MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D

(US, 2008, d. Patrick Lussier)

Bloody, all right – or bloody all wrong.

The original My Bloody Valentine was released in 1981, one of the many slasher films that followed the box-office success of Halloween and Friday the 13th (incidentally re-made in 3D, early 2009). This version keeps a number of the elements of the original. The more interesting aspects are those of the decline of a mining town. However, that is not what the fans will be wanting to see.

This is not quite a slasher film in the sense that the serial killer takes his pick – his tool of impalement is the mining pick. You know where you stand early in the piece when the lone survivor of a mine accident wakes from coma and massacres everyone in sight, clad in his mining suit and mask which enables victims and audience to hear his ominous breathing. Since this is 3D, we have in depth close-ups of pick blows, blood gushes and flying gory body parts. When ten years later, the killings start again, we know we are in for more of the same as victims are picked off (so to speak).

The sex component is introduced and is rather sleazy with one character having to be chased and defend her life for several minutes, naked. Acting is not a major requirement here. The director is Patrick Lussier, long-time editor, and director of the very interesting Dracula 2000.

Sitting in the cinema, glasses perched on ordinary glasses, making judgement on the morality of the film, and thinking the motivation for the killings was quite trite, I found that I had completely missed reading the cues and clues concerning the murderer and picked (so to speak again) the wrong killer!