Directed by: Patrick LussierStarring: Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith
Other Actors of Note: Tom Atkins
Plot: Tom (Ackles) returns to his hometown on the tenth anniversary of the Valentine's night massacre that claimed the lives of 22 people. Instead of a homecoming, however, Tom finds himself suspected of committing the murders, and it seems like his old flame (King) is the only one will believes he's innocent. Taken from www.imdb.com.
Ever since the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" came out I've been saying that rather than pissing people off by remaking good movies that the industry should instead remake bad movies and it took nearly five years but Hollywood seems to have finally taken the hint. Now we've got remakes of "My Bloody Valentine", "Friday the 13th", "Night of the Demons", and "Last House on the Left." At this rate I expect a remake of "Chopping Mall" in 2015.
You see, a good movie has lots of die-hard fans that love it so naturally even a good remake will never be able to live up to the original, but a bad movie is perfect for remakes as it won't piss anybody off except the psychopaths who are stupid enough to refer to them as "masterpieces."
The original "My Bloody Valentine" was a cash-in on the holiday slasher movie trend of the era and seeing as Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Mother's Day, and Friday the 13th were taken they picked from the remaining holidays of Easter, Thanksgiving, The 4th of July, Valentine's Day, and Arbor Day and decided that Valentine's was the least retarded one left.
You'll note that Easter ("Peter Rottentail"), Thanksgiving (Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" trailer), and the 4th of July ("Uncle Sam") have been done but Arbor Day remains sadly lacking in the gigantic psychotic deformed retard with an axe category.
Now "My Bloody Valentine" wasn't a "good" movie by a longshot, even the recent release that features all the additional gore effects and cut scenes is at best blissfully mediocre. The good is that it has an iconic killer (a miner in a gas mask with a pickaxe), a memorable kill (a woman in a dryer), and a good scare (a bunch of miners' coveralls on hooks that drop all around a frightened woman as she runs around amongst them, screaming.) Fortunately for fans of the original (and I use the term "fans" lightly) all these things made the transation, and more fortunately than that, nothing else did!
The story remains roughly the same, a bunch of miners get caught in a cave-in because of someone else's mistake (in this film it's Jensen Ackle's Tom, a character in the original which was called TJ) of the 5 men in the mine only one is left alive when they are rescued, that man is Harry Warden (in this version Harry killed the other men to conserve oxygen, in the original it was because they were in there for weeks and he ate them.) Harry then goes on a rampage to get revenge (Original Harry's body count is 2, this Harry's bodycount is 22) and kills a bunch of people with a pickaxe on Valentine's Day. 10 years later on another Valentine's Day a man in a miner suit is killing people, is it possible that Harry Warden has returned?! (*Gasp*)
This movie has the usual cast of teen heart-throbs that plague your average horror movie with their shocking stupidity. But the real surprise is how well they work especially since they have to play their characters in two different time-spans 10 years apart.
First there's Jensen Ackles who plays Tom. I remember Ackles most for his work on "Smallville" where he was bland, unconvincing, and outshined by Allison Mack and Tom Welling. (Which is like saying that you were outrun by a crippled 3-toed sloth.) Jensen is honestly one of the finer parts in the movie. In the prologue of the story he comes across as a dumb kid which doesn't sound so remarkable but when you see the character as an adult the contrast is well done. He also does a good job of playing Tom in a manner where you're not sure whether he's the killer or not. At times he seems sane and at times he seems crazy and you believe both equally.
Kerr Smith's transition from teenager to adult works as wel but it's more physical. He opts for a beard and mustache and acts like an even bigger asshole. Apparently in the 10 years since the massacre, Axel has become the Sheriff and I must say I have never hated a hero charcter more. Axel really is a prick and it's easy to see why he's one of the suspects for being the killer.
Jaime King plays Sarah, aka the "last girl" of the movie. She's definitely much more prolific than the original's who mostly just screamed help the entire movie but both versions are just reflections of common trends of the times. Fortunately Sarah's last girl moments only take place in the final 10 minutes of the film.
Anyhow, fuck the Tiger Beats cast, Tom fucking Atkins is in this movie! That's right, Tom Atkins, the man who's played a cop (and died horribly in that role) in just about every movie he's in returns to do the same. Does Atkins do anything new that he didn't do in "Bruiser", or "Night of the Creeps", or "Halloween 3", or "Maniac Cop?" No, but you know what, that's not the point. Atkins gets typcast for a reason, because he's fucking good at what he does and it's good to see him still doing genre films.
Finally let's talk about the miner. The original Harry Warden was some skinny Canadian guy with a beard who we saw out of gear for all of 10 seconds (cause lets be honest, once the killer is shown in their mask and costume the actor becomes a glorified stunt-man.
Well Richard John Walters plays the new Harry and he comes across as a large scary and extremely angry man. You find no trouble in believing that this man would get really pissed and off a small northwestern town. He also plays an intimidating and imposing figure in miner gear.
So here's the question. Is the 3-D gimmicky? I am going to answer that question with another question. Is 3-D ever not gimmicky? No less this is not the old style 3-D where the movie remains normal with the exception of somebody throwing something at the screen every now and then.
Oh don't get me wrong, the audience gets tons of pickaxes flying toward it and gun barrels pointing out at them but the 3D extends to the entire film. It's as if you're actually watching something occur in real-life, there are dimensions and depths to things and it really does make the entire experience different.
As mentioned before the top-shelf gore effects were recycled for this movie. We've lost the guy drowned in boiling water unfortunately as well as the guy hit in the head with a nail gun (which never really made sense in context to begin with) but the pickaxe that goes through the back of a man's head and comes out the other side with his eye on the tip remains, as doe the woman in a dryer, and it's also the first movie to ever show the skewering of a midget with a pickaxe.
For all intents and purposes "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" takes what the original did and ups the ante. Instead of through clumsy flashback the opening is told through newspaper clippings and audio clips and evidence photos with our first peek at actual footage being Harry Warden waking up really pissed off. This works better but I don't think anything will ever beat the original film's exposition of Harry screaming bloody murder as soon as the light from the search and rescue team hit his face and knawing on a severed human leg like it's a chicken drumstick.
The story is typical paint by numbers slasher film. (The wronged man seeking revenge slasher film, not the large muscular deformed man-child killing people just 'cuz slasher film.) The movie tells you who the killer is in the first 30 minutes and then spends the rest of the film pitching red herrings at you like a trainer at Sea World. Admittedly one of the aformentioned acquatic creatures is actually really convincing and the exposition of it is rather bullshit. I'm told that several different endings were filmed and I wouldn't be surprised if the one they went with wasn't the one in the script. I'm sure the DVD will tell all.
This movie also features the longest nude scene in a movie probably ever, I think more than porn. Betsy rue spends roughly 15-20 minutes on-screen without a stitch of clothing. Do you hear that? That's the sound of this movie single-handedly topping the 80s.
Don't come into this movie expecting anything more than a good time at the movies. But then again if you come into a 3-D movie expecting more than cheap fun then you need your head exhamined anyway.
I give "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" a 5 out of 5. If you can see it in 3D, do see.
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