Patrick Lussier’s “My Bloody Valentine” follows the slasher formula that worked so well in the 2000s. Pulling from the tool bag that had worked for “Scream,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “Final Destination,” etc., “Valentine” includes a bunch of attractive stars who were all popular at the time, and throws them into a remake vehicle that seems to keep many things the same. Based off the original movie released in 1981, Lussier’s film follows a small mining town, a decade-old massacre, and just lets the recipe make itself.
The stars of “My Bloody Valentine” are Kerr Smith, Jamie King, and Jensen Ackles, the latter who had gained a star power with TV’s “Supernatural.” King, who usually plays different types of roles, is sweet here as first a high school girlfriend and later a doting housewife, while Kerr Smith is basically the same angry tough guy he was in “Final Destination.” The film throws in some others, and my favorites had to be Kevin Tighe—who was fun in “Road House” and Tom Atkins, whose “Halloween 3” fame precedes him. The film’s murderer at the onset is Harry Warden. Richard John Walters plays him with a monstrous quality akin to “Friday the 13th’s” Kane Hodder and Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” star Tyler Mane. Walters is vicious and powerful. The amount of carnage he causes in a local hospital is a bit intense.
A Mining Massacre and its Legend
The plot here is simple—and it should be. Jamie King’s Sarah is married to Harmony town sheriff Axel (Smith). She runs a grocers and he runs the town. He keeps a loose alliance with Harmony’s miners, who seem to have pressed on since the massacre at the film’s beginning 10 years prior, where Warden killed a number of miners—and hospital patients—after a mine collapse. The odd man out is Tom Hanniger (Ackles). The mine owner’s son, he’d accidentally caused the collapse when he didn’t ‘bleed the lines.’ He returns to town to sell the mine, to the chagrin of the locals. Amidst all this, a mysterious man in a miner’s uniform with a pickaxe begins killing locals in grisly fashion, begging the question: is Harry Warden back or is it a copycat?
Warden was killed 10 years ago, but the fun in these films is figuring out ‘whodunnit,’ following the craze “Scream” started in 1996. The problem with “Valentine,” however, is the reveal takes much too long, and writers Todd Farmer, Zane Smith, and John Beaird spend too much time muddying the waters to confuse us. Beaird wrote the ’81 screenplay along with Stephen A. Miller—who wrote the story—and maybe by this point in 2009 there were just too many cooks in the kitchen. The murders increase in ferocity, and the main suspects—due to a sheer lack of options—are Tom and Axel—but the film makes little headway leading us to either one. The reveal at the end takes too long to unfold, to the point where it’s not really interesting anymore. All along the way, Jamie King lends a good performance of being a mom and stuck between the grudge between her ex boyfriend Tom and current husband Axel.
Gory Effects Made for 3D
The kills in “My Bloody Valentine” are gruesome, and I’m shocked the filmmakers found so many unique ways for the killer to use his pickaxe. He brings the thing down on people’s heads, eyes, faces, through their chins, in their stomachs, and he also hallows out victim’s chests to remove their hearts. This is a Valentine’s movie, after all. The film was initially released theatrically in 3D, and it shows. You can tell the many times the killer throws a pickaxe or a kills takes place in such as way as to come out of the screen towards you. The effect loses something along the way in regular 2D, but maybe there’s a way to rent this in 3D if you have the right TV; I don’t know. But suffice to say, the film is a hard ‘R’ and the gore is in full gear here.
The atmosphere is also good, not so much in the stalking nature of old ‘80s slashers, but in the setting of the mining town itself. The filming location is Kittanning, Pennsylvania, which does indeed have a coal mining culture, and the setting looks mountainous and foreboding. The mine itself is creepy and dismal, and the film does a good job including the kind of dismal gloom that accompanies a town—and group of blue collar workers—who remember better days. Harry Warden isn’t real, but mining accidents are; “My Blood Valentine” treats them with the seriousness they deserve, even if it develops some of the workers themselves a bit thinly.
An Adequate Slasher
All-in-all, “My Bloody Valentine” is a suitable horror film, even it if does tread familiar ground. The kills are vicious and the setting good, even if the in-fighting between Ackles and Smith is a bit much, as are some other plot elements that add too much drama to what intends to be a simpler film. Amidst some other, lesser horror attempts such as the remake of “Black Christmas” three years earlier, “Valentine” is an entertaining film that tries. You’ll likely miss out on the 3D—which is a pity—but be decently scared along the way. It’s a decent horror film that rocks a familiar formula and ends just the way you’d expect. And amongst some more infamous torture pictures that lined the time, there’s some comfort in its throwback, teen-slasher style. It has jump scares aplenty, and should suffice for a good scare come this Halloween season.
