My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) Review

CLAYTON'S CREEPY CINEMA!

WEEK 5: REMAKES AND REHASHES

My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)

Amid the slew of twenty-first century slasher remakes, a somewhat obscure Canadian flick from the eighties received the remake treatment. I haven’t seen the original, so I don’t know how My Bloody Valentine 3D compares to the original, but I can say this gimmicky rehash demonstrates why slasher movies have gone the way of the VHS tape.

The movie takes place in a small mining town, where on Valentine’s Day in 1997, a cave-in traps six miners and only one comes out alive, because he kills the others, and his son Tom is partly blamed for the disaster. The unconscious miner wakes up a year later and goes on a killing spree, then heads for the mine, where a bunch of teens (including his son) are having a party. The miner massacres a good number of them, and three escape the mine—Tom’s girlfriend, their friend Axel, and his girlfriend—but the miner pursues them. Tom returns, gets injured, and they leave him for dead, but the sheriff arrives and shoots the miner at the last second. The movie then skips ahead ten years. Tom returns to town, having been deeply disturbed by the events of that night and unable to forgive his friends for leaving him behind. Returning at the same time as Tom is the killer in the miner outfit, but it can’t be the same killer as before...can it? The mystery and murders return to the town, and the answer to the question of the killer’s identity is soon answered.

My Bloody Valentine is arguably the best slasher remake in recent years, but it still has a lot of issues and isn’t very scary. It was filmed and screened in 3D, and I can only imagine how awesome it must have looked in theaters. Unfortunately, I watched it at home, and with the crappy cardboard 3D glasses the effect was nonexistent, so I viewed it in 2D. Some of the kills would have been great in 3D, but in 2D they are less remarkable, and it seems the 3D kills were this film’s highlight. That isn’t to say there’s a lack of good gore. Though some of it is lame cgi blood and guts, the practical effects are juicier and look a lot better. Besides gore, many other slasher movie hallmarks are present. There’s lots of nudity, coarse language, and tools being used as weapons. As for the story, it attempts to get creative and has a few big twists, but the biggest problem I had was with the main final twist at the end which revealed the identity of the killer. I can’t talk about it without spoiling it, but it’s the deciding factor that made me not like this movie. If it hadn’t been for that lame twist, I would have enjoyed it more overall. It also ends in a typically over-the-top cliff hanger ending that I’m sure will never be resolved in a sequel.

In terms of modern horror flicks, you could do a lot worse than My Bloody Valentine. It’s really nothing special, but if you want to see a miner going around impaling teenagers with a pickaxe, it should suffice. Anyone seeking a more sophisticated slasher like the original Nightmare on Elm Street or Scream need not apply.