3D “My Bloody Valentine” remake so bad it’s good

It’s been nearly 30 years since Harry Warden first swung his pickax through the sleepy town of Valentine Bluffs, cutting the land’s teen population down a few notches on a quest for a piece of slasher movie infamy.

Back in 1981, the original “My Bloody Valentine” cashed in with audiences hungry for a “Friday the 13^th” substitute. Now, in 2009, the remake of the film is doing much of the same thing – cashing in with audiences early before the horror market dries up for anything not called “Friday the 13^th.”

Fortunately, the remake of “My Bloody Valentine” has something extra to offer: it’s in 3D. And unlike last year’s butchered remake of the classic slasher movie “Prom Night,” this is one remake that does its source material proud.

A carnival ride of carnage waits with “My Bloody Valentine 3D,” where the town of Harmony (renamed for the remake), has been host to multiple massacres over the years.

Somehow they all involve Harry Warden. After a gas explosion trapped him and four other men deep within the town’s mines on Valentine’s Day, Warden went off the deep end, hacking his cohorts up into little bits in order to stay alive.

In the original film, cramped conditions and forced cannibalism are what help tip Warden over the edge. But in “My Bloody Valentine 3D,” he kills in order to keep the oxygen supply all to himself.

Apart from this adjustment, not much has changed for Warden between each film. He’s still wheezing it up from inside his gas mask, with such obviousness that it’s a wonder he can even sneak up on anyone. Pulled from the mine wreckage alive but comatose, he slumbers for a year before, like clockwork, stirring on Valentine’s Day to slice and dice again.

“My Bloody Valentine 3D” opens on a bloody rampage – first in the hospital, and then back at the mines, where some local teens are having a party. Yet before we know it, the police have arrived and Harry Warden has vanished into the innermost caverns of the mine. Does that mean the movie’s over? Hardly. The real horror begins about a decade later.

Kerr Smith, formerly of “Dawson’s Creek” fame, stars as Axel. Ten years ago, he and his friends were lucky to make it out of the Valentine’s Day massacre alive. Since then, they’ve found less hazardous ways to pass the time. Axel is a sheriff now, while old girlfriend Irene (Betsy Rue) has become a kind of truck stop for men passing through the area.

And then there’s Tom (Jensen Ackles) who skipped town shortly after the massacre. No one’s really sure what happened to him, until he reappears days before Valentine’s Day, gulping pills and making eyes at his ex (Jaime King), who has since moved on to greener pastures (read: Axel).

Aside from the blood and guts, the best thing about the movie may be Rue, who stripped down naked for her big chase scene. As she runs around on-screen, all the while flashing the camera a full view of her unmentionables, your sides are sure to ache and throb with laughter.

In a nod to fans, Tom Atkins also joins the cast of “My Bloody Valentine 3D” as the town’s former sheriff. Now in his seventies, Atkins has graduated to roles more somber than the ones he had in “Creepshow” (1982) and “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” (1982), respectively. But still, he’s a towering legend, and he makes his presence known.

When murders begin anew in Harmony, the town starts to speculate. Could this be Warden, back from beyond the grave, or is it an imposter? The script, written by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith, plays off of this whodunit aspect, especially in the last act.

Certainly it’s not hard to imagine Warden as some undead killing machine. In a genre made popular off the likes of Jason Voorhees, who rose from the watery depths of Crystal Lake so often he might as well have had gills, stranger things have happened.

Perhaps part of the appeal of torture-porn, the offspring of the slasher genre, is that there are no all-powerful killing machines. Rather than attack their prey with inexplicable brute force, killers of the torture-porn variety come armed with inexplicable traps and schemes. It’s a good thing, though. Jigsaw doesn’t exactly come across as the clobbering sort.

“My Bloody Valentine 3D” is a resurrection of those older gems. The film stays true to the stock tenets of the slasher genre – lots of blood, lots of sex, and lots of screaming – while also turning them on their side. Think the jerk with the snide attitude will be one of the first to get it? Think again.

Any other innovations related to “My Bloody Valentine 3D” are more to do with its fun use of 3D technology than anything else. Director Patrick Lussier, who cut his teeth editing Wes Craven films, is never short of creative ways to fling things at the audience – from pickaxes to human jaws and eyeballs.

Who knew gore could look this icky with cheesy 3D? You can tell times must be tough when studios start dusting off this gimmick, which is as cheap an audience ploy these days as it was fifty years ago. But if any upcoming 3D films are as fun to watch as this one, there could be worse things to grumble about.

Shayna Murphy can be reached at skmurphy@student.umass.edu.

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