My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)

Movie Info

Have some blood on your Valentine’s Day!

A Valentine’s Day mining accident due to Tom J. Hanninger (Jensen Ackles) traps a number of miners underground.  The only survivor is Harry Warden (Richard John Walters) who returns the next year to kill a number of partiers at their Valentine’s Day celebration.  Ten years have passed, and Tom has decided to return to town to sell the mine.  He discovers his love Sarah (Jaime King) has married his former friend Axel Palmer (Kerr Smith), and everyone in town seems to be against him.  When murders begin happening again, the town fears that Harry Warden has come back…or could someone else be committing the murders.

Directed by Patrick Lussier, My Bloody Valentine 3D is a remake of the 1981 horror film of the same name.  The 3D film was the first film with an R-Rating to be projected in 3D enabled theaters with RealD.  The movie was met with average reviews but was a box office success.

Good thing this fence is here, huh…

I enjoyed the first version of My Bloody Valentine, though I came upon it later than some of the other slasher movies from the ’80s.  The miner killer seemed like an underused character in a world of sequels and it always seemed like the Valentine killer could have come back for a sequel.  With no sequel, My Bloody Valentine 3D is a nice way to remember a movie that many had forgotten.

*****Spoiler Alert***** The movie’s story is set-up as a mystery.  It was relatively an easy mystery with only two possible outcomes and the most obvious was the answer they went with.  Fortunately with a red-herring confrontation in the mine and the physical impossibility that Kerr’s character could be the killer, it does an ok job trying to keep the mystery aspect going.

So is this a dental or medical problem?

The movie however is loaded with flawed logic.  You have characters like Ben Foley (Kevin Tighe) leaving his house unlocked and his shotgun unloaded despite a killer stalking the streets and people being left alone regardless of the danger.  You also have a killer who can make a recently killed body look like it’s been dead for days and taking the time to write out messages in blood when time is running out.

The acting is average.  Jensen Ackles and Kerr Smith are WB drama graduates and don’t seem to have evolved past their roots.  Jaime King is essentially the lead and is probably the best of the main actors.  You get a couple of veterans in horror star Tom Atkins and character actor Kevin Tighe.  I have to give Betsy Rue credit however for doing one of the longest full-frontal nudity scenes that probably was a nightmare to shoot.

The classic “look behind you” move

The movie’s effects for a relatively low-budget film are quite good.  I watched the film in 3D (the cheesy home 3D glasses) which of course crush and mute the colors, but I was rather impressed by some of the effects and it had less of a flat feel than some movies.  The film is quite violent and bloody, but in an ’80s way that makes it have a retro feel.

My Bloody Valentine 3D has the problems that many horror movies have with flawed logic and so-so acting, but it does feel like a nice throwback.  You can find better horror films, but this film is fun if you don’t have the original.  I do wish that they had changed up the ending more from the 1981 version with a different twist, but I still wouldn’t mind seeing the miner return someday.

Related Links:

My Bloody Valentine (1981)