My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)
"Nothing says 'date movie' like a 3D ride to Hell!"
Rated R / Color / 101 Minutes

WARNING: THIS CAPSULE REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Every time I see a trailer for a new remake, I groan out loud, and spout obscenities toward "those unoriginal Hollywood bastards." I am not completely against remakes, for there are plenty of good ones to be found (i.e. The Blob, John Carpenter's The Thing, Cronenberg's The Fly), but I do yearn for something new and fresh to come out of Tinseltown for a change.

For the most part, I haven't been a big fan of recent remakes, for the majority of them fail to capture what made the original so entertaining and compelling. (Admittedly, nostalgia plays a large role here.) However, I am happy to announce that the 3D remake of 1981's My Bloody Valentine is friggin' amazing! Not only did it meet my high expectations, but it surpassed them, and resulted in a fantastically fun time at the movies.

The film opens with an accident at Hanniger Mine, which is located in small town called Harmony. Due to an oversight on young Tom Hanniger's part, a handful of miners are caught in a methane gas explosion that traps them underground. When the lone survivor is rescued, it is discovered that he murdered the rest of his coworkers in order to conserve oxygen.

Soon after his rescue, said survivor, a one Harry Warden, goes into a comatose state. Harry remains in his coma for a year, then inexplicably awakens on the eve of Valentine's Day and goes on a killing spree.

After getting twenty-two confirmed kills, Harry Warden's reign of terror is ended by Sheriff Burke (Tom Atkins!), who arrives just in time to rescue Tom Hanniger (who was left to die by longtime rival, Axel Palmer). Burke puts a few bullets into Harry, who runs off into the mine, never to be seen again. The film then skips ahead ten years to the anniversary of the Saint Valentine's Day massacre. The town has tried to move on, but trouble starts brewing once Tom Hanniger returns home from a long absence.

Tom intends on selling his (deceased) father's mine, which makes him pretty unpopular around the small mining community. Even worse, the poor guy's love interest, Sarah Mercer, is now married to Axel Palmer, the a-hole that left Tom to fend for himself against Harry Warden ten years ago. Things quickly go from bad to worse for Tom when he becomes the main suspect in a slew of murders that were committed by a mysterious, pickaxe-wielding figure in mining gear.

The tension between Tom and Axel begins to boil over because the latter believes that the former is trying to win back Sarah. If you're like me, you'll probably be cheering for Tom to win back the love of his life, because Axel is such an unrelenting prick. He cheats on Sarah with a local hottie named Megan, treats his wife like dirt, and seems to grow more mentally unbalanced as the film progresses.

In the meantime, the (quite possibly) resurrected Harry Warden continues to dole out violent vengeance from the grave. What's neat about some of Harry's bloody handiwork is that some of the kills are reminiscent of those seen in the 1981 classic. (e.g. Each film features the discovery a tumble-dried corpse.) And, interestingly enough, moments after Harry strikes, either Tom or Axel suddenly show up at the scene of the crime.

Could one of them be the killer, or is Harry Warden really alive? Well you are just going to have to go see this movie to find out, because I don't want to ruin the nice little twist it delivers at the climax. (Yeah, how infuriating is that? I usually spill the beans, but not this time folks. However, I will mention that this film sets things up for a sequel.)

I've always felt that Harry Warden deserved a spot in the pantheon of other horror "heroes" like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger. A lot of folks seem to think that the murderous miner should have become an icon of slasher cinema, but for some reason, the creepy gas-masked killer never caught on. (Adam Rockoff, writer of Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film speculates that Harry Warden was cheated out of his icon status, simply because we saw the killer's face in the original film.)

That may all change now that a new generation has seen what kind of horrific damage a pickaxe can do to the human body. The film's resident slasher puts his trusty tool to good use: Harry's pickaxe is buried in the skulls of numerous folks plus he uses it to "mine" his victim's hearts from their chest cavities, and at one point, he even uses it to tear off a man's jaw!

And bear in mind, this is all in glorious 3D, so pickaxes, gun barrels, limbs, and other assorted objects are leaping off the screen and into your face! Is it gimmicky? Absolutely. Is it well done? Without a doubt. And with that all said, is the movie even worth watching in 2D? Well, seeing it in 3D is, hands down, the way to go, but the movie is made well enough that it could easily hold its own sans the 3D effects.

The film is carried along by an able cast, a convoluted but interesting storyline, and of course, a smattering of gore. And since we're on that subject, I have to say that this is probably the most violent film I've seen at the cinema in some time (well, since Punisher: War Zone anyway), and I'm still pretty shocked at how much director Patrick Lussier got away with here.

Even more shocking is the inclusion of full frontal female nudity, which is immediately followed by a nearly four-minute chase sequence where actress Betsy Rue runs from her attacker while only wearing a pair of high heels. How can you not love this film?!

My Bloody Valentine 3D is a fun throwback to the slasher flicks we all grew up watching. It makes no apologies for what it is, and veers away from being a parody of the film(s) it is trying to emulate. But the big questions is how does this movie stack up against its predecessor?

Well, the original My Bloody Valentine is a classic in its own right, and is in my opinion, much more atmospheric than the 3D remake. Also, a good chunk of the original took place within the haunting Hanniger Mines, and took advantage of the claustrophobically labyrinthine setting. And if I may say so, the original film provided a more shocking, if not a more satisfactory ending. On the other hand, the remake is a far more energetic film, and the fact that it is presented in 3D gives it an edge over the 1981 classic.

Overall, I'd have to say that the original film is a better movie, but the remake is more fun to watch. With that said, I am (for the time being) going to give My Bloody Valentine 3D:


- FOUR 'RADS' -

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