Early 80's Slasher Returns To Bore Us In 3D - 'My Bloody Valentine' Review...

Posted on January 26, 2009 - 9:36pm by michael So 3D earned its first wave of popularity as far back as the 1950s, when audiences surely were convinced that they were seeing the movies of the future. Now we are half a century beyond that time and 3D remains little more than a mildly interesting gimmick, and even the most recent movies can't seem to resist stopping in their tracks to give us an effect that made the original 3D audiences scream and duck, thinking things were flying at them from the screen.

It's natural to assume that 3D would be most effective in a horror film, where things like knives and bullets and pick-axes and killers and come stretching toward us from the screen, but sadly it seems that the whole 3D thing might never turn into anything more than a gimmick that, as is the case here, seems primarily needed to cover up tremendous shortcomings in the rest of the movie.

That being said, it's true that the movie is wildly gory, and that some of the killings are actually pretty unique and creative, which is good because until recently 3D was mostly reserved for weak family movies like the recent Journey to the Center of the Earth. I was glad to see 3D in a horror film, particularly one that wasn't afraid to use the effect to intensify some already disturbing death scenes, but the recycled story and slew of ancient horror situations are a little too much to overlook.

[caption id="attachment_20194" align="alignright" width="202" caption="The poster for the completely two-dimensional 1981 version."][/caption]

As you know, My Bloody Valentine is a remake of a 1981 Canadian horror film of the same name which, though largely forgotten today by most people other than the most devoted horror buffs, was actually one of the better ones to come along in the slasher-movie mania of the early 1980s.

The story revolves around a tragic Valentine's Day from years earlier, when a cave-in in the mining town of Harmony resulted in seven men being trapped inside, where six of them were killed by the seventh, a Harry Warden, to conserve the depleting oxygen supply. The cave-in, by the way, was caused by the mine's owner, Tom Hanniger, who left his observation post to go to the Valentine's Day dance. If you've seen Friday the 13th, that scenario might strike you as oddly familiar, but actually it's not until the killings start that the movie takes the traditional 80s horror movie route and stops making any sense whatsoever.

Harry wakes up a year later from the coma he has been in since the killings and makes the logical decision to kill the hospital's staff and then head back to the mine where, get this, the pretty young cast from this movie, including Tom, also happen to be partying the night away. Yeah, I love that. There's nothing to get you going on Valentine's Day than partying it up at the site of a grueling massacre. This is the height of horror movie romance!

So yeah, Harry makes short work of most of them with his trusty pick-axe and is soon shot and left for dead by the town sheriff. Of course, this is a horror movie, so his body goes missing, Tom flees town, only to return ten years later to sell the mine. No points for guessing that the murders pick up again after Tom gets back to town.

[caption id="attachment_20195" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Valentine's Day is all fun and games until someone gets a pick-axe through the jaw."][/caption]

Of course, no one really cares about the intricate plot details of the movie. The story actually has a mildly interesting set-up, but ultimately it devolves into your traditional slasher movie, with every stupid character and idiotic decision that you might expect to see.

One scene, for example, has two hysterical young women trapped in a locked store at night, sure that they are hearing noises in the night and that someone has somehow gotten into the store with them. They creep around, looking down the aisles, until sure enough, the killer shows up wielding his pick-axe to chase them around for a while. And of course, they make it into the back room and one of them slams the door a split-second before the killer smashes into it, and then she pressed her ear against the door so that the pick-axe can come slamming through it inches from her astonished eyes. Clearly she's amazed that the killer would try to break down the door because, like the writer and director but unlike the rest of us, she has never seen a horror movie before.

[caption id="attachment_20196" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Insert your favorite box-of-chocolates joke here..."][/caption]

The second half of the movie moves into the thriller genre as an intricate scheme involving the town sheriffs past and present, Tom, Harry, and a girl named Sarah clouds the issue of who is the real killer after all. This story is padded with cheap horror scenes and gratuitous violence, and while the end of the movie is both an ancient horror construct and thus hugely predictable, it's still a little clever, and admittedly there are moments when it is interesting to see how the whole whodunit portion of the movie will turn out.

It's true that it's almost impossible to see the killer in this movie and not think of one of the old slasher giants like Michael Meyers or Jason Voorhees having traded their William Shatner or hockey mask in for a gas mask and a respirator, but at least the technical aspect of the 3D was pulled off pretty well. It would have been more effective had the majority of the movie not been quite so dark, but there is also a Grindhouse-style over-the-topness that adds a much-needed element of goofiness to the proceedings that allow us to enjoy the gore without finding it disturbing and disgusting, like most of the Saw series or Eli Roth's stupendously crappy film Hostel. There you have horror at its most depraved and brainless.

True, the violence is enormously graphic and there are two scenes that remind me that I just don't like seeing senior citizens get killed with pick-axes (in fact, I worry about anyone who finds either of those two scenes enjoyable on any level), but there is a feeling of excess that goes through the movie to remind us not to take it too seriously.

[caption id="attachment_20197" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="I don't remember the 3D being quite as good as this publicity shot, but it was definitely better than I expected."][/caption]

Unfortunately, part of what reminds us not to take it so seriously is the fact that so much of it is composed of scared people running around with flashlights in the dark while the standard horror movie soundtrack drones on in the background.

Strangely, after such a pervasive lack of originality and repetition of situations and scenes that we've seen in so many horror movies so many times before, it's really the ending that will end up bowling you over with its astonishing dumbness. I won't reveal how the movie ends, so I'll just tell you that not only is the movie's climax an enormous cheat, but it ultimately makes not a lick of sense. It's one of those situations where you might find yourself totally baffled for quite some time afterwards as you try in vain to piece together what actually happened.

Despite all the copious violence, bloodshed and gratuitous nudity (oh I forgot to tell you, there's a lot of nudity in this thing), there is also a sense of honesty that derails any possibility of accusing the movie of tricking audiences into theaters. If you can see a title like "My Bloody Valentine 3D" and you don't know what to expect, then  you have only yourself to blame for any disappointment!



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The Bean-Meter!

My Bloody Valentine has inspired Bean to begin thinking of some kind of rating system to better express his opinions. For the time being, however, suffice it to say that he's unimpressed. He says horror does nothing for him and that this whole 3D thing "doesn't add up to a hill of Beans."

Clever puppy...