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About My Bloody Valentine (1981)

George Mihalka's My Bloody Valentine (1981) was shot in an actual working coal mine in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, giving the film an authenticity and claustrophobic atmosphere that no studio set could replicate—the miners in the cast were real local coal miners recruited as extras. The film's killer, Harry Warden, wielding a pickaxe and wearing a gas mask and mining gear, created one of the slasher genre's most visually distinctive villains. The MPAA forced the removal of nearly nine minutes of gore footage, and for decades fans could only imagine the complete kills until the uncut footage was discovered and restored for a 2009 special edition that revealed just how graphic the original film was. Set during a Valentine's Day dance in a blue-collar mining town, the film's working-class setting distinguished it from the suburban and campus-set slashers of the era and influenced a generation of Canadian horror filmmakers.