Harry Warden

Harry Warden
My Bloody Valentine character
Harry in the opening scene of My Bloody Valentine (1981)
Created by	Stephen Miller
Portrayed by	Peter Cowper
Classification	Mass murderer
Signature weapon	Pick axe

Harry Warden is a character from the My Bloody Valentine films. He appears in George Mihalka's My Bloody Valentine and Patrick Lussier's My Bloody Valentine 3D as one of the main antagonists. Despite the My Bloody Valentine films not launching a franchise, Harry Warden has gained a cult status in the horror genre despite only appearing in two films. In the films, the killers including Warden, presume the identity of The Miner.^[1][2]

Appearances

Film

In the original My Bloody Valentine, Harry first appears inside a mine shaft, with a female miner that performs a strip tease and fondles with his breathing tube. Harry brutally kills her with a mining pick. When the town's police chief Jake Newby receives an anonymous box of Valentine chocolates containing a human heart and a note warning that murders will begin if the dance proceeds he checks the mental institution where Harry Warden was incarcerated, but they have no record of him. It is later revealed that the murders were done by the young miner Axel who witnessed his father (being one of the supervisors) being murdered by Harry Warden when he was a child and was since traumatized by the event ever since.

In My Bloody Valentine 3D, on the Valentine's Day of 1997, a cave-in on the north side of a Hanninger mine trapped six miners. Several days later, rescue teams found five dead miners and Harry Warden, who survived by killing the other miners with a pickaxe, allowing himself to breathe. Exactly one year later, Warden wakes from his coma in the hospital, and goes on a murderous rampage. Soon after, Sheriff Burke arrives, finding multiple mutilated bodies and the heart of a nurse inside a candy box. Burke assumes that Warden had awoken from his coma and attempts to figure out where he's headed. Meanwhile, a party is thrown at the abandoned mine shaft that was the site of the disaster, attended by many teens. After murdering several of the teens. Before he can murder Tom, the last teen in the mine, he is shot by Burke. Ten years later, murders begin happening again leading to speculation that Warden is back. It is revealed that Tom is the killer after developing a split personality from his encounter with Warden.

Reception

The character has been generally well received. Matt Molgaard of Horror Freak News praised the character saying:

"You know, it really doesn’t matter who sports the mask of the Miner: be it Harry Warden, Tom Hanniger, or Billy Crystal: it’s all about the sense of inescapable dread that sinks to the bottom of the stomach the moment that mask earns screen time. Of all the legendary masks horror freaks discuss on a regular basis (Myers, Voorhees, Ghostface, etc., etc.), this one is certainly one of the more frightening to behold. The odd thing is I can’t even fully explain why that is. Perhaps it is better that I don’t over-analyze things and just respect the Miner and his mask for what they are: kick ass, top notch additions to the genre! Don’t bypass the 2009 remake simply because you’re a purist: it’s awfully entertaining and sports one of the most awkward (therefore must-see) nude scenes I’ve seen in 31 years!"^[3]

Matt Whitfield said:

"In addition to hairless cats, seafood buffets, and John Boehner, my biggest fears are serial killers, gas masks, and the threat of being trapped underground. Yet, for reasons I can't explain, I still chose to screen 1981's "My Bloody Valentine" -- which features a gas mask-sporting serial killer murdering teens in a mine shaft -- during a sleepover for my 13th birthday party. Needless to say, I didn't get any rest that night (nor did any of my guests), thanks to recurring visions of impaled bodies, the unnerving sound of distorted breathing ringing in my ears, and an overall feeling of claustrophobia (perhaps the suffocation factor had something to do with my sleeping bag, hmmm…). To this day, the Canadian slasher still scares the hell out of me (the 2009 remake, not so much), but I'm actually considering screening it once again, this time for my 33rd birthday party in a few weeks. Twenty years may have passed, but Harry Warden and his trusty pickax is still guaranteed to give me nightmares."^[4]

References

External links

• Harry Warden at the Internet Movie Database