well, she gets an arrow pushed slowly through the back of her head and dies on the floor as Matt stumbles in and turns the light on. It's midnight!
Cupid and Death have gone home so Miss Drake tries her hand at joking about Mr Jones owing her a drink. Elise finds it so funny, she comes back to life and sits up only to be instantly smashed in the face by Faye and she dies again.
"It's over. It's all over." says Faye, which usually leads to a sly teaser for something else to happen. All that happens here is Mr Jones kisses Faye on the cheek, and them both realising the Love spell must have worked after all. What are the chances?
THE END
And so.........
Are these American actors in Britain or British actors pretending to be American?
Why did they get such a small guy to play the supposedly scary title character?
What if more than one person summoned the demon on Valentines Day?
First come first serve or is it on a priority basis?
Does Death do his own admin work or does someone else keep it in order?
What if someone summons him just before midnight and he's not got time to finish his contract?
Does he have a legal team and an HR department to look after that?
Can you kill someone using a paper cut to the throat
Is there a market for cookies that taste like chicken?
Is Mr Jones really the most charismatic guy going?
Does Matt only having one arm put a stop to his spooning girls ruse?
The movie is currently available on Amazon Prime.
FAVOURITE CHARACTER:
Elise played by Sarah T. Cohen. She was fantastically nasty throughout and a total bitch to everyone. Top work
FAVOURITE MOMENT:
Awful CGI Cupid on his way flying through the sky. So terrible they used it twice
FAVOURITE LINE:
Matt: "PRINCIPAL HARPER'S DEAD?", made me laugh and I re-watched that bit a couple of times.
FAVOURITE DEATH:
Probably the roses down the throat as there's a behind the scenes photo where they appeared to have come through her neck from inside. Novel death at least.
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