My Bloody Valentine 3-D - Does It Suck Movie Review

The biggest shock of this film is that it's a pretty good horror flick. After the crap that's been passing for horror lately from the studios, this one's a nice suprise..even for a remake.

Naturally, there's the staple crazy violence and gratuitous nudity, and oh yeah, it's in 3-D.

The story pretty much sticks to the original with Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles) returning to his hometown ten years after surviving a vengeful miner’s butchering of almost two dozen people on Valentine’s Day. It isn’t long before he runs into a former old flame (Jaime King) and her husband, who happens to be the town sheriff (Kerr Smith).

As with any good horror film, the problems start when the body count begins repeating history. Tom is the primary suspect naturally and we find a town full of dark secrets waiting to be revealed. With a special effects budget large enough to create a huge array of grisly 3-D murders, no one is safe...not even Tom.

Expect pick axes thrust into the audience along with flames reaching out to you and lots of other killer gags, but the biggest shock for me is that they didn't screw this remake up.

Unlike recent remakes, this story is pretty well-crafted and the actors treat it as such. It feels like the team that made this actually had some respect for the exploitation film that this arose from and had some great fun making it. It's been a long time since I've felt that at any movie. That last one I remember thinking that was Friday Night Lights.

Unlike bad remakes like Black Christmas and The Hitcher, this remake fleshes out the original opening scenes and then takes time for a real plot. Once the body count starts up again, each killing is more brutal than the last and equally creative in both the setup and 3-D bit. My Bloody Valentine doesn’t just setup the next kill so much as glorifies it.

Like the original, the killeris just a guy in a breathing mask with a miner's hardhat and pick axe, little bits of personality come out, like the way he calls his “shots” by leveling his pick at his next intended target, or how he deliberately handles the axe like an expert rifleman. This killer takes his job seriously and you can truly feel it.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D starts swinging wildly and rarely misses the mark. This has had a good beginning at the Box Office already, and I hope that the studios doing remakes take some good notes on how to do a remake the right way. Just don't do it to cash in on a known name, but put some heart into it.

I'm very curious to see how Platinum Dunes does with next month's Friday the Thirteenth remake. That is going to be a tall order since it made no sense to me why anyone would attempt to recreate a classic like Jason...even if he's been turned into a caricature now.

With the opening My Blood Valentine had and the audience reaction, we probably will be seeing a sequel to this mighty 3-D making. I just hope they can keep the momentum that they put into this rightious remake.

This is definitely a solid 3 out of 4 stars.

C Johnson is a filmmaker and writer.
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