My Bloody Valentine 3D

Without the 3D, My Bloody Valentine 3D would probably be
released direct to video and forgotten. (You can watch it in theatres
not equipped for the third dimension, which would be like playing
records without speakers.) Like Freddy’s Dead: The Final
Nightmare, it’s a film so lame they had to make it 3D. And unlike
that sequel, the effect here often succeeds as a fun gimmick, rather
than a frustrating one. Flying pickaxe and popping eyeball effects do
what they can to counter the murky photography and character
disinterest.

A remake of the 1981 picture shot in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, this
version lacks the original’s unique look for slasherdom. And director
Patrick Lussier (Dracula 2000) doesn’t match George Mihalka’s
authentic, small-town feel. What we get is dueling WB and CW leads
(Dawson’s Creek‘s Kerr Smith plays the town sheriff who despises
Supernatural‘s Jensen Ackles, the lead pickaxe-happy-suspect).
Nothing much engages because Lussier keeps fighting his instinct to let
his material get crazy.

The praised full-frontal parking lot scene involving actress Betsy
Rue is frankly misogynistic because it’s isolated as the one time My
Bloody Valentine allows itself off-the-rails lunacy. The
rest barrels through motions without surprise. The real direct-to-video
slasher Return to Sleepaway Camp has more
personality—-legitimate ’80s horror camp with a sense of wit and
portrait of cruelty that’s giddy and disturbing.

My Bloody Valentine 3D exhibits the worst Scream by-product of slashers like Urban Legends: Final Cut,
Valentine and Darkness Falls: It’s filled with the type
of soap-opera figures that no horror fan would care to befriend.

This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2009.