On Halloween, a slasher film shot in Sydney Mines 4 decades ago is remembered fondly

It's something Ida Donovan will never forget.

Released in time for Valentine's Day 1981,My Bloody Valentine is a Canadian slasher movie directed byGeorge Mihalkaand shot on location in Sydney Mines, N.S.

In the film, residents of ValentineBluffs in reality Sydney Mines attend a Valentine's Day dance and are terrorized by a killer in a gasmask.

Over 40 years later, Glace Bay's Donovan, now 74, has fond memories of the film crew coming to town.

Donovanwas an extraalong with her husband and her five children.

She said learned from a local theatredirector that a horror movie was being shot in town and they were looking for a young boy to play the murderer when he was a child.

Her son was six years old at the time.

"And so we went over there with just him, and they tested him and talked to him, and they fell in love with him and said he was perfect for the part and they didn't interview anybody else after that," Donovan said.

She said when the film's director heard that she was intheatreshe was offered a part.

Eventually, her four girls were given parts as extras and, because they were looking for coal miners, her husband an actualcoal miner was given a part as well.

Children excited

Donovan said the family had a great time, getting to eat with other members of the crewand meeting new people.

She said her children were excited to be involved. Becausethey were used to being with her backstage when she performed, they knew it wasn't reality.

"They knew that this wasn't a real sword and all that kind of stuff.," she said. "They weren't actually scared because they knew it was justa movie."

They didn't have much of a sense of the plot while filming, she said, but the family eventually saw the film when it was released and "had a good laugh."

Big deal

According to Donovan, having a film shot in Sydney Mines was a big deal at the time.

Donovan said people came from all over Cape Breton tosee what was happening.

"You couldn't get a seat in a restaurant or anything because everything was filled with people buying stuff and eating and walking the streets."

Donovan and her husband and children went on to have parts in 1984's The Bay Boy, Daniel Petrie'sfilm about growing up in Glace Bay.

She said she has been in about 20 other feature and short films since her debut in My Bloody Valentine.

A classic

Michael MacDonald, a communications professor at Cape Breton University who also played the villain in the 2011 low-budgethorror film The Psychotic Forest Ranger,said My Bloody Valentine is a classic that "holds up to the test of time" for many reasons.

He said the character of thekiller is never out of costume and could be anyone, and seeing things through the killer's perspective adds to the disconcerting nature of the film.

"The effects were sophisticated for its day," he said. "There were practical effects likea miner's pickaxe coming through someone's eyes andseeing the eyeball and other gross things like that."

MacDonald said the film also stood out for introducing things that were not the usual horror movie cliches.

The people killed in the film are not all teenagers, he said, but young adults with jobs.

He said the film is also not as sexist as many other slasher films and only five of the 16 victims are female.

"It's Quentin Tarantino's favourite slasher," MacDonald said. "Some people have said that it's the most criminally underappreciated of the sinister genre."