FILM · 2001 · USA
Valentine
68 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (68)
- #001
The biggest criticism of the film was that Jeremy targets the girls who rejected him at the Valentine's dance rather than the men who attacked and robbed him. In the first version of the script, after some investigation by the female leads, it is revealed that the young bullies died under mysterious circumstances. This at least addresses the fact that Jeremy had already begun his elaborate revenge plan and had not forgotten the kids who mocked him. Director Jamie Blanks also stated that he killed the bullies off-screen before he started killing the girls.
- #002
(Around 1 hour 29 minutes) In the final theatrical cut, Kate's attack by the Cherub, who is immediately shot dead by Adam and later revealed to be Dorothy, was left unexplained, because minutes later Adam is revealed to have been the killer all along and blames Dorothy without explaining why he was in costume. A deleted scene reveals that Adam attacked and knocked out Dorothy, then dressed her in the Angel costume to frame her, and that Kate was confused after being shot in the head while attacking. Cut in order to conceal the killer's identity.
- #003
(Around the 35th minute) Jessica Cauffiel suffered several minor injuries while filming her death scene. Her pained reactions as the killer shot her repeatedly with arrows were real, as the arrows lifted her off her feet even though she was wearing a bulletproof vest. She also got several bruises on her back when she had to lean over the metal railings as her character rolled several floors down into a dumpster.
- #004
With its $10 million budget, it is the cheapest film ever to air during the Super Bowl.
- #005
David Boreanaz wanted to wear the costume and mask because his character is the real killer, but his availability made this impossible.
- #006
David Boreanaz shot his character's entire role (Adam Carr) in less than two weeks.
- #007
There was a lot of talk about restoring the deleted kills and releasing the director's cut, but unfortunately all of it came from fans and Warner Bros. showed no interest in releasing an extended cut.
- #008
Jessica Cauffiel says the scenes she most enjoyed filming were the ones with her on-screen boyfriend Johnny Whitworth. While most actors get tired of shooting kissing scenes after a few takes, Cauffiel said she had no such problem because Whitworth was a "great kisser."
- #009
During pre-production, the killer's identity remained undecided. Jamie Blanks was very upset when he read in a Variety article that David Boreanaz had been cast as the villain. Blanks had also wanted to make the film a murder mystery before Warner Bros. stepped in and insisted the film be a standard slasher.
- #010
During the original casting process, Tara Reid, who had previously appeared in Jamie Blanks's other film Urban Legend (1998), played Dorothy Wheeler (now played by Jessica Capshaw), and Jennifer Love Hewitt played Paige Prescott (now played by Denise Richards).
- #011
While filming the speed-dating scene, Marley Shelton discovered she was allergic to the synthetic wool her scarf was made of, which made shooting the scene agonizing for her.
- #012
(Around 1 hour 17 minutes) Denise Richards's stunt double suffered numerous cuts during the scene in which she is thrown from the jet nozzles into the hot tub.
- #013
Katherine Heigl had only 3 days to shoot her scenes, so despite receiving the highest billing among the cast, she has only about 10 minutes of screen time. She was already committed to her TV series Roswell (1999).
- #014
(Around 1 hour 30 minutes) When Adam removes his mask after shooting Dorothy, there is a bruise on the left side of Dorothy's head that was not there when she argued with Kate (the last time Dorothy appears on screen). This is a hint that someone knocked her out and set her up.
- #015
(Around 1 hour 19 minutes) In one scene, Kate tells Dorothy that her boyfriend Adam Carr (David Boreanaz) is "no angel." This is of course a reference to Boreanaz's hit series Angel (1999).
- #016
(Around the 22nd minute) The language Benita Ha speaks with Jessica Capshaw in their scene is Cantonese.
- #017
(Around 28 minutes) The "worms in the candy" scene featuring Lily Voight was inspired by a childhood incident of Don Coscarelli's, in which he saw his father eating candy in the dark and suddenly began spitting it out because it was full of ants.
- #018
Body count: 9 (Shelly Fisher, Lily Voight, Gary Taylor, Campbell Morris, Dorothy's Maid, Ruthie Walker, Detective Vaughn, Paige Prescott, Dorothy Wheeler).
- #019
Although Adam is the killer, the masked killer was played by stunt performer Marshall Virtue, who is not credited in the titles.
- #020
(Around the 37th minute) While Kate and Adam sit at the bar, Kate mentions that Gary is creepy around her, is always near her and gives her dirty looks. In the next scene, in Kate's apartment (around 48 minutes), the killer finds Gary at his home and beats him to death. These two scenes are a fairly strong hint that Adam is the Cupid killer, because Adam was the only one who knew Kate was uncomfortable around Gary.
- #021
The opening cadaver that Katherine Heigl tears apart (at roughly the 6-minute mark) is played by a production assistant named Chad Barager.
- #022
Jamie Blanks said that if he could do everything over again, he would reduce the film's cheap scares and its overall humor.
- #023
The Cupid mask worn by one of the partygoers in the prologue, which Kate later finds in her apartment, is a red herring: the killer never wears it at any point in the film (for one thing, the mask has no back and is fastened to the wearer's head with a strap, whereas the killer's mask covers the entire head).
- #024
Lily Voight's role was expanded to suit Jessica Cauffiel's abilities.
- #025
It is one of the few theatrical films to feature a female narrator.
- #026
Many outlets incorrectly reported the film's budget as being in the range of 20 million dollars. The film's actual budget was about 10 million dollars, which required most of it to be shot in Canada.
- #027
The studio initially considered Jared Leto for the role of Adam (he had appeared with Alicia Witt in Jamie Blanks's previous film, Urban Legend (1998)) and chose David Boreanaz instead.
- #028
Luke Wilson and Jeremy Sisto were considered for the role of Adam Carr.
- #029
In the original cut of the film, Kim Wheeler was killed by the Cherub after she walked in on him dragging a body in Dorothy's house. No such death appears in the final version, and she survives without a scratch.
- #030
At roughly 1 hour 23 minutes, after Kate finds Detective Vaughn's head and walks through the billiard room, the viewer can see Adam coming down the stairs behind her, which explains how he gets behind her when he wants to dance. These are also the same stairs Dorothy brought Kate down; Adam had already knocked Dorothy out and put her in her costume.
- #031
Denise Richards and Katherine Heigl have the least screen time of the five lead women, yet they receive top billing.
- #032
David Boreanaz and Marley Shelton, who shared the same manager at the time, became close friends on the film's set. They are still in touch today.
- #033
At roughly the 36-minute mark, Ruthie tells Campbell to watch his back. She dies when an axe is buried in her back.
- #034
Marley Shelton would go on to appear as Judy Hicks in two other slasher films, Scream 4 (2011) and Scream (2022).
- #035
Denise Richards was cast in the film without having to audition for the role.
- #036
David Boreanaz and Jessica Capshaw would work together again in Bones (2005), playing former lovers raising a son.
- #037
The original script deals with Jeremy's situation in more detail. It strongly implies that Jeremy was the one behind the fire that killed his parents, while the finished film only touches on that possibility. The script nevertheless reveals that even his family background was unhappy, as his father was a drunk and his mother was rumored to have abused him. Jeremy continued to have trouble with the law even after being treated as a juvenile delinquent, and spent further years in various clinics as a result.
- #038
Jessica Cauffiel's character Lily is preparing to leave for Los Angeles the day after her murder. In Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), Cauffiel's character was also planning to go to Los Angeles the day after her murder.
- #039
Richard Kelly was initially offered the chance to direct, but he turned the offer down.
- #040
Valentine is one of two slasher films directed by Jamie Blanks that center on a killer seeking revenge against the main heroine. The first of the two was Urban Legend (1998).
- #041
(At about 1 hour 29 minutes) The clue that the person wearing the killer's costume is not Jeremy/Adam is how they lunge at Kate near the end of the film. Throughout the film the killer never moves faster than a steady walk, yet the person who attacks from the closet rushes at Kate quickly.
- #042
Jessica Cauffiel was cast in the film after her work on Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000). Jamie Blanks had previously directed the first film, Urban Legend (1998).
- #043
After Dorothy is shot and killed while wearing the killer's costume, a theory emerged that Dorothy was also a killer working independently of Jeremy, and that she was responsible for the deaths of Campbell, Millie and Ruthie, who had less to do with the revenge plan than Shelley, Lily, Paige and Dorothy. Gary and Detective Vaughn are unsure who killed them; the scene with Kate and Adam at the bar points more to Adam, and Vaughn could have been killed by Jeremy or Dorothy. A deleted scene shows that the intended effect was not Dorothy being caught off guard by the killer, but the killer dressing her in the costume to frame her for his crimes (which explains why Dorothy has no bruise on the left side of her face while arguing with Kate, yet later has one), though the scene was apparently cut because it was a gift.
- #044
(At about 1 minute) Except for Dorothy and Kate, the order in which Jeremy initially speaks to the girls is the order in which they are killed.
- #045
Hedy Burress (Ruthie) first auditioned for the role of Dorothy, which went to Jessica Capshaw. Jessica Cauffiel initially auditioned for the role of Paige, which went to Denise Richards.
- #046
The first version of the screenplay has the same plot but differs significantly from the film's theatrical cut. In this version Kate is named Jennifer. Detective Vaughn is actually a woman named Cindy, though she meets the same gruesome fate. The only missing character is Kate's perverted neighbor, who was added to the shooting draft to emphasize Jeremy's jealousy of Kate. All the death scenes were much more detailed and extended. In the finished film the murders are brief and less bloody. Another major difference is that both Dorothy's father and his young second wife die in this draft, while their fates are left ambiguous in the film. At the climax of the original draft, Jennifer (Kate) was to have an elaborate chase scene through the mansion while trying to escape the Cupid killer. While hiding in a closet, she horrifically discovers the two hanged bodies of the Wheelers. Although they were supposed to be on vacation, their off-screen deaths mean the Cupid killer was hiding in the house (after sending Campbell away) and reached the Wheelers before they left.
- #047
Jeremy Melton's leitmotif consists of a series of dissonant piano notes in a high register. This theme (in minor) is heard most notably in the opening titles, in every scene where the menacing Valentine is received, in the scene where Dorothy explains that she lied about Jeremy, in the scene where a rose appears beside Paige while she sits in the hot tub, and at the end of the film when it is revealed that Adam has been Jeremy all along.
- #048
(At about 1 hour 9 minutes) When Ruthie strikes the Cupid killer with a pool cue, the stunt double nearly suffered a concussion because the cue was not designed to break.
- #049
Katherine Heigl disowned the film, claiming she hated it. She did not read the entire screenplay before accepting the role, only the scenes featuring her character. In a 2005 magazine interview, she said that after seeing the final cut she regretted her decision to appear in the film.
- #050
Both Katherine Heigl and Jessica Capshaw appeared on ABC's Grey's Anatomy (2005). Heigl's character, Izzie, never shared any screen time with Capshaw's character, Arizona Robbins. Heigl's character was also a medical student, just like Izzy Stevens on Grey's Anatomy. In this film, too, the two actresses shared no screen time.
- #051
Jamie Blanks had wanted cinematographer Rick Bota for Urban Legend (1998), but scheduling did not work out, so he asked for him again on this film. The studio told him that Bota had in fact been offered the chance to direct the film, but Blanks persuaded him to shoot it with him instead. Bota made his directorial debut with Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002).
- #052
(At about 30 minutes) Max's assistant Amy says she is having trouble with the video playback. Although it is an excuse to get Max into a make-out session, the slideshow cuts out at the exact moment Lily gets lost in the maze and is shot by the killer, implying that she had something to do with the interruption.
- #053
Katherine Heigl and Adam J. Harrington, who play romantic interests in the film, also share a scene in the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth (2009).
- #054
Although the film is titled "Valentine" and is set around that time, it did not open in cinemas in the director's home country of Australia until May 2001.
- #055
Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw) is briefly hinted to be an angel, a red herring, even though she had already received the creepy Valentine's Day card.
- #056
The project first started at Artisan Entertainment with producer Dylan Sellers, a different director and a different cast, one of whom was Tara Reid.
- #057
During filming, Jessica Capshaw became genuinely good friends with Denise Richards and David Boreanaz, and she still keeps in touch with them to this day.
- #058
In the film's first cut, Dorothy's father and stepmother are found dead in a closet in the third act.
- #059
The Seven Deadly Sins: Kate's friends and their significant others. Dorothy is Envy; she admits to being angry at her friends and stepmother because when she was alone, everyone wanted to hang out with them. Paige is Pride; a Proud Beauty who takes every opportunity to show off, shrugs off death threats, and pours hot wax on Brian's dick because he proved she didn't meet his standards. Lily is Gluttony; she's a boring hedonist who doesn't watch what she eats. Shelley is Sloth; although she's the most ambitious, she apparently postponed her medical examination and thinks nothing of what happened to Jeremy. Campbell is Greed; he's just a Gold Digger interested in Dorothy's money. Max is Lust; he invited Lily and her assistant Amy for a threesome and tried to kiss Kate. Adam is Wrath; the entire plot happens because of Kate's personal vendetta against her friends, which also costs many other lives along the way.
- #060
The film's trailer is one of the few in which the narrator is voiced by a woman.
- #061
Dorothy's car is a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL [R129].
- #062
This film killed David Boreanaz's big-screen career. His television career survived unscathed when he moved straight to Bones (2005) right after Angel (1999) was cancelled, but all his subsequent films went direct-to-video in the US.
- #063
Marley Shelton appeared in Scream 4 (2011) alongside Neve Campbell, who had worked with Denise Richards in Wild Things (1998).
- #064
Adam's car is a 1968 Ford Mustang.
- #065
Caroline Chan's debut.
- #066
Five friends: Lily (Sanguine), the ambitious and sexually forward-thinking Paige (Choleric), the nervous and insecure Dorothy (Melancholic), the level-headed and kind-hearted Kate (Phlegmatic), and the neutral Clever Brunette Shelly (Eclectic).
- #067
Years after this film's release, Katherine Heigl and Denise Richards appear together again in Knocked Up (2007). In that film, Heigl's character helps Seth Rogen's character find the time of Denise Richards's nude scene in Wild Things (1998).
- #068
Ten years later, Marley Shelton appeared in another slasher film, Scream 4 (2011), alongside Neve Campbell, who coincidentally shares a birthday with Hedy Burress (Ruthie), both born on October 3, 1973.
Continue through the archive
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb kaydı
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work