Review: My Bloody Valentine (3-D, 2009)

Watch out for flying hearts, ripped off chins and pick axes!

Screenplay By: Todd Farmer & Zane Smith
Directed By: Patrick Lussier

3D technology has never been used quite as well as in My Bloody Valentine. Only on a few occasions did the film resort to the cliche and tacky “Ooh, watch out for that thing flying out of the screen towards your eyes” effect. Instead the 3D in My Bloody Valentine worked within the film, setting up interesting visuals and creating depth to scenes that normally would have seemed static and rather bland. The 3D effect never seems overused and after a few minutes you fall into the habit of not realizing that you are watching a 3D picture, that’s how organic the 3D in My Bloody Valentine feels.

Unfortunately the story, if one can call it that, in My Bloody Valentine is severely lacking. I don’t expect tremendous storytelling from my horror movies, although they can and do provide great stories, but I at the very least expect a competent story that can hold together under minor scrutiny. My Bloody Valentine falls apart the moment one stops to think about the story for over a second. Characters doing idiotic things, moreso than usual in a horror movie, items magically going from one character to another with no explanation given. And then there is the final revelation of who the killer really is, a revelation that does not fly with what we have just seen for the previous hour and a half of the movie. If the movie had operated on some sort of higher level then the ending might have worked, but My Bloody Valentine didn’t operate on any sort of subtext or higher level so the ending ends up falling flat and feeling highly convoluted and contrived.

To be sure their is plenty of gore, and a healthy dose of nudity for horror fans that are only interested in those aspects. Although horror fans who want their scream queens to actually be able to scream will be let down by what the actresses in My Bloody Valentine put forth as screaming. But, I am not a fan of gore for gore sakes and can’t stand the current trend of horror moving towards gore storytelling. Give me some suspense, give me a reason to care about the gore when it does splatter across my screen. My Bloody Valentine is a triumph in 3D film making, but it is an abject failure in the horror genre, I don’t care what the gore hounds say.

Rating:

*1/2

Cheers,
Bill