My Bloody Valentine (2009)

Boy do they lean into the 3D gimmick on this sucker.  Pickaxes, eyeballs, blood and other junk slam you in the face regularly.  I find watching these types of films way after its original intended context (in a theater surrounded by other folks ready to up the filmgoing experience by donning 3D glasses and relishing the dozen or so moments when they forcibly jut an object towards you out of nowhere) charming.  It’s not like they’re subtle about when the gags occur so while it can be awkward to witness someone waving a gun across the screen directly in front of the camera there’s something oddly endearing about it as well.  You even get some interesting angles that the filmmakers would probably never think to use otherwise.  For example during the bar fight scene we see a dude about to punch a mirror that’s hanging on the wall and we cut to behind the mirror to see the guy’s fist shatter the glass up close.  Or there’s another part where a truck swerves off the road and hits a tree.  A branch bursts through the front and rear windows and hurtles towards us.

But plot you say?  Well it’s not a carbon copy of its predecessor, so that’s good.  But unfortunately it’s blander while simultaneously being more complicated.  We open with some teens partying at a mine who get attacked by a crazed sonuvabitch in a miner’s outfit.  It’s Harry Warden who’s pissed because the mine owner’s son, Tom (Jensen Ackles (The Boys)), fucked up reading the methane levels and it caused an explosion.  He got blasted into a coma, woke up and now wants revenge.  The cops stop him but not before he murders like fifteen people or something.  Anyway, fast forward ten years and the survivors of the attack still live in small town Pennsylvania except for Tom.  He split after the incident but has returned to sell the family mine.  Naturally the town is not happy to see him because of his past mistake and now he’s effectively going to kill the town by offloading the mine.  Coincidently someone in miner’s gear has started to bump off folks again.  Got all that?

So aside from a bunch of backstory there isn’t much going on here.  They play up the whodunit angle quite a bit and while a standard in slashers this rarely works in my opinion.  What’s kinda funny to me is that when slasher fever hit back in the late 70’s and early 80’s and everyone was attempting to replicate the success of Halloween a lot of them added this additional mystery of who the identity of the killer is which is something that film didn’t bother with.  You know it’s Michael Myers from the beginning and the movie doesn’t ever pretend otherwise.  Here they go a step further than most by not only doing the whodunit thing but they also rip off another famous slasher to stir shit up (it’ll be a spoiler if I say which one).  I don’t think they really pull it off either.

Weirdly some parts of the production come across like the filmmakers were trying pretty hard like the psychological edge to the story, anything surrounding the 3D use, the effects overall, the amped up gore (a ton of pickaxes through heads) and the action scenes (although they all feel like they go on a bit too long strangely).  But then other areas of the production are totally dull like the characters, dialogue and production design.  Some shit is even downright lazy like the Valentine’s Day theming is a little half-hearted (pardon the pun) and the fact that this is supposed to take place in February in Pennsylvania yet the trees are full of lush green leaves and some characters are dressed down in skimpy clothing.

This was released during the glut of horror remakes in the 2000’s and while nothing special it actually might be one of the better ones.  It doesn’t feel entirely shameless and is totally watchable.  Plus the filmmakers brought attention to the original which is a touch stronger than your average slasher.  That film didn’t do well at the time but thanks in part to the remake it’s remembered somewhat fondly now.  Curiously the remake seems to be best remembered for a scene where a hot babe is terrorized by the miner at a motel and runs around the place completely nude for an extended period of time.  They could’ve had her wear a robe or a towel or something but nah, buck naked.