My Bloody Valentine 3d Review

The Insanity That Coal Dust Makes
by Sylvia Bond
Movie Review: My Bloody Valentine

I think the scariest part of this movie, besides the way movie ticket prices keep rising, was the fact that I watched it entirely alone. After I’d bought my ticket, had taken my seat in the middle in the front row (not the front front, but the main front row with the railing for my feet), and the previews started, I realized I was the only patron in the theater. When it got fully dark, and knowing what the movie was about, visions of pick axes started dancing in my head. That’s the power of previews, you see, you know what will be coming for you. I had to sit through one hour and forty-one minutes of anxiety produced by the empty theater with the surround sound that kept me thinking someone was behind me. So I started out being tense from the get go.

Not to mention that since this was a horror movie, all the previews I watched before the movie actually began were of the horror movie variety as well; the amount of bodies and the violence with which they were killed on the screen was staggering. I had to keep reminding myself not to judge. That people who like horror movies have a right to do so, even if I think there’s no redeeming value to them whatsoever. I mean, what kind of feeling can you come away with after watching a horror movie that’s even remotely uplifting, or engaging, or pleasant in any way? None, that’s what. I kept having to remind myself that horror movies are like candy, in that they don’t have to have a point. It’s just candy. People like candy. Hell, I like candy, just not this kind.

Another problem, straight off, was the fact that I already knew who the killer was, and I have witnesses for this. No, I hadn’t read any spoilers, and had stayed completely away from other reviews. But I told my sister and two friends, “The guy who plays Tom, Jensen Ackles, he’s the killer.” When they asked me how I could possibly know, I told them I’d seen a few previews, many of which had images of the killer, coming through doorways, skulking along a mine shaft, or standing in a grocery store aisle, swinging a pick axe, all dressed in boots, coveralls, miner’s gear, and a gas mask. 

But, in spite of his being completely disguised, in spite of him being covered head to toe, after three and a half seasons of studying “Supernatural” at close range in order to write my reviews of episodes for Pink Raygun, I’d know those shoulders anywhere. I know the way those shoulders taper to his hips, the line of his frame, the movements of his head, even the way Ackles walks, or how he dips his right shoulder down when swinging at something with a long, heavy object in his hand. Not to mention those darling bowed legs of his. So that rather spoiled the surprise for me.

But not in a bad way. Knowing that bit, comfortable with how things would probably turn out, I could concentrate, instead, on how the movie would accomplish the switchero. How the movie would hide Tom’s true nature, while at the same time, revealing it. Where the red herrings would be, the double-blinds, the feints, and distractions. And there were plenty. One of my favorites was when Tom goes down into the mine with his quasi enemy, a guy I’ll call Red. Red and Tom had already gotten into it at the local dive bar, so I knew any trip that took them into the mine alone together could not end well. And it didn’t. The killer comes along, fully dressed in his regalia, knocks Tom about and locks him in a cage (the one that protects pipes and switches and stuff), then proceeds to chop Red into little pieces, whack, whack, whack.

Since Tom was, for all intents and purposes, trapped in the cage, the audience is made to feel that Tom is not the killer. In addition, for most of the movie, Tom is presented as a sympathetic character, misunderstood by those he left behind, and persecuted by the sheriff. The montage at the end of the movie reveals that Tom did chop Red to pieces, and then put himself into the cage, using a rusty pick axe head to lever the lock shut, so it would look like he was trapped in there. I’d call the follow up investigation of Red’s murder the most slip shod of police work as it seemed no one really did any checking for fingerprints, or footprints, or other forensic evidence. Then again, this is a small town, and the main sheriff, Alex, seems only interested in cheating on his wife. But at the time, it was a very good red herring. 

Because I knew who the killer was (and I did, I really did!), I was also able to concentrate on the story, of all things, and believe it or not, there was one. At the beginning of the movie, young Tom, who might or might not be responsible for the disaster at the mine that trapped five men in Mine Shaft #5, is definitely not responsible for their being murdered by Harry. At the same time, the circumstances certainly put him in the midst of the dark times that soon encumber the town. Harry, who was in a coma, wakes up, and chops everyone in the hospital (the official count: 22 bodies) to little pieces, whack, whack, whack. Some time later, Tom attends a party at Mine Shaft #5, which seems a strange venue for a celebration of any kind, seeing as how five men died horribly in there, but hey. Kids. What can you do?

Once everyone is partying in and around the mine shaft entrance, Harry comes around again with his pick axe and his gas mask and chops most everyone in the shaft to little pieces, whack, whack, whack, excluding, to wit: Alex (the future sheriff), the slut (one day to be Alex’s latest paramour), the main chick (I think her name was Sarah), and Tom. Alas, poor Tom. Yes, he was rescued by the sharp shooting Barney Fifes of this town, but only at the last minute, and his rescue includes him getting splattered in the face with the killer’s blood. Because of this shock, he’s soon to suffer from PTSD, and a variety of mental problems that will stalk him for the rest of his days and nights. Poor Tom, poor Tom.

Tom disappears to places unknown (turns out he was in a mental institution for a goodly spell), and ten years later, he comes back to town to a) not attend his father’s funeral, and b) to sell the mine, which will destroy not only the town’s economy but all their hopes and dreams. And c) to maybe pick up the pieces with Sarah, who is married to Alex the cheating husband. Alas, this is not to be, and the chopping of people into little pieces, whack, whack, whack, soon starts. But who is the killer? I told you, I already knew!

One thing I thought was interesting was the fact that Tom suffers from mental problems after almost being killed by a pick-axe wielding, homicidal maniac of a stalking killer. And who wouldn’t? Part of my issue with many slasher movies is that no one who goes through that sort of ordeal (all the running and screaming while being stabbed at) seems to have any problems after. They go about their lives merrily, like nothing has happened. It’s all very unsatisfying. But Tom, yeah, he’s popping pills like there’s no tomorrow.  That felt real to me.

Another thing I thought interesting was the body count, which started almost right away. While the count wasn’t as high as some slasher movies I’ve seen, I’ll just let you know that all the extraneous women die, all of them, starting with the naked chick, continuing with the owner of the motel, the housekeeper (for some reason), and moving right on down the list to the slut. Although, not, naturally, the unfaithful husband, who not only survives, but it looks like his wife is going to forgive him. And that’s because he’s a man.

It’s like a rule or something in horror movies that the women must die. Sure a few men bite it too, but they’re not naked. And when I say the one chick was naked, I mean naked naked. Like a jay bird, wearing nothing but her birthday suit and some platform shoes. We’re not talking a peek at some skin, or a quick view of the shimmy of bare hip and buttock here, no. We’re talking boobs bouncing and everything, including many views of her pubic landing strip. This movie was not coy about it at all, and I have to hand it to them for their guts. Although it makes me wonder, what was the intent of the nudity? Did they add it for the shock value? Because in the midst of all that chopping, naked nudity is the last thing that’s going to shock. 

One thing that also did not shock was the special effects. Yes, I’m talking about the problems with filming in 3-D here. When you film in 3-D, I’m sure it’s fun and all, but without enough theaters that are equipped to show 3-D and it’s like you’re trying to make a telephone call, but yours is the only telephone in town. So in addition to many of the bloody body bits looking fake (in particular one of the bodies in the hospital at the beginning of the movie was very definitely a dummy), the 3-D comes across looking like some scenes were badly filmed, the special effects sloppily applied. 

For example, the old guy, thinking there’s an intruder in his home (there is one, naturally), swings his loaded rifle s-l-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y in front of him. But instead of the effect of the rifle jutting out startlingly into the audience, it just looks like he’s moving very slooooooowly. Making the scene slightly silly. So much for 3-D. At the same time, if you had a 3-D theater and the right kind of glasses that actually fit, I could see how it might be rather fun. If you call having the lights of a miner’s headlamp shining in your eyes, or watching a pick axe go through yet another head/mouth/brain stem at close range fun, that is. I’ll be honest that I’m not sure where exactly Tom swung that pick axe of his most of the time because when he started swinging it, I started closing my eyes. Yeah, I know. Bwak-bwak-bwak.

As far as character development goes, most of the characters have all the earmarks of the typical cast for a horror movie. That is, their motivations fit into one of a limited number of predictable slots: the “good girl,” the “bad girl,” the “prodigal son,” the “authority figure,” the “old man” (formerly known as the “old man who’s grouchy because the times, they keep a’changing”), and so on. What makes this movie a little different is that for the majority of the film, we’re dealing with working adults, some of whom are married (with children), rather than just a bunch of stupid, irresponsible, and overly hormonal kids looking to get laid. 

Card-carrying, mortgage paying adults have different daily schedules than stupid, hormonal kids do. The result of which is that these adults aren’t in some remote cabin in the woods schtupping for the hell of it, okay, well Alex and his paramour were, but that’s just at the beginning of the film and they don’t get attacked while having sex, as you might expect. In a different, rather grown-up twist, when the pick-axe wielding, homicidal maniac of a stalking killer attacks, these people are at work, in a grocery store or the mine, or at home, doing laundry or drinking themselves legless. Such as adults do. And the adults either get whacked because they aren’t expecting it, or because they can’t run fast enough. 

Outside of the fact that, overall, no one seems to be initiating a man hunt for the killer (everyone just goes blithely about their business of existing in a town that’s crumbling around them), when confronted with the killer, people tended to do what all horror movie characters do, and that is to start running, heading for the one spot where they would be dead-ended, and the only way out means they have to get past the killer. In this movie, that’s the Hanniger Mine. This town is obsessed with its mine, and when in doubt or on the run, instead of hiding in a culvert, a ditch, or up a tree in the deep, cloaking darkness of a Pennsylvania forest, everyone heads there. But that’s because the mine is where the killer is, don’t you know, and because there seems to be some insanity brought on by too much coal dust that gives everyone the blind sense of a homing pigeon, home is Mine Shaft #5.  Alas. Everyone reaps what their stupidity has sowed. But, since this is what horror movies are all about, I can’t hardly complain when the movie does exactly what it’s supposed to.

The best part of the movie for me was watching Jensen Ackles turn into a pick-axe wielding, homicidal maniac of a stalking killer. Talk about trying something different. That pretty face of his is such a distraction, such a lovely eyeful, that I was keen to see him do something where it wasn’t the issue. Which he gets to do, as his character turns from prodigal-son-come-home, the ex-boyfriend, the rival for Sarah’s affections, in short, your average guy, to the narrow-eyed, worrisome, unpredictable black sheep who might or might not be the bad guy, and finally the pick-axe wielding, homicidal maniac of a stalking killer. All of which he plays well. Plus, at no time did I seen any Deanishness in his manner, Dean being the character he plays on “Supernatural.” And I was looking for it, whether I was expecting to see it or hoped not to, and I admire that Ackles had transitioned completely into the skin of this new character. 

My two favorite scenes that Ackles does are towards the end of the movie, because that’s where he really ups his game and makes the big shift from good guy to psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est. The first is when he’s on the phone to Sarah, telling her she should trust him, that he wants to pick her up and show her something. In a town where there’s a pick-axe wielding, homicidal maniac of a stalking killer on the loose, taking a ride with a veritable stranger of ten years might seem like a good idea if you had any clue that this guy might be on the appropriate side of right and might. But Sarah’s confused, having recently found out about her husband’s paramour, and when Tom is kind to her, her old feelings for this guy rise up and, well, you guessed it. She takes the ride. 

As they are in Tom’s jeep, Ackles has the opportunity to play the character both ways. If you don’t know he’s the killer, you would take the shifty eyes and edge in his voice to mean that he’s worried. If you do know, like I did, you would want to scream at Sarah that she’s an IDIOT. Although, naturally, she’s able to escape when the jeep crashes into a tree, running in homing pigeon fashion towards the mine. Left behind to crawl painfully out of the wreckage, Tom is a mess. And Ackles, not in a beautiful state at all, writhes on the ground and cries out and is just plain creepy; even knowing he was the bad guy, I still felt bad for his him, a conflict that makes the character confusing, which is exactly the effect he should have.

Then, in the final showdown in the mine, Ackles gets to play crazy. Not just a little crazy, but a lot crazy, shaking and screaming and seeing visions of the killer (which is himself), and, then, finally, making the last transition into being the killer, sans mask. In the standoff in Mine Shaft #5, both Tom and Alex are trying to convince Sarah that the other one is the killer. Sarah is attempting to choose between them, when Tom speaks up about information he couldn’t possibly know, like what the message written in blood above the body of the dead slut said. When confronted about how he shouldn’t have this knowledge, Tom’s psychosis (or whatever it is) takes hold, and suddenly, there, he LOOKS like a killer. Ackles does this transition very smoothly, the muscles on his face pull in tightly, and his eyes go completely flat, and as he narrows them, his expression makes me want to run far and fast in the opposite direction. Nicely done there. 

There is a struggle, of course, and Alex and Sarah try to escape Tom. Tom, in a beautifully filmed scene, comes at them, dressed in everyday clothes, smashing the lights along the mine shaft with every other step, growling. As each bulb explodes, you get a subliminal image of him in his pick-axe wielding, homicidal maniac of a stalking killer’s garb, and while I imagine if this had been in actual 3-D that the effect would have been more startling, it was pretty good anyway. Not to mention the expression on Ackles’ face, pure rage and hate and the grim determination to slaughter everyone. EVERYONE. 

Eventually, there is an explosion (which I think is required for all horror movies set in mine shafts), and amazingly, Tom and Sarah survive to cheat on each other another day. As for Tom, he manages to sink his pick axe into one last poor guy (someone trying to rescue him), and, donning the guy’s coveralls, stumbles out of the mine shaft, shaking from blood loss and probably planning his next course of attack. Literally.

I was surprised to find that I liked the movie a bit, in spite of the 3-D debacle, and the empty theater that freaked me out more than the movie. Or, rather, freaked me out because of the movie I was watching. Had this been a Disney film or a Merchant/Ivory picture, I would have been fine, alone or not. And I liked it in spite of the fact that slasher/horror films aren’t my thing. A large part of this was due to Ackles, the reason for my putting myself through any of this, and the other part was because, as promised, there was character development of a sort, and an actual story that made sense. The claustrophobic setting of a run-down town in the twisting Pennsylvania hills added to the sense of reality, surprising for me, at least, to find in a little remake like this one that I didn’t expect much of. So if you like horror movies at all, I can recommend this one. But don’t take the kiddies, and remember you can always close your eyes when Tom starts swinging that pick axe of his. Bwak-bwak-bwak.

Sylvia Bond is a ten-year technical writing veteran with too many degrees under her belt to count. She lives in Colorado, but does not ski, preferring instead to spend her money and time at the annual Great American Beer Festival, taking road trips across the United States, and reading historical fiction from the comfort of her fluffy green arm chair. She has been involved in fandom since 1993 and been writing fanfic since approximately 1993. What she finds most amazing about fandom (besides the open heartedness of fans and the sheer amount of creativity) is how visible fandom has become. “In my day,” she says, “we had to hide behind P.O. boxes to get fanfic. But nowadays, people wear t-shirts that shout their affiliation and share their shiny toys on the internet.” It’s a wonderful world.

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