My Bloody Valentine a Bloody Good Time

Right or wrong, I judge slasher movies on a different scale than other films. Although most in the genre tend to miss the boat when it comes to standard moviemaking skills, I can't help but look at them for what they are. And what are they exactly? To borrow a line from Roger Ebert, they are "dead teenager" movies where the characters are so moronic they don't even know they're walking straight to their deaths. They are films that tend to lack a coherent story, interesting characters, good dialogue, or any shred of plausibility. Like so many others, My Bloody Valentine hits those same pratfalls. But who goes to see a 3D slasher movie called My Bloody Valentine for dialogue and acting? Nobody, that's who! When judging a movie like this, you have to ask yourself one question: Did I have fun? Well, as it turns out, I did.

Having never seen the 1981 genre classic, I can't really say whether or not this follows the story closely, but I also doubt that anybody going to see this really gives two craps about that, but here it is anyway. Ten years ago, a few coal miners were killed on the job by a psycho named Harry Warden, who fell into a coma shortly after. The next year on Valentine's Day, he wakes up, makes his way back to the mines, and kills some teenagers partying there before being shot and killed by two police officers. Now somebody is back killing the people linked to that night. Is it Harry Warden or just an imposter?

I'll go ahead and answer that question for you. Who cares? This film isn't about who is killing people, but rather how they are being killed. That may seem a bit demented, but the film never takes itself too seriously and knows full well that it is an exploitative 3D slasher flick. You know you're in for a wild ride when five minutes into the movie a pickax is swung completely through some dude's head and his eye is stuck on the end of the blade. You can only imagine what that looks like in 3D. It's a grisly movie for sure, but rather than feeling disturbed at what I was seeing, I was laughing at the severed limbs and appendages that were flying towards me.

Still, while the 3D bloodshed is the main focus of the movie (and it's pretty creative if I do say so myself), the whole whodunit mystery is a key component. But here's the main problem with that. It's pretty predictable. Unless you've never seen a mystery movie before, you'll easily be able to narrow down who the killer is to two people, and even then it's just a matter of paying attention to the details to figure it out. Considering how little thinking this movie requires, it's to its detriment that I figured it out fairly quickly. I won't ruin it here, but even if you don't nail it on the head, you should be able to have an idea of what is going on.

There really isn't much more to say about this picture. I mean yes, the performances are uniformly bad, especially by Jensen Ackles, whose previous work consists mostly of television sitcoms (it shows), but the movie never acts like it's something other than an over the top blood bath filled with excessive gore and gratuitous nudity, all in glorious 3D. So in that regard, it actually kind of works. If you're into this sort of thing, you owe it to yourself to check out My Bloody Valentine.

My Bloody Valentine in 3D receives 4/5

My Bloody Valentine in 2D receives an estimated 2.5/5