 ***PLEASE NOTE: A Blu-ray 3D disc is only compatible with 3D Blu-ray players.*** Tagline: Get your heart broken. The town of Harmony would like to forget its horrific past. Ten years ago, after a tragic mining accident, Harry Warden awoke from his coma on Valentine's Day - and brutally murdered 22 people with a pickax before being killed himself. Now, after years of peace, there's a killer on the loose, again wearing a miner's mask and brandishing a pickax. Has Harry Warden returned from the dead? Storyline: In the mining town of Harmony, a drilling accident is caused by the son of the owner, Tom Hanniger. The mine collapses, burying six miners alive. The rescue team finds only Harry Warden alive, but in coma, and the other miners murdered by his pickax, and they conclude that Harry killed them to save oxygen for himself. On Valentine's Day, Harry awakes from his coma in the local hospital, and he kills twenty-two people, including a group of teenagers that are partying in the mine. Harry is killed by the deputy, but the only survivors are Tom Hanniger, his girlfriend Sarah, their friend Axel Palmer and his girlfriend Irene. Ten years later, Tom returns to Harmony after the death of his father. Tom has decided to sell the Hanniger Mine, and finds that Sarah has married Axel, who is now the local sheriff, and they have a son named Noah. On Valentine's Day, Harry Warden also returns... Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman on October 6, 2010 -- Be mine 4 ever. --- With the release of My Bloody Valentine 3D, the Horror genre has now seen films with a killer in just about every get-up imaginable. There have been men in goalie masks, Captain Kirk masks, human flesh masks, clown masks, whatever-those-were-in Scream-masks, and the list goes on. Cowards. Afraid of letting their victims know who they really are. For shame. As long as it looks "scary," though, and as long as they wield some sharpened weapon (it's never a blunt instrument or a firearm), it's cool. They sell tickets. But they still haven't made a movie with a killer wearing a Martin Liebman mask. Now that would make for a blockbuster. Anyway, My Bloody Valentine 3D features its hero (all the killers in these sorts of movies are the real heroes) wearing a miner's outfit and sporting a mask that looks more like something an F-22 pilot might wear, but that's beside the point. He hacks, he stabs, he scores! er, he kills his victims with a pickax and he does it in 3D style. Awesome! The small mining town of Harmony goes into shock when several of its own are buried alive during a cave-in. When the lone survivor, Henry Warden, is pulled from the rubble, he is hailed as a living miracle -- until it is discovered that he murdered his colleagues for a better chance at survival. Believed to be in a vegetative, comatose state, Warden becomes an afterthought -- until he awakens and kills everyone in the hospital and returns to the mines where several partying teenagers are slaughtered. Ten years pass, but the survivors of that massacre are still dealing with the after-effects. Axel Palmer (Kerr Smith) is now the town sheriff. He's married to Sarah (Jaime King), former girlfriend of Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), son of the mine's owner and missing since the bloody events of that fateful night. Though long thought dead and buried, Henry Warden seems to have returned, wearing the same outfit and wielding the same deadly pickax, chipping away at everyone in sight. With the town on edge, the mine set to be sold by a suddenly-resurgent Tom, and its population dwindling rapidly, the only question that remains is, "who was that masked man and why is he killing everyone in sight?" This snoozer of a recycled Horror picture has little going for it outside of its 3D presentation and some good-natured fun. The picture manages to create an aura of mystery surrounding the identity of the killer, but otherwise, My Bloody Valentine makes for a completely generic Horror experience that never differentiates itself from its many hundreds of peers, save for the entire 3D thing, though even that is not entirely new to the genre. Although the movie does well in featuring copious amounts of gore -- with several elements far more pronounced in this proper full HD 3D presentation -- it stumbles under the weighty problem that is a rather uninteresting plot, but not one entirely devoid of meaning and structure. It plays with ideas such as post-traumatic stress and hallucinations, but never really explores those issues past a painfully superficial level that only allows for the plot to move on to the next killing or revelation. No matter, though, because the movie is certainly not meant to make audiences think; it's a straight hack-and-slash picture with a story that at least tries to keep things interesting but, ultimately, does nothing more than bridge the gap between one death scene and the next. It also features interchangeable and forgettable characters, and whether they live or die remains beside the point throughout the movie; they're but classic Horror fodder. The film's three primaries distinguish themselves just well enough to set up the end of the film, but otherwise, the rest may as well just walk around with signs hanging around their necks that says "pick(ax) me." That the movie plays with an over-the-top cheerfulness amidst the massive amounts of on-screen carnage is its one saving grace. Sure it would be nice if the characters were well-developed, if the plot was a bit more cohesive, and if there was a greater sense of realism and urgency to the picture, but its ability to mesh together the playful and the horrific allows for the incredible violence to remain front-and-center without overwhelming the audience. Most everything about the movie seems exaggerated for both subtly comedic and extra-gruesome effect. Eyeballs pop out, heads are severed at the mouth, and bodies are mutilated in ways that would make Jigsaw jealous, but through it all lies the sense that it's all presented in good fun and with a mischievous wink-and-a-nod that ensures that the audience understands its angle. Likewise, the cast never takes things seriously, instead having fun with the knowledge that most of them will meet some grisly end. The film plays with just enough seriousness when it gets down to the business of revealing the killer or fleshing out some semi-important plot developments that help frame the killer's identity within a context that makes sense, but otherwise, the whole things seems more like a send-up of campy Horror than an altogether serious picture. My Bloody Valentine is a generic little slasher that amps up the gore and dumbs down the characters while trying to add an aura of mystery by concealing the identity of the its killer until the final minutes. It works as a generic genre picture but is slightly improved by its easygoing attitude and fun veneer. Still, most splatter fans won't be granting it a spot on their top-ten list. As for its full HD 3D Blu-ray release? Lionsgate has ported over the same powerful lossless soundtrack and assortment of extras from the previous release while adding in a vastly superior 3D transfer and jacking up the price to a whopping $34.99 at Best Buy, where this title is sold as an exclusive (now $7.50 at Amazon as of 2/22/2014 ). The disc commands a premium as one of only several titles currently being sold off-the-shelf, and it looks like a steal next to the outrageous prices being charged for bundled hardware exclusive discs. Still, coming in at just under $40 after taxes makes buying this a tough pill to swallow. That's a steep price to pay for a midlevel genre movie and a wishy-washy 3D transfer. My Bloody Valentine comes hesitantly recommended; there's not much else to pick from right now, but fans could sell off their anaglyph version to help fund this purchase or maybe even request it as a Christmas gift from a wealthy family member. Cast Notes: Jensen Ackles (Tom Hanniger), Jaime King (Sarah Palmer), Kerr Smith (Axel Palmer), Betsy Rue (Irene), Edi Gathegi (Deputy Martin), Tom Atkins (Sheriff Jim Burke), Kevin Tighe (Ben Foley), Megan Boone (Megan), Karen Baum (Deputy Ferris), Joy de la Paz (Rosa), Marc Macaulay (Riggs), Todd Farmer (Frank the Trucker), Jeff Hochendoner (Red), Bingo O'Malley (Officer Hinch), Liam Rhodes (Michael). IMDb Rating (05/13/11): 5.6/10 from 20,492 users
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
