The Wrong Valentine
And so we've come to the end the road, twenty two Wrong movies done and done. There were highs and lows, peaks and valleys, we learned a lot in these last few months... and probably had a lot of the things we thought we knew destroyed, but the journey has ultimately been a rewarding one, depending on what your definition of what a reward is. Onward with the Wrong Valentine!
They saved the best for last for this one... not the movie so much, but the Wrong House in which this movie takes place because this house is ridiculous.
 |
| Two people live in this house. TWO PEOPLE! |
 |
| But as far as video systems go, this isn't one of the better ones. |
 |
But while they are watching TV as if they were a couple in love, DANGER lurks outside the window wearing a black hoodie. We are going to assume he's the Wrong Valentine.
The next day, Emily heads off to high school but not before her mom gives us some exposition on why they have such a nice house, reason being her dead husband, Emily's dad took great care to provide for them, so she really doesn't have to study and read all the damn time because College is handled no matter what her grades are. She then proceeded to give her daughter a hard time for not being very popular, like she was in high school. Maybe mother's see their daughters differently, but if I had a daughter and all she wanted to do was stay home and read books, that would pretty much the absolute perfect daughter to me. I could not ask for more.
 |
| And later that night it's off to the Honky Tonk! |
And if mom dressed in High School as she does as a grown ass woman, I can see why she was popular.
Now at school Emily attends her History Club class taught by Miss Connelly (Vivica A. Fox) who is very impressed with Emily but wishes she would do more to be more popular, which seems like a strange thing for a teacher to ask of a student, and why are all these people so concerned about Emily's popularity? As soon as Emily leaves, David (Evan Adams) shows up wanting to know how he can be down with the history club, but mostly he wants to make sure that everybody who was in the club on this day, will be in the club tomorrow. David clearly has his eyes on somebody, and Ms. Connelly has her eyes on him.
Later that day Emily and her bestie Michelle (Jacqi Vene) see the hot guy checking them out across the yard and Michelle wanted to know who the heck is that!
 |
| Me? I'm the backup bassist for the Partridge Family. The hair is usually a dead giveaway. |
Emily didn't know who this wild haired child was right then, but she would learn the next day at History club.
 |
| Extensions or all natural like mine? David has questions. |
Ms. Connelly introduces David to the class and sits her right next to Emily because she feels they have a lot in common, such as their love of history and who knows what else they might have in common. That's what Ms. Connelly said. If I didn't know any better I'd swear Emily's history teacher was trying to get this kid laid.
Well it worked because David is now 110% all into Emily. He wants to hang out all the time, they talk history, they go to get coffee at this place...
Which has the peculiar name of 'Office Space for Rent 555-1122', which seems like an odd name for your coffee joint. I thought maybe it was a mistake or something, but later on in the movie there is another coffee meet up with the same establishing shot of Office Space for Rent. Anyhoo, David tells Emily about his dead parents and living alone in his dead grandmas house, and how he can relate to having a dead dad and whatnot. Looks like Emily is starting to fall for this kid. She even invites him to what has to be worlds lamest birthday party, Emily being born on Valentines Day, a party which consists only of Emily's bestie, Emily's mom and now David the psycho. While we are totally opposed to all the people pressuring Emily 'to get herself out there', I will say when I was in high school so many, many years ago, a girl who looked like Emily would easily be one of the most popular girls in said high school. But then again, that was a long time ago. Maybe today's hot girls are the new ugly girls for these modern kids? Hell if I know. Anyway, the party goes great, as great as a four person party can go, and Emily even tries to swoop in and get a Birthday / Valentine's day kiss from David...
 |
| David does want to kiss her, but her mom is seriously right there egging him on. It was uncomfortable. |
But David slides to the side in avoidance. What's up with that David? His mom was 'demure' he tells us. Is that a word a kid would use? Anybody would use? Anyway, no kiss, lame party over but at least Emily's mom is happy that her daughter is finally on the make. Really happy. Despite the lack of a kiss, after David leaves Emily sees him hanging outside the house peeking in the windows. Strange indeed this David.
At History Club the next day the crazy starts getting the better of David it would seem as he demands to see Emily's phone to see who's texting her, then bum rushes another poor boy who asks for Emily's chemistry notes. Not quite sure what David's angle is since he isn't providing any action for Emily, but he doesn't want Emily to get action from anywhere else either. But he is crazy, which is an easy explanation for just about everything. David has also fallen on the bad side of Emily's guidance counselor Mrs. Stein (Meredith Thomas) who doesn't like the way he treats Emily. Careful Mrs. Stein... he's crazy.
Next time we see David...
 |
He's making out with Emily's best friend! Then he goes off on Emily's best friend for allowing him to make out with her! David is crazy. Michelle feels terrible about this and confesses to Emily, and now Emily's friend total has gone from one to zero. The odd thing is that after she angrily kicks Michelle out of her house, David is also in the house. This is about the time David lapses into Full Psycho Mode, having it out with Emily, Emily's mom and just starts overall terrorizing everyone. He totally ruins Emily's USC interview, murders Mrs. Stein...
 |
And trashes Emily's mom's office.
 |
| I've been working on my interior design techniques. I call it Maximum confusion contusion. What do ya think? |
The good thing about the trashed office is that it brings in our favorite Lifetime movie trope, the Worthless Cop.
 |
| Detective Rick is taken aback by all the ways he will be of absolutely no help to these people. |
Ashley knows David did this, but of course there's nothing he can do, there's no evidence, he'll do a bit checking up... bla bla bla... but he will actually be of some use in the not too distant future.
Now it's time for the research portion of the movie where our heroine does some legwork to see exactly who this guy is and what's his deal. This requires Emily to B&E into David's home, which is unlocked, and go through his laptop which is also conveniently unlocked.
 |
| Somebody on staff has to be halfway proficient with Photoshop. This is terrible. |
Now Emily has the lowdown. David is fresh out of the looney bin where he had to go after his super abusive mom committed suicide, a suicide that was bought on by the sudden death of Emily's father, who as it turns out is also David's father! Oh snap!
Armed with these new revelations Emily rushes home to tell her mom, but David knows that Emily was snooping around his crib and he's none too happy about it.
He just wants to be a family, that's all, but they won't let him in and they call the police forcing David to run away. Ashley was concerned that her beyond virginal daughter might've done something or another with David, but Emily assures her that David wouldn't even kiss her. David might be crazy, and he might have a dastardly plan, but at least he's not incest crazy. Respect.
 |
| Emily so wishes her mom would back up. |
 |
| Are you and your mom spooning again? |
He just wants to be a family, that's all, but they won't let him in and they call the police forcing David to run away. Ashley was concerned that her beyond virginal daughter might've done something or another with David, but Emily assures her that David wouldn't even kiss her. David might be crazy, and he might have a dastardly plan, but at least he's not incest crazy. Respect.
The cops show up, including this episodes Worthless Cop and he's pretty sure David won't be coming back, again basing this information on nothing. But just to be safe, he's going hang out outside the house and keep an eye things. And if by 'keeping an eye on things', he meant getting jumped and murked, then that's what he meant. We saw on one of the video cameras that was actually working the cop getting jumped, and I'm only assuming he got murdered because we never saw him again for the rest of the movie.
 |
| Did I mention that a total of two people live in this house? TWO PEOPLE! |
David now has complete control, he has Ashley bound and gagged, and he has a captive audience in Emily because David has a lot to say. Seriously, David goes into Full Talking Killer mode for the next five minutes. He even talks to his gun.
 |
| When he said 'Say Hello to My Little Friend' He Didn't mean it literally. |
David explains his plan, explains why he was so upset with Emily and all the good things she got while all he got was his ass beat. This is why he manipulated his step sister so brutally. She's actually your Half-Sister, David, but whatever. Earlier Ashley tried to assure David that if they had known he existed, his life would've been better, with her working on the GRAND assumption that this husband of hers didn't know about David's knocked up mom, but he's dead so we can make up any narrative we want I suppose. David even prompts Emily to recite what he told her in Vivica's History Club, that being 'Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it'. I mean, I know what it means but what I don't understand is how it applies, at all, to this current situation. Oh that's right... David's karazay. It doesn't need to make sense. David's final play, it would appear, is one last family dinner with the authorities finding three dead bodies. Yes, David's final play is a murder / suicide. That's a terrible final play David, but I guess it does solidify his crazy. Fortunately David's abusive crackhead of a mom never sent him to the Boy Scouts because Ashley has freed herself from his lame tie up job.
 |
| We Whip our Hair back and Forth! |
So while Ashley's choking the shit out of David, the gun slides to Emily. Ashley runs by her daughter's side while David yells at Ashley to shoot him. Forever the good girl, she does as she is asked.
 |
| Emily asked, 'Do you feel Lucky Punk?' David actually said 'no', but she didn't hear that part. |
And so ends the Wrong Valentine, I guess. David fell to the ground but I don't know if he's dead or not. What I do know is that Vivica A. Fox, again appears out of virtually thin air, just after David got shot to say 'girl, Looks like you picked the Wrong Valentine'. Okay, I dig it. We are now at the point in these Wrong Movies where Vivica has to end the movie with the line, but we seriously have to find a better way to make this happen. I mean, imagine something really traumatic has just happened at your house and seconds later your fourth period Social Studies teacher shows up in your living room, uninvited no less, and says 'Looks like you done hired the Wrong Dry Wall Guy!' Then leaves. That's pretty much what happened here. And dammit... it was hilarious. But that doesn't make it okay! They need to find a better way to get Vivica in the scene to say the line is all we're saying.
So we close out the Wrong series, at least up to this point as I'm sure the future is filled with more Wrong coming our way, with one that wasn't too bad. There were some things missing that we have been accustomed to, as there were no shirtless guys doing various exercises in this one, a lack of Wrong Regular actors with the exception of Meredith Thomas, and large hidden cameras stashed in the house were also absent. These later movies have completely drifted away from exploitable grown ass women playing high school chicks, and while Ms. Mariah Robinson has certainly reached some form of physical maturity, kid can't be but a couple years actually removed from high school, if that.
But despite these long standing missing Wrong elements, two things make this movie better than most. One is that David is certainly crazy, and we prefer our Wrong villains to be insane and not just money grubbing villains. I don't know if young Evan Adams can actually act or not, as this is like the young man's first role in anything, but the kid can certainly deliver a line and he does seem legit off his rocker. On top of that, he was forced to give one of the longer talking killer soliloquy's in the history of modern cinema. Plus his hair was a character all unto itself. Also, while we are used to the fractured narratives of these movies, this one had a story that somehow circled back and connected a lot of the loose ends once we find out the little twist. Did the story make sense? Well... kind of... which in of itself is almost unheard of. Four Wrongs!
It doesn't end here though! Keep an eye out for our season ending Wrong Awards!
Comments
Post a Comment