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My Bloody Valentine 3D — Not Bad
By swenson | January 17, 2009
My birthday treat was to drag my wife to see My Bloody Valentine 3D because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a 3D film. There’s been a slew of kiddie 3D films from Polar Express to Bolt, but if you don’t have kids then you feel a little silly attending those shows. Ironically enough the father in the row behind me brought his kids to Bloody Valentine. I almost felt embarrassed because it is definitely not kid appropriate (don’t kids still have to sneak into R-rated films to see this stuff?).
3D is perfectly designed for horror movies as My Bloody Valentine demonstrated. Otherwise the plot is again classic formula, the soundtrack was surprisingly devoid of bad rock music (especially during kill scenes, I hate heavy rock during suspensful moments), and the actors handled their character roles well. There’s nothing really special about the movie. The killer miner feels like a knock-off of Jason from Friday the 13th, and I almost think the director alluded to it when he had a character mistake the killer miner for his friend Jason–almost like an inside joke.
The 3D itself in Bloody Valentine is not what I call innovative. There was blood spatter thrown at you, body parts, weapons were aimed at you…very standard 3D fare. What the movie has going for it is that it didn’t wimp out. There is plenty of gore and even full frontal nudity. This is important because the producers recognized that they weren’t going to get away with slapping an R-rating on a horror film that was no worse than what they show on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Unless you’re going to give us a highly original plot, gives us the gore and nudity. I was pleasantly surprised by that aspect of the film.
Other highlights included the fact that the film didn’t involve stupid teeny boppers being slained left and right for perceived moral sins like pot smoking. Oh there are teens getting slain, but it’s a brief part of the film.
We get to see a nice mix of young people from a married couple where adultery is involved to a returning son who’s lost his father. And we get to see the old timers who’ve worked the mines all their lives. All of these relationships and characters could have been put to better use for the sake of the storyline. But then they could have overdone them too and forgot this was a 3D popcorn gore film.
And lastly, what the film has going for it is that we’re in a recession. The whole movie somehow kept reminding me of that. In the story the small town is under the threat of the mine being sold by Tom Hanniger and everyone losing their jobs. Mining isn’t something the average person can relate to, but the loss of manufacturing jobs is. I think this film may even be more effective in the midwest and areas where their are actual mining towns, steel mills and other manufacturing-related industries.
What doesn’t work about the film is that they move too fast in the opening; a teenage party hosted in the mine shaft gone wrong. The first kill I didn’t even realize was a kill. I thought it was a practical joke by a teenager since his eye pops out at us in a ridiculous manner. Then the miner appears behind him and you realize he just put his pick axe through the kid’s head.
Certainly it is not boring to see what happens in the opening, but we’re left feeling out of touch. We’re also trying to digest the background story of Tom Hanniger who as an inexperienced miner caused an accident.
I didn’t really get what it was all about until I read the Wiki on the movie: Ten years ago, a tragedy changed the rural town of Harmony, forever. Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), an inexperienced coal miner, caused an accident in the tunnels that trapped and killed five men and sent the only survivor, Harry Warden (Richard John Walters), into a coma.
I was under the impression that this Harry Warden killed his fellow trapped miners to preserve air, but now I would have to go back and watch the film again to confirm that.
It’s hard to compress a lot of ideas and background information into a script, so I try to be forgiving. I’ve watched several small horror movies that left me confused on the first watch, but then when I came back to them and watched them two or three more times I picked up all of the info the writer wanted to convery.
The ending of Bloody Valentine 3D is also unsatisfying. If feels like an afterthought with a montage of revealing scenes–something we’ve seen too many times before. I didn’t even think the montage was necessary. Once we knew who was guilty it wasn’t hard to imagine how he did all his killing.
My Bloody Valentine 3D is worth going to see as a 3D film and as a small horror film. It has the gore, the gratuitous nudity and a decent amount of suspense. I wouldn’t say it’s scary though. More of the same that you’ve seen before. Normally that means waiting for a film like this to come out on DVD. However, 3D technology for the home hasn’t caught up with us yet and getting to see a retired sheriff’s chin thrown at us by the killer miner is a pretty good effect. That retired sheriff is played by horror veteran Tom Atkins (The Fog, Halloween 3). Good to see him back.
If you have the time and want to experience some 3D I’d pay the entrance fee. But this is just the first move in a wave of 3D horror films that are coming our way. Or at least that’s my prediction. I guess it will depend on the box office receipts.
In a recession, moviegoers are more willing to go see horror I believe. It relieves the real world tension and letdown we have about our low-paying jobs or unemployment.
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