Review: My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)

My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)

Rated R for for graphic brutal horror violence and grisly images throughout, some strong sexuality, graphic nudity and language

Score: 3 out of 5

My Bloody Valentine 3D, a remake of the 1981 Canadian slasher classic, is a movie that I adored when I first saw it in theaters as a young, 18-year-old college freshman still getting used to being able to see R-rated movies on the big screen. This wasn't just a slasher, it was a 3D slasher, and with the advances in RealD technology that enabled the 3D boom of the late '00s/early '10s, it embraced that to the fullest in a way that not even Friday the 13th Part III was able to. It was a proudly messy and flamboyant film made on the operating principle of "more": more blood, more gore, more nudity, more objects flying at the screen. Even after watching the original for the first time and enjoying it, this still held a place in my heart as an example of how to do a remake right.

And watching it again for the first time since 2009, I still think that. Yes, the original, which I rewatched before this, is still the better movie. That film had a certain distinctly blue-collar atmosphere that set it apart from the usual teen slasher both then and now, which this film tried to replicate but never quite pulled off; the main characters here may still be coal miners, cops, and clerks, but between the glossy 2000s music video aesthetic and the cast of teen stars, it felt like window dressing for a film that would've been a typical slasher otherwise. The killer here still looks and feels scary, but the creeping dread he had before is gone. And 3D effects that looked great on the big screen do not hold up at all when watching with cardboard red-and-blue glasses at home, such that I eventually switched to the 2D version due to the headaches they were causing. But what it lacked otherwise, it made up for with sheer brutality and gung-ho energy, as well as a few twists on the original story (especially the ending) that I found to be improvements. As far as the much-maligned genre of 2000s slashers goes, I rank this pretty close to Hatchet and Sorority Row in terms of some of the best, a film that I only held off on giving a 4 out of 5 because, again, I still decisively prefer the original. It works for the same reasons that those films do: it's an '80s slasher throwback that's less interested in recreating the specifically retro details of the genre's greatest hits than in distilling our memories of such into something that operates on a very similar wavelength of supplying bloody, lurid, sleazy good times.

The setup here is broadly similar to the original: ten years ago, a cave-in at a coal mine in the town of Harmony, caused by carelessness on the part of the mine owner's son Tom, left only one survivor, Harry Warden, who survived by killing his fellow miners to save oxygen. One year later, Harry, driven insane by the experience, awakened from his coma at the hospital and proceeded to go on a killing spree that took him back to the mine, where Tom, his girlfriend Sarah, his friend Axel, and a bunch of other teenagers had decided to party (because of course). There, he was wounded by police before vanishing into the mine, never to be seen again. Now, Tom has returned to Harmony seeking to sell the mine that he inherited from his recently deceased father, much to the chagrin of its manager Ben, and also reconnect with Sarah -- even though she's now married to Axel, who's now the sheriff and also having an affair with Sarah's co-worker Megan. Once again, however, a man in a miner's uniform is hacking people up with a pickaxe. It could be Harry again, but there are also a lot of people acting suspicious, not least of all Tom and Axel, whose former friendship has curdled into a feud that could very well have turned bloody.

The look and feel of this movie screams out "2000s" almost as loudly as that of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th films echo the '80s. Just as those movies are best paired with a Members Only jacket, a jelly bracelet, and a big can of hairspray, this film may as well be wearing a Von Dutch trucker cap, an Ed Hardy T-shirt, and Ugg boots as it walks into the room, reflecting the excess of a decade I've always thought of as "The '80s: Round 2". The emphasis here is on the blood and guts flying in glorious 3D, as eyes get gouged out, jaws get ripped off, somebody's head gets cut in two with a shovel, somebody's skin gets melted off after getting shoved into a dryer, and lots of people get their hearts ripped out of their chests. The killer felt absolutely unstoppable; while there wasn't much real tension as he prowled, the film telegraphing his every move, that merely served the greater end of letting viewers know what they were in for as they eagerly anticipated the next bloodbath. When it comes to sheer volume of gore, not even the original film's much-ballyhooed and still shockingly gory unrated cut can really quite match this, made in a post-Saw era when the MPAA no longer seemed to care. Does it look realistic? No, but that's not the point. And as for nudity? An extensive set piece almost thirty minutes in revolves around a beautiful blonde who is completely butt naked for several minutes on end, one of the most proudly gratuitous nude scenes I've ever seen in any movie. It felt like a distillation of every trend in '00s horror -- the remake boom, the gore of the Splat Pack, the hyper-stylized aesthetic, and of course, the slasher mini-revival we had in the late '00s -- without any of the fat that has since made "2000s horror" a dirty word, paired with a pure shamelessness as it utterly reveled in mayhem.

This ain't a movie you really watch for the actors and characters, but they're surprisingly good here. Jensen Ackles especially is great as Tom, the kinda-douchey guy who's implied to be selling the mine as a way to wash his hands of the cave-in and Harry's killing spree, and tells Axel to his face that Sarah merely settled for him after her true love left town. Axel and Sarah are played capably by Kerr Smith and Jaime King, who manage to flesh them out as a troubled married couple whose hearts are both wandering, Axel by his affair with the "bad girl" Megan and Sarah by the return of her long-lost ex Tom. The solid performances from the leads are a big part of why I found the changes this film made to the plot to work out for the better, feeling like they'd been properly built up to the point that, watching it again, some of the foreshadowing of the twist can feel especially on-the-nose. Whereas the killer reveal in the original film was one of its weak points, coming out of nowhere and feeling like an afterthought, the same scene here was one of the few legitimately scary moments in a film that otherwise didn't really have time for such.

This flows into the big, central Achilles' heel that the film had, how utterly insubstantial it all felt. This is a movie made for the now, designed to shock and impress you in the moment and not really caring how you're feeling as you leave the theater. There's a lot here that's impressive on a technical level, but the characters are really propped up by their actors giving them life, feeling like action figures otherwise. All that gore will get a visceral reaction out of you, but none of that is in the service of actually trying to scare you; instead of using it as the brutal punchline to a frightening stalk/chase sequence, the film gets straight to the point. The characters have their relationships and backstories, but it was only really effective at fleshing them out during the big reveal. It's the dark side of the 2000s horror atmosphere that this film is gunning for, its focus on giving viewers instant gratification being both the source of its most memorable moments and its fatal flaw. It stands in stark contrast to the original, which still shines with a distinctly roughneck atmosphere as we follow a bunch of coal miners and the townsfolk around them at work and play; even if you may not particularly like them, they still feel like real people in a real community. Even the Valentine's Day theming felt lost here outside of a few decorations, especially since, in this version, the negligence that led to the initial mine accident is no longer connected to the holiday (in the original, the supervisors skipped town early to go to the dance, hence why Harry Warden hated the holiday). With the plot they ultimately went with, especially the subplot about Tom selling the mine, there was potential for a deeper film about careless bosses and nepotistic failsons pissing on workers and communities, but it was a potential that the film never seemed to recognize.

The Bottom Line

This is a movie made to be watched with friends, a case of cold Natty Ice, and a big bowl of popcorn (or... a certain other type of bowl). Designed to be completely disposable from start to finish, it's nevertheless a film that kicks ass and takes names, such that, while you probably won't remember most of it, you will remember having a hell of a time watching it.