A bloody, good throwback.
Director: Patrick Lussier
Notable Cast: Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Betsy Rue, Edi Gathegi, Tom Atkins, Kevin Tighe, Megan Boone
With its goofy lingering on its gory, in-your-face murders, corny dialogue and cheesy one-liners, My Bloody Valentine 3D does its ‘80s source material proud. Only a slasher flick could utilize 3D technology to its full over-the-top potential and truly embrace the format for what it is: a throwback to gimmicky, midnight movie going.
It doesn’t hurt that the premise of My Bloody Valentine 3D could stand alone in delivering maximum camp: the mining town of Harmony is terrorized by the specter of a disgruntled miner who went on a killing spree 10 years prior. The original was a knockoff of a knockoff as it was and a remake of something so decidedly old fashioned as a slasher movie set on a specific holiday seems quaint compared to today’s horror standards.
Naturally, that is what makes My Bloody Valentine 3D so much fun. The filmmakers understand that they are offering a slice of nostalgic drive-in style horror/comedy and doing it in 3D helps them to get fully into the proper mindset. Inevitably, modern movie tastes (read “the big reveal” and “the killer comes from within”) spoil some of the fun, but overall the experiment is a wild success.
Credit director Patrick Lussier for knowing how to pace the film and properly exploit old tricks of the genre while introducing new ways to scare audiences by using played out techniques. Something jumping out from off screen hasn’t been scary for years, but Lussier defies viewers not to jump when some person or object comes directly at them from out of nowhere. And really what better murdering tool to give viewers ultimate frights from onscreen, offscreen, in three dimensions, and in two than a pickaxe?
Much like everything else in My Bloody Valentine 3D the pickaxe seems antiquated when compared to the standard bearers of today, but that is again what makes the whole film work. In seemingly every aspect the movie seems gritty, low-budget, and out-dated except that it is filmed with a pristine and revitalized gimmick.
Perhaps the world wasn’t clamoring for bloody appendages flying off the screen or gruesome candy boxes filled with larger-than-life human hearts jutting out into the theater, but one certainly cannot say it isn’t fun. For those who never wondered what a small town murder spree would look like shot in three dimensions, there will always be Disney movies in 3D. For the rest of us there is My Bloody Valentine 3D.
