Mike LoManaco
10-09-2009, 03:39 AM
http://www.dreadcentral.com/img/news/mar09/mbv3dbr.jpg
Studio Name: Lionsgate
MPAA Rating: R
Disc/Transfer Information: 1080p High Definition; Widescreen 1.85:1; Region 1 (U.S.) Disc Release
Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (tested at core DTS stream)
Director: Patrick Lussier
Starring Cast: Tom Atkins, Jaime King, Kerr Smith
GET YOUR HEART BROKEN.
LoMANACO'S PLOT ANALYSIS:
You want to know the most interesting parts, in a nutshell, of this hoopla-infused pickax gorefest? One, the inclusion of the great Tom Atkins (of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York and Halloween III: Season of the Witch fame) in another horror film; two, the possibility of an all-new Halloween mask to rival those worn by legendary horror icons Michael and Jason with a mining helmet and suit; and finally, the time devoted in this film to showing a completely naked blonde in nothing but high heeled sandals – sexy stripper-like belly button piercings and all – running around the offices of a truck stop motel, shrieking and screaming her head off as the “killer” in this brandishes a pickax…I mean, we see everything on the sexy “Irene” as she begs for mercy stark naked, eventually hiding behind the box spring of the bed she was under as our killer attempts to stab her through the springs with his ax. Horror, at least on paper, doesn’t get much better than this, folks. I could also perhaps include on this list the appearance of a freaky midget motel owner with huge fake breasts who really gets hers by our ax fiend…indeed, annoying midgets who are slaughtered unmercifully by serial killers in creative ways is entertainment all by itself.
Ahhh…but what can be said about My Bloody Valentine that hasn’t already? I realize I’m a bit late to the party in watching this much talked about little flick by Lionsgate and director Pat Lussier, yet it arrived on my desk for review just this week on Blu-ray. As everyone already knows, the film was shot in both 3D and 2D versions, and both cuts are on the disc. This will be a review of the standard 2D version because I didn’t have the glasses to view the three dimensional version; the copy I received from one of my editors did not include them. Just about the entire planet Earth has most likely seen My Bloody Valentine, so let me see if I can get my facts straight here as I attempt to make some sense of its plot.
Firstly, there haven’t been many good horror films dealing with the creepy underworld of underground mines, save for little classic shockers such as The Boogens or perhaps Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift. Sure, the remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes had a good deal of its environment taking place in mines where the radioactive freaks lived, but the film didn’t really concentrate on the mines themselves…in My Bloody Valentine, we have these dark caverns almost taking on a life of their own, becoming as much a central character in the film as 112 Ocean Avenue is in The Amityville Horror. The concept of a “holiday massacre” for horror films has been done before, but Lussier tells a story here of a town named Harmony which has a rather bloody connection to Valentine’s Day. The film opens with shocking, abrupt clips of newspaper announcements and voiceovers explaining the backstory of a mining accident which put one Harry Warden in a coma, and apparently, Warden awoke from the coma to go bat shit and murder 22 people with his pickax, dressed in full miner’s clothing…helmet, breathing mask and all. In the continuing flashback sequence, we see Tom Atkins, who was sheriff of the town at the time, along with a deputy, who trap Warden in one of the mines just before he was apparently going to murder a prominent townsperson’s son. Atkins and his deputy blow Warden away, and the story was supposed to end there, as the legend had the insane Warden buried somewhere in that mine.
The film then picks up 10 years later, where the same kinds of murders are taking place once again in Harmony – the appearance of a killer, once more, dressed in mining clothes and brandishing an ax, has been slicing and dicing the local youth and anyone else that seems to be on his list. Now, Atkins has retired as sheriff and a new young gun Leo DeCaprio lookalike (Kerr Smith) has taken his place. A lot of Dawson’s Creek-style nonsense goes on here, with the sheriff’s wife being the ex of the kid who’s back in town to sell the mines because he has inherited them (who was saved from Warden 10 years prior by Atkins) and the sheriff himself having an affair with the sexy co-worker of his wife’s, a young tarty little thing that parades around in miniskirts and boy-short panties and meets the sheriff privately for mid-afternoon romps behind the wife’s back.
As body counts begin to pile up, local townspeople suspect Harry Warden has returned from the dead to finish what he started 10 years prior, but the sheriff suspects the kid who’s back in town to sell the mines is behind all these killings…and the kid suspects the same of the sheriff. Inbetween this lunacy, we are treated to a fantastic scene involving the aforementioned “Irene,” who is a blonde tramp doing some truck driver in a local truck stop motel, riding and bucking on top of him like a whore gone wild – as she looks up into the overhead mirror of the cheap motel room to admire her body and take in the orgasmic pleasure she’s experiencing. The scene is pretty wild. But even better is when the tramp runs stark naked out of the motel room after the truck driver she’s just gotten boned from, to snatch back a recorded video of their romp at the motel that he’s taped…with breasts bouncing and all, Irene watches in horror as her fling is hit with an ax from inside his truck, right through his head. She’s chased by the killer dressed like a miner through the motel’s offices, where she’s finally impaled on one of the sharp ends of his ax – before this, the midget motel manager is struck by the ax murderer also, stabbed in the head and flung into the ceiling tiles. Good stuff.
One of the more interesting kills also involves Tom Atkins – but for those who haven’t seen the film yet, I won’t give it away. While it wouldn’t be difficult to continue providing an in-depth plot analysis of My Bloody Valentine, in a nutshell, the people of Harmony begin to get offed by a masked killer swinging a pickax and piling up bodies in the same fashion as Harry Warden did 10 years earlier…the new sheriff that looks like DeCaprio suspects it’s the wife’s ex who’s back in town to shut the mines and sell them (to the town’s dismay), while ex-sheriff Tom Atkins and his retirees don’t want to think it’s Warden come back from the dead somehow (because they’re convinced they shot and killed him dead in the mines those years earlier – and claim they know where they buried him to prove it)…further, there’s a sub-plot involving the sheriff and the sexy young co-worker who assists his wife at her grocery store who are having an affair, but this isn’t so much an integral part of the plot as it is a preparation buffer setting up the scene in which the masked killer gets into the sheriff’s wife’s grocery store and stalks both the wife and the young girl. And so, My Bloody Valentine boils down to a who-dun-it spiraling towards the two main suspects – the sheriff and the kid who’s there to sell the mines off. The sheriff claims the kid has been in a mental institution and can therefore be suspected of doing these Warden copycat murders; the wife’s ex, on the other hand, tells her not to trust her husband…who is telling the truth? Is there any validity to the sheriff’s claims that this kid is mentally unstable – and could be making all this up to cover his own ass in the murders? A final confrontation sequence between the sheriff, his wife and the kid takes place in the tunnels of the mines as each attempts to place the blame on the other, trying to get the sheriff’s wife to shoot the other one…but is that Harry Warden looming in the darkness of the mine, coming up behind the sheriff’s wife?
While interesting, My Bloody Valentine just wasn’t memorable to me – and I am aware of all the internet hoopla surrounding this film; the kill sequences are sometimes shocking, yet not so over-the-top as the rumors would lead you to believe – the gore isn’t nearly on the level of, say, Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror. The concept had great potential, as so many films today do but unfortunately fall flat, what with the idea of an insane killer from a creepy mine returning to butcher the people of a small town, yet I don’t know…something just didn’t satisfy, especially at the end. The suggested “mental illness” analysis regarding the entire “return-of-Harry-Warden” thing morphed into a disappointing ending, in my opinion, but it was indeed an entertaining rental. I also failed to mention earlier that much of the screenplay and action revolves around the Valentine’s Day holiday…the references to Warden’s murder spree, the giving of chocolate hearts to the sheriff by his hot young mistress, the placement of bloody human hearts in the empty chocolate heart boxes by the killer; indeed, it seemed like an attempt at resurrecting the “holiday horror” sub-genre.
MY BLOODY VALENTINE REVIEW, CONTINUED BELOW...
Studio Name: Lionsgate
MPAA Rating: R
Disc/Transfer Information: 1080p High Definition; Widescreen 1.85:1; Region 1 (U.S.) Disc Release
Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (tested at core DTS stream)
Director: Patrick Lussier
Starring Cast: Tom Atkins, Jaime King, Kerr Smith
GET YOUR HEART BROKEN.
LoMANACO'S PLOT ANALYSIS:
You want to know the most interesting parts, in a nutshell, of this hoopla-infused pickax gorefest? One, the inclusion of the great Tom Atkins (of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York and Halloween III: Season of the Witch fame) in another horror film; two, the possibility of an all-new Halloween mask to rival those worn by legendary horror icons Michael and Jason with a mining helmet and suit; and finally, the time devoted in this film to showing a completely naked blonde in nothing but high heeled sandals – sexy stripper-like belly button piercings and all – running around the offices of a truck stop motel, shrieking and screaming her head off as the “killer” in this brandishes a pickax…I mean, we see everything on the sexy “Irene” as she begs for mercy stark naked, eventually hiding behind the box spring of the bed she was under as our killer attempts to stab her through the springs with his ax. Horror, at least on paper, doesn’t get much better than this, folks. I could also perhaps include on this list the appearance of a freaky midget motel owner with huge fake breasts who really gets hers by our ax fiend…indeed, annoying midgets who are slaughtered unmercifully by serial killers in creative ways is entertainment all by itself.
Ahhh…but what can be said about My Bloody Valentine that hasn’t already? I realize I’m a bit late to the party in watching this much talked about little flick by Lionsgate and director Pat Lussier, yet it arrived on my desk for review just this week on Blu-ray. As everyone already knows, the film was shot in both 3D and 2D versions, and both cuts are on the disc. This will be a review of the standard 2D version because I didn’t have the glasses to view the three dimensional version; the copy I received from one of my editors did not include them. Just about the entire planet Earth has most likely seen My Bloody Valentine, so let me see if I can get my facts straight here as I attempt to make some sense of its plot.
Firstly, there haven’t been many good horror films dealing with the creepy underworld of underground mines, save for little classic shockers such as The Boogens or perhaps Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift. Sure, the remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes had a good deal of its environment taking place in mines where the radioactive freaks lived, but the film didn’t really concentrate on the mines themselves…in My Bloody Valentine, we have these dark caverns almost taking on a life of their own, becoming as much a central character in the film as 112 Ocean Avenue is in The Amityville Horror. The concept of a “holiday massacre” for horror films has been done before, but Lussier tells a story here of a town named Harmony which has a rather bloody connection to Valentine’s Day. The film opens with shocking, abrupt clips of newspaper announcements and voiceovers explaining the backstory of a mining accident which put one Harry Warden in a coma, and apparently, Warden awoke from the coma to go bat shit and murder 22 people with his pickax, dressed in full miner’s clothing…helmet, breathing mask and all. In the continuing flashback sequence, we see Tom Atkins, who was sheriff of the town at the time, along with a deputy, who trap Warden in one of the mines just before he was apparently going to murder a prominent townsperson’s son. Atkins and his deputy blow Warden away, and the story was supposed to end there, as the legend had the insane Warden buried somewhere in that mine.
The film then picks up 10 years later, where the same kinds of murders are taking place once again in Harmony – the appearance of a killer, once more, dressed in mining clothes and brandishing an ax, has been slicing and dicing the local youth and anyone else that seems to be on his list. Now, Atkins has retired as sheriff and a new young gun Leo DeCaprio lookalike (Kerr Smith) has taken his place. A lot of Dawson’s Creek-style nonsense goes on here, with the sheriff’s wife being the ex of the kid who’s back in town to sell the mines because he has inherited them (who was saved from Warden 10 years prior by Atkins) and the sheriff himself having an affair with the sexy co-worker of his wife’s, a young tarty little thing that parades around in miniskirts and boy-short panties and meets the sheriff privately for mid-afternoon romps behind the wife’s back.
As body counts begin to pile up, local townspeople suspect Harry Warden has returned from the dead to finish what he started 10 years prior, but the sheriff suspects the kid who’s back in town to sell the mines is behind all these killings…and the kid suspects the same of the sheriff. Inbetween this lunacy, we are treated to a fantastic scene involving the aforementioned “Irene,” who is a blonde tramp doing some truck driver in a local truck stop motel, riding and bucking on top of him like a whore gone wild – as she looks up into the overhead mirror of the cheap motel room to admire her body and take in the orgasmic pleasure she’s experiencing. The scene is pretty wild. But even better is when the tramp runs stark naked out of the motel room after the truck driver she’s just gotten boned from, to snatch back a recorded video of their romp at the motel that he’s taped…with breasts bouncing and all, Irene watches in horror as her fling is hit with an ax from inside his truck, right through his head. She’s chased by the killer dressed like a miner through the motel’s offices, where she’s finally impaled on one of the sharp ends of his ax – before this, the midget motel manager is struck by the ax murderer also, stabbed in the head and flung into the ceiling tiles. Good stuff.
One of the more interesting kills also involves Tom Atkins – but for those who haven’t seen the film yet, I won’t give it away. While it wouldn’t be difficult to continue providing an in-depth plot analysis of My Bloody Valentine, in a nutshell, the people of Harmony begin to get offed by a masked killer swinging a pickax and piling up bodies in the same fashion as Harry Warden did 10 years earlier…the new sheriff that looks like DeCaprio suspects it’s the wife’s ex who’s back in town to shut the mines and sell them (to the town’s dismay), while ex-sheriff Tom Atkins and his retirees don’t want to think it’s Warden come back from the dead somehow (because they’re convinced they shot and killed him dead in the mines those years earlier – and claim they know where they buried him to prove it)…further, there’s a sub-plot involving the sheriff and the sexy young co-worker who assists his wife at her grocery store who are having an affair, but this isn’t so much an integral part of the plot as it is a preparation buffer setting up the scene in which the masked killer gets into the sheriff’s wife’s grocery store and stalks both the wife and the young girl. And so, My Bloody Valentine boils down to a who-dun-it spiraling towards the two main suspects – the sheriff and the kid who’s there to sell the mines off. The sheriff claims the kid has been in a mental institution and can therefore be suspected of doing these Warden copycat murders; the wife’s ex, on the other hand, tells her not to trust her husband…who is telling the truth? Is there any validity to the sheriff’s claims that this kid is mentally unstable – and could be making all this up to cover his own ass in the murders? A final confrontation sequence between the sheriff, his wife and the kid takes place in the tunnels of the mines as each attempts to place the blame on the other, trying to get the sheriff’s wife to shoot the other one…but is that Harry Warden looming in the darkness of the mine, coming up behind the sheriff’s wife?
While interesting, My Bloody Valentine just wasn’t memorable to me – and I am aware of all the internet hoopla surrounding this film; the kill sequences are sometimes shocking, yet not so over-the-top as the rumors would lead you to believe – the gore isn’t nearly on the level of, say, Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror. The concept had great potential, as so many films today do but unfortunately fall flat, what with the idea of an insane killer from a creepy mine returning to butcher the people of a small town, yet I don’t know…something just didn’t satisfy, especially at the end. The suggested “mental illness” analysis regarding the entire “return-of-Harry-Warden” thing morphed into a disappointing ending, in my opinion, but it was indeed an entertaining rental. I also failed to mention earlier that much of the screenplay and action revolves around the Valentine’s Day holiday…the references to Warden’s murder spree, the giving of chocolate hearts to the sheriff by his hot young mistress, the placement of bloody human hearts in the empty chocolate heart boxes by the killer; indeed, it seemed like an attempt at resurrecting the “holiday horror” sub-genre.
MY BLOODY VALENTINE REVIEW, CONTINUED BELOW...