There were three distinct themes that were repeated amongst the cast of the latest horror flick "Valentine" during a recent interview with The Michigan Daily. First off, everyone was really pumped about working with director Jamie Blanks ("Urban Legend"). David Boreanz said that Blanks gives you "the opportunity to kind of evolve from the story what you want to do with your character, it was definitely a great experience."

The second point that kept repeating itself was the fact that "Valentine" is not your average horror film. Since the blockbuster "Scream" a few years back, horror movies have become more "spoofy" as Denise Richards comments, and have a lot more tongue-in-cheek acting. "Valentine" is steering clear from this image.

Blanks, a lover of horror films since seeing "The Fog" when he was a child, was careful to not let "Valentine" become anything short of pure terror. The cast appreciated Blank"s love of film and, as Boreanz states, Jamie is "somebody who is willing to take chances and keep his vision alive and not sacrifice what is needed. He was really adamant about his vision for this film and not having it become the typical slasher film. ["Valentine"] is going back to old school classic horror films."

The third and final recurring theme from the cast was the idea that love hurts. This happens to be the tagline for "Valentine," and the entire cast seemed to identify with it. Everyone seemed to comment on the fact that love and crushes can be wonderful and yet awful and very hurtful at the same time. So, setting all those feelings around the backdrop of a horror film was great.

Katherine Heigl liked to talk about how love hurts. "I thought it was really kind of fun, very scary and very true for so many of us ... we"ve either been the ones picked on or the one picking on someone and this sort of shows the very, hopefully, bad and extremely negative outcome of that kind of behavior."

For many of the cast "Valentine" gave them the opportunity to move beyond their typical roles and play someone a little different. Boreanz, who makes his feature film debut with "Valentine," had fun working with his character and "really enjoyed the humor side."

Boreanz, who typically plays a brooding vampire on the TV show "Angel" appreciated the many parts to his character Adam. "We get a sense of personality from this guy. It was challenging to keep him multi-dimensional rather than stagnant and kind of running the course."

Katherine Heigl also enjoyed breaking free from her role on the WB"s "Roswell." She related to her character, Shelly, in that they both have serious goals and they don"t put up with "a lot of crap" along the way.

However, Katherine said she sometimes found herself having more fun with the horror movie aspect as opposed to the real in-depth character study. "I just really had a good time, my main purpose there was to make the suspense and the thrill and the terror of it very real. The character development kind of went by the wayside."

Marley Shelton was drawn to "Valentine" right away. "I"ve always been attracted to this idea of suspense as an actor and I think it"s very cinematic and I wanted to just experiment with how to create that the power of imagination to convince your senses that you"re in an adrenalized extreme circumstance sounded challenging and cool to me."

Marley was asked what she thought of the fact that she was competing with herself in the box office being that her black comedy "Sugar and Spice" only came out a week before the release of "Valentine." "I guess it"s a good problem to have. I"m not complaining."

Doing a movie set around the holiday of Valentine"s Day brought back a lot of bittersweet memories for many of the actors. Marley Shelton reminisced about her worst Valentine"s Day when she was in junior high school. "I had a huge crush on this boy and we were going to go out on Valentine"s Day. I thought I"d be cute and make him heart shaped brownies. He stood me up. I was so devastated that I could not bear to throw the brownies out. You know you sort of hang on to the hope that he is still going to call or something? I was obsessed with these brownies and like a month went by and finally I tossed them." Wherever that boy is today, I"m sure he regrets his decision to stand up Marley!