CUPID *** UK 2020 Dir: Scott Jeffrey. 83 mins
It’s teen bullying gone wrong in Scott Jeffrey’s Valentine’s Day-set bloodbath, Cupid. Faye is a lovesick high schooler who has a crush on her teacher while her mother dates the father of her arch enemy, Elise. Infuriated by this, Elise and her friends torture Faye, who also happens to be a witch. To get back at them, Faye uses black magic to summon Cupid, an arrow-wielding demon who spends Valentine’s Day slaughtering Faye’s classmates and teachers one by one.
Cupid is your classic slasher film with a supernatural, mythological twist. It draws vague comparisons to Carrie and Halloween but misses the charm and atmosphere of those classics. The effects aren’t bad for a low budget slasher, and the gore factor is even more impressive. The story is tight, and the acting is passable. I would have liked to have seen more from our hero, Faye, who spends the third act mostly standing around and reacting to the other characters in the film when it is she who has the power to halt Cupid’s target practice before he kills another classmate. But maybe this is just because she’s already learned the moral of the story: don’t fight fire with fire.
Review by Laura Smith