Review: ‘My Bloody Valentine 3-D’

Jeremy:

Horror fans rejoice!   The blood-soaked sensibilities of the slasher films of the ’80s and the state-of-the-art technology of modern filmmaking have finally collided.   ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’ is the latest movie to be churned out by the Hollywood remake machine, and it wears its rehashed badge like a medal of honor.   It’s an unabashed gorefest that quite literally throws everything at its audience.   Body parts.   Blood.   Gratuitous nudity.   All the trimmings that made the ’80s slasher films such financial successes are found here, and they’ve all been updated in glossy, innovative fashion.

The story is really secondary to all the stylized bloodshed.   Someone dressed up as a miner is throwing pickaxes into people’s heads left and right.   Who is the killer?   Is it the young man who returns home after years of being absent?   Is it the young sheriff who has a less than amicable temperament? Is it the man who dressed up as a miner ten years prior, killed dozens of teenagers, and was believed to have been killed by the police?   Once you see the first eyeball flying at you, you really lose interest as to who the killer is and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

With movies like ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’, the cardinal rule is to never be boring.   ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’ never even threatens with slowing down.   In the film’s first 15 minutes, we get a whole feature film worth of story.   It’s almost jarring how quickly the killings start.   The story then jumps ahead 10 years to slow down and let us get used to some of these characters before they get pickaxed, as well.   You can tell the people involved with the film (director Patrick Lussier and screenwriters Todd Farmer and Zane Smith) really love their horror.

It’s not available in 100% of the theaters ‘My Bloody Valentine’ is playing in, but you should really make an effort to see it in 3D if you’re going to see it at all.   The film takes the gimmick and flaunts it like it won it in a contest.   When you see the bullets, tree limbs, and body parts flying at the screen in 2D, the only thing you think is how cool it must have looked in 3D.

Lussier and crew never miss an opportunity to throw something at the screen, either.   There are even some creative mirror and window effects used, even though most of the gory gags in 3D have been done time and time again.   It doesn’t make it any less fun, though.   The core audience for this film are people too young to have seen ‘Friday the 13th 3’ in theaters, so the flying eyeball gag doesn’t seem as recycled as it actually is.   The special effects are pretty blatant CG, but the enthusiasm with which they are used covers the poor quality fairly well.

The film even offers up some surprisingly genuine scares.   Most of the thrills found in ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’ are of the jump-out-at-you variety.   There’s very little in the way of creepiness or prolonged suspense, but the people behind this know their horror.   They know when the right moments are get their audience.   There are even times in the film where typical horror filmmaking has told us something is about to jump at us but nothing does.   It’s always satisfying to see an audience jump and scream at absolutely nothing.

All the acting is above average.   Most of the cast is made up of the pretty people you find in this type of film any more, but most of them also serve up decent performances.   Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, and Kerr Smith all do fine.   Smaller roles are given a lot of weight by actors like Kevin Tighe and Ed Gathegi.   After a long time away from the big screen, it’s great to see the reappearance of Tom Atkins, an actor whose name in the opening credits actually drew a round of applause from the showing I was at.

In the age of horror remakes, it’s always refreshing to see one whose execution transcends any conventionality it may incorporate.   ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’ is a movie that knows exactly what its purpose is, and it never tries to be anything more.   Never embarrassed by the gore it throws at us, it’s a film that fans of the genre will be eating up.   You know full well whether or not you are the kind of person who would enjoy something like ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’.   If you do, than you are sure to have a great time watching people get shredded through and ducking every time a pickax gets thrown at your head.

[Overall: 4 stars out of 5]