My Bloody Valentine 3-D

• Genre : Horror, Thriller...
• Running time : 101 min.
• Director : Patrick Lussier
  
• Studio : Lionsgate
  
• Screenplay : Todd Farmer, Zane Smith
  
• Cast : Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Betsy Rue, Edi Gathegi..
  

Taking a good look at the two heavily populated cinema 'lives' of the slasher genre, the most striking similarity in both is that they were started by the box office successes of two stand-out features. First Halloween in 78 launched a tidal wave of wannabes that included the much maligned but equally heavily imitated Friday the 13th series. The category had a good run, but eventually lost popularity mid-way through the eighties due to a restriction on gore and a lack of funding and creativity from production teams. Wes Craven's popular semi-parody, Scream from 1996, kicked off yet another major influx that sent the imitations crawling out of the woodwork and on to video-store shelves. Eventually, a lack of originality meant audiences and studios alike gave up on the cycle and it befell a similar fate that had sent its forefathers into obscurity.

There were thirteen years between the death of the Halloween-inspired glory days and Scream's unexpected re-birth, so a believer in destiny may indeed be forgiven for predicting the time is upon us for another run of masked killers and gratuitous gore.



It has been a good few months for fans of the original My Bloody Valentine. Not only have we learned that we will finally be able to see the full uncut version of the original, repackaged on a shiny new DVD with extras, but also we have been treated to this highly financed remake at a time when the category had pretty much sunk to the lowest of depths.

Harry Warden's name lives long in the memories of the townsfolk of a small town in West Virginia after he went on a maniacal killing spree, butchering 22 people on a cold valentine's night. Despite rumors that he was buried alive in the mines that he stalked, the body of the maniac has never been discovered. Fast forward ten years and it seems that the evil has returned, because a gas-masked maniac begins stalking the village and killing everyone that was somehow connected to the original massacre. Has Harry returned?



As the title accurately informs us, a key gimmick for the release of this remake was the fact that it is filmed in explosive 3D. Now many have tried to bring horror into the third-dimension, but the likes of Friday the 13th III, Silent Madness and Freddy's Dead had failed drastically to make the most of an ingenious tool in the creation of supreme virtual terror. So with all that was riding against it, does My Bloody Valentine 3D actually deliver??

Like hell it does! Buckle your seat belts baby and prepare yourself for a speed-train through slasher clichés that has never been taken to such extreme heights. This is a non-stop juggernaut of fast-paced gore and shock tactics that will keep your heart beating at the speed of a Japanese freeway. You can mock the brainless script and the at times overly-gratuitous exploitation, but this is a slasher movie and slasher movies exist to give you two-hours of freedom from the stress of everyday life in a virtual-world where you can leave your brains at the door.



Firstly, the film is immensely gory. So much so that even a hardened old horror-addict like myself was cowering from the screen in places. Pick-axes through faces, dismemberment, eyes popping out of their sockets; and best of all, it's all filmed in fantastic 3D. This is a car-crash of over indulgence that has the balls to drive to the borders of cinematic acceptability and then smash through them with its pedal to the medal. The pace is unrelenting and the suspense at times absolutely immense. Patrick Lussier may not be the next Hitchcock, but MBV 3D is not to be categorized alongside Psycho or Halloween. This is a film that sets out to shock in any way possible and on that level it succeeds. There's one or two tense jump out of your seat jolts and a few credibly created scares that are all the better for the stylish production.

The cast do a good enough job of keeping the plot moving fluidly and the healthy financing means that no expense has been spared in the producer's effort to unleash total mayhem on audiences. Jamie King takes us back to the Laurie Strode/Ginny Field era of brave heroines, but somewhat authentically, she also has huge character flaws. The story shares much with its predecessor and Lussier also re-uses many of the scenes that made Mihalka's hit so memorable. This may well be the first slasher remake that actually pays credit to its heritage and unlike Rob Zombie's insulting Halloween re-hash, MBV 3D can sit comfortably alongside its grandfather.



It's not fashionable to give a slasher movie a good review and I can see without looking the piles of one-star write-ups that are cluttering up column-space in the self-righteous brigade's film magazines. I bet that Egbert is having a field day ripping this particular movie to shreds. Agreed, this is not an intellectual film. To be fair, in some places it doesn't even do the basics right and there's some shockingly poor plot holes towards the climax.For a fan of splatter flicks however, this is an hour and a half in paradise and I really enjoyed every moment of this long-overdue gore-soaked extravaganza.

This is not the next Shawshank Redemption and it has no intention of trying to be, so it should be judged on its merits as a gore film and on that level it is everything that you want it to be. Full frontal nudity, buckets of gore and all the things that your mama warned you about rapped up in a tense and riveting thriller with the added bonus of an intelligent twist.



The plot of this horror film is somewhat conventional with Tom Hanniger returning to his hometown in order to heal some past misgivings at the hands of a bloody serial killer. "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," mostly centres on the character of Tom Hanniger, with Sarah and Axel Palmer supporting. Adding enough smaller characters to keep the story complex and creating enough diverging plot lines to keep things tight "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," does a good job of keeping the killer's identity mysterious while piquing viewer's curiosity. Instead of going for a closed box Hollywood ending the film slightly steps it up by leaving the ending open for a sequel. Some of the most successful film franchises come from the horror genre and "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," might be trying to capitalize on future returns by delivering a plot twist that slightly disappoints.

Lighting, environments, and music are all spot on, only the overacting of certain characters distracts from an otherwise excellent horror film. Many of the scenes within "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," take place in darkly lit mine shafts or the interiors of houses, at night and the overall tone feels like a thriller while showing enough gore to entertain horror fans. The music in the film is subtle enough while picking up the pace slightly during action sequences. On the other hand, the musical score of "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," could have been much more eerie in order to build up further tension. The acting of Jaimie King comes off as pretentious and somewhat naive while Kerr Smith, appearing to take his role of a small time sheriff a little too seriously displays some awkwardness. The rest of the actors including veterans; Tom Atkins and Kevin Tighe play their smaller parts well; Jensen Ackles, could have taken a darker approach to his character, in order to truly deliver a role of someone who is struggling with the trauma of past brutal events but the portrayal is still good.



Overall "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," delivers an entertaining ride through dark alleys, mine shafts and the evil minds of writers Todd Farmer and Zane Smith. Slightly on the lighter side of the horror genre this film develops enough jump scares, with the help of three dimensional effects to deliver a fun and fast 101 minutes. See this one with a friend and laugh out loud when a 20' branch comes screaming at your head (and try not to duck)!

My Rating

My Bloody Valentine 3-D : 6.5/10