Day Late and Dollar Short Review: ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’
Welcome back to another edition of my Day Late and Dollar Short Review series! If this is your first time checking it out, I review movies/games/books/music that may have missed the Fan Fest News radar upon release, or quite possibly even came out before we even existed. Here is my review of 2009’s remake of the 80’s Slasher film, My Bloody Valentine (in 3D!)
I’d like to note that that I worked at a movie theater at the time this was released, and that even though our theater did not get the 3D version, it was shot so well that customers were moving out of the way of swinging pickaxes that weren’t actually coming at them…it was absolutely glorious.
Anyway, on to the movie itself. It starts with a ton of exposition over the credits. In a nutshell: thanks to Supernatural‘s Jensen Ackles’ character Tom Hanniger not bleeding the lines, a cave in occurs trapping six miners. Of those six, one of them named Harry Warden snaps to conserve air and kills the other five(never mind all the extra air he had to use to kill the others). Talk about probably the worst Valentine’s Day of 1997.
One year later,Harry awakes from his coma and proceeds to massacre an entire hospital of staff and patients and heads back to the previously mentioned mine not to look at job openings, but to massacre a group of 30 year old looking high schoolers/party goers throwing a bash there on Valentine’s Day 1998.
The film shifts ahead one decade, and we catch up with the survivors of the cave party incident, where it seems that Harry still has a bone to pick with Tom Hanniger. It all leads to an end which manages to shock and also confuse, while leaving it open for sequels that unlike Harry Warden,has yet to return.
I have a soft spot for horror, so I immediately checked this out on the midnight screening and actually enjoyed the movie. While it is by no means a classic (or even that scary) it keeps things at a brisk enough pace and provides some over the top kills that manage to entertain over the course of the 90 minute run time nonetheless.
I may get flack for this but I also prefer this version over the original, which suffers in my opinion due to some poor acting and a much smaller budget. This one by no means is without its’ flaws as well, as the opening party full of teens consist of the obviously mid 20-30 year old cast we’ll be following for the rest of the film wearing baggy clothes, and the men especially sporting less believable hair-don’ts than Garth Brook’s Chris Gaines.
The 3D effects however is where this film truly shines as there is something going on in almost every scene. Not content with just adding depth, the movie freely throws jaws, body parts, guns,tree limbs,pickaxes, and even naked people into your living room. As a bonus for all you Jensen lovers: here is your chance to finally have him in your living room! If you haven’t watched this movie and you have an already antiquated 3DTV, then 3D is surely the way to go with this film.
Final Score:6.9/10
Cohost of the Dave & Creech Show. All that and a bag of chips(Unhealthy ones please!)
