Editorials
Extremely Bloody Valentine: Origins of the Holiday
Valentine’s Day is a day for swooning lovers to throw themselves at one another with all the passionate heat of a Hallmark card…or Hallmark movie, for that matter. It’s also a day where lonely hearts find a mutual connection (or call up the guy you went on one date with who you kind-of-sort-of didn’t hate) to spend some quality time with. It’s a day for people who work in the food service industry to angrily decry the whole institution. I mean, it’s just more consumer driven mass-hysteria parading as the perfect date to propose to your loved one (cause it’d be a hard anniversary to forget). Others say it was created by the greeting-card companies with the sole purpose of shoving heart shaped chocolates, cheap cardboard sentiments, and obnoxious “I’m a grown woman, why would I want this?” teddy bears off store shelves, right? That’s all so cynical, though. What exactly are the true origins of this presumably manufactured commercial holiday? It seems they’re far more “bloody” than you might realize.
Feast of Lupercalia
Just as the pagan celebration of Samhain became All Saint’s Day and, eventually, what we know as Halloween, Valentine’s Day has similarly pagan roots. Like most Americanized holidays, we can trace the origins of this particular calendar date back to an ancient hedonistic festival, the Roman Feast of Lupercalia. Running from February 13th through the 15th, Lupercalia was a celebration in worship of Lupercus, the god of fertility. Festivities included lots of drunken revelry, gluttonous portions of food, a “win a date with…” style lottery (more on that below), and all was rounded out with a side of sadomasochism. Maybe the 50 Shades films really are the perfect VD date flicks?
You see, this was really an excuse for dudes to get drunk and butt-naked (oh, you crazy Romans). The festival was overseen by priests known as “Luperci” (translates to “brothers of the wolf”). Come the time of Lupercalia, the priesthood of Luperci would sacrifice a goat or two, anointing that year’s chosen ones with the animal’s blood. They would all then chow down on a feast that included meal-cakes prepared by the Vestal Virgins (think Romanian nuns). After the food settled, strips of flesh would be taken from the sacrificial goats and fashioned into thongs known as “februa” for the chosen Luperci to wear. This was meant to aid the male in purification. He would run through the village assisting the women reach their ultimate goal of childbearing. How’d he do that exactly?
Keep in mind, a februa wasn’t meant solely for the purpose of concealing one’s special bits, it was utilized as a means of physical purification by way of whipping as well. Women of the village would quite literally line up in order to be “blessed” by the Luperci and his flesh-whip. Who needs a pink Valentine’s Day card when you’ve got goat’s skin? The chosen one would strike each woman who offered herself up to be flogged. The hope was this would ensure the female could become pregnant. Those who already were pregnant believed it would facilitate a smooth pregnancy.
Outside of this aggressive display from the machismo patriarchy, there was a lottery too. The young males would be randomly paired with available women of the village. The lotto-couple would then spend the duration of the festival together, getting to know one another…intimately. If the pairing was a match, they could keep kickin’ it. If not, they would go their separate ways. Now tell me that doesn’t sound like Valentine’s to you?
Who the Hell is Valentine Anyway?
Naturally, when the Catholic church came around, they weren’t too pleased with all this tawdry streaking and bed-hopping. In order to try and circumvent the heathens, Pope Galesius, in the year 496, tried to rebrand Lupercalia as Saint Valentine’s Day. Of course, that sounds nice and sweet, but the name was in honor of two Christian martyrs, Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. The two saints were coincidentally executed on the same day, some years apart on, you guessed it – February 14th.
Valentine of Rome’s tale seems especially prescient for the holiday. It seems that Roman Emperor Claudius II stuck a law banning marriage! Yep, it was illegal to tie the knot. His reasoning was that young men would become weak of heart if they were to fall in love, and he needed them strapping young fellas to battle in his army. Valentine believed this to be ridiculous and proceeded to marry young starstruck lovers in secret. It wasn’t really that secret, though, because he eventually got busted. Off with his head!
From there, it was really only a matter of time before poets and playwrights (looking at you, Shakespeare) took all this scattershot mythology and tied it together in one big romantic bow. So, this Wednesday when you’re looking in your partner’s eyes and you whisper “Happy Valentine’s Day,” remember the long trail of blood and goat’s flesh that led to that drug-store box of chocolates in your hand.
Happy V-Day, Fiends!
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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